Increasingly, in our technocratic society, science confronts society with painful and unavoidable questions. The subject matter of the companion volumes constituting this work documents just such an issue. The matter is painful because it forces those concerned with legislating biological materials to acquire considerable knowledge of the exceedingly technical and philosophical bases of biological classification. It is unavoidable, since the debate of Cannaabis has demonstrated to the legal profession the fragility of legislation concerning biologicals. The point cannot be overemphasized that the novel situation raised here will significantly complicate the affairs of society henceforth.
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The present volume incorporates reprints of five previously published papers documenting the species problem in cannabis in semippopular fashion. This has resulted in some repetition, but desirably so in my opinion, since this serves to separate the principal, critical arguments from the rather extensive amount of supporting detail provided.
{from Preface, p. 1}