The August 1973 Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Cannabis Conference convened in Chicago, Illinois. The Conference was part of the Ninth International Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. The goal of the Conference was to assemble and review the work going on in different fields of cannabis research. Interest and public concern stemming from the 1960s "drug culture" and rising awareness of drug use resulted in both the private and government funding of multi-disciplinary cannabis research. The conference was attended by anthropologists, botanists, geneticists, pharmacists, psychiatrists, and sociologists. Topics covered included: the origins of cannabis use, its social and cultural impact, expansion of the plant's commercial and medical use, surveys of contemporary marijuana use across the globe, and comparative studies of traditional cannabis use by religious and geographic groups throughout history. The papers presented at the conference were collected and published in a volume entitled Cannabis and Culture. Vera Rubin of the Research Institute for the Study of Man oversaw the production and wrote the introduction.