Is it legal?

Last Tuesday, October 17, 2018, Canada legalized cannabis for recreational use. It had been legal for medicinal purposes since 2001, but this new unbanning made Canada the second country in the world to take this step after Uruguay.

Now it's nothing new for things to be banned for different reasons and then unbanned at some point in the future, and that's what we're talking about today.

First out of the gate we have a thing that King Edward II first banned in 1314 and later on Kings Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V followed suit with. What could be so bad that several English Kings would ban it? Why football, of course!

I assume you're wondering why football was banned, and well Edward II was worried that people made too much noise and disturbed the peace (fair enough) and that they neglected their archery practice. At the time, England's archers were rightly feared across Europe, but archery is hard and requires lots of practise. The other kings on the list also claimed to have been worried about the lack of shooting practice, but there might have been another reason; the aristocracy couldn't play. Football was a common sport and they got jealous of the fun commoners were having.

As an aside, Edward III actually banned all sports, and Henry VIII also banned bowling, but only partially, as he himself was a passionate bowler.

In case you're aghast, wondering how they could ban football, try banning Christmas. To no-ones surprise, we lay this one at the feet of the fun hating puritans. Festivities were banned in 1644 and in 1659 the party-poopers decided that any celebration, even Christmas, was a sin. They also viewed Christmas as a pagan holiday. A few years later, the New England puritans followed suit, and all this misery lasted until 1660 (1681 in NE) when Christmas came back.

Staying in the mists of history, we find the banning of coffee shops in 1675. King Charles II was a bit paranoid and convinced that people were plotting against him. Since coffee shops were the equivalent of bars today, it made them the logical place to meet and plot. Charles also claimed that coffee shops made people lazy and created a public disturbance. In the end the ban was abolished two days before it was supposed to come into effect.

Let's skip forward a bit now and talk about clothes. Women wearing specific items of clothing in fact. I could go on about early bathing costumes or indeed how shocking the bikini originally was, but I have something more ridiculous in mind: French women wearing trousers in public!

In 1800, the Paris chief of police declared that women had to get police permission to wear men's clothing. Then in 1892 the law was amended with the condition that women could wear trousers in public as long as they held on to a horses reins at all times. This was further amended in 1909 to include bicycles, but the woman had to hold on to the handlebars at all times, or else... In 1969 the then chief of Paris police was asked by the city council to get rid of the stupid law, but he refused. He was of the opinion that one couldn't know what crazy things the fashion industry might come up with next, so the law might be needed yet. Mind you, this law had not been enforced in years. Most people didn't even know it existed. There was an attempt to repeal the law again in 2003 but it failed. The irony is of course that both female police officers and public officials had been wearing trousers in public sans horse or bike for decades. Finally the law was laid to rest in 2013... Five years ago. I guess we can conclude that the French don't make hasty decisions.

That's that. Until next time, have a great week and try not to break any odd laws!