Things began to turn sour by 1494ad, with the Catholic Church in Rome and Inquisitor Pope Innocent the 8th, outlawing Hashish.
It is important to remember that the Catholic Church had not had good relations with Middle Eastern nations of Moslem faith, to put it mildly! All the knowledge brought to our world by Jewish and Moslem Philosophers and thinkers was, by its own nature, against the teachings of God and the Holy Church. Instead of embracing this wisdom and its benefits, the Church wanted people to have only ONE choice; the Church, nothing else.
So the recreational use was prohibited by the Church, but not its practical use; the plant was so necessary to the developing world, which is ironic, considering that psychoactive chemistry may have been the main ingredient in spiritual awareness and awakening.

Other countries experimented with the plant, and its uses, for the benefit of their nation. Queen Elizabeth 1st, of England, ordered that land-owners, owning more than 60 acres, must grow hemp or face a heavy fine. King Phillip of Spain ordered that the plant be grown throughout his empire, which at that time covered a part of the Southern American continent. Soon after, the Dutch explored North America and found more native strains of the plant growing there. They had a commercial boom in trading Hemp and other products from the plant.

Twelve years later Hemp was being used as legal tender throughout the colonies in America; Cannabis WAS cash!
But for a period of two hundred years, between 1600's and 1812ad, cannabis still had to be imported from places in Eastern Europe like Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Russia who exported 80% of the worlds Hemp.
Access to affordable (i.e. cheap labour costs) Russian Hemp could tilt the balance of power in the world, and this was to throw America, Britain and Europe into war.