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Also made up into sweatmeats, called majum.
Sugar mixed with ghee, in which bhang has been
boiled. Dhatura is not mixed.
Mixtures added for taste, and also to lessen the
burning and intoxicating effect.
30. Ganja and charas are used in company.
Bhang consumed in solitude. Only men use drugs.
Children under 16 only consume drugs exception-
ally.
31. Habit of taking drugs easily formed. Diffi-
cult to give up ganja and bhang. There is a ten-
dency in all cases to excess.
32. No social or religious custom of taking drugs.
But it has become the custom at the caste meetings
of fakirs. Bhang is considered necessary at certain
offerings, but it is not necessary to consume it.
33. Regarded in a bad light, except in respect to
fakirs. No custom of worshipping. Use is in
disrepute because when under influence men become
incapable of doing any work, etc.
34. There would be privation to all consumers,
and a most severe privation to excessive consumers,
such as fakirs. There would be a craving for it,
and health and mental power would be affected.
35. It will be impossible to prohibit use suddenly.
If it is done, the collectors should have power to
give licenses authorizing fakirs to consume drugs,
because prohibition would cause great discontent
among them, and they have great influence over
Hindus generally. Illicit consumption would cer-
tainly result.
36. Alcohol not being substituted.
37. Charas has more intoxicating effect than
ganja.
88. Effects the same, but baluchar and chur have
most powerful action.
39. Eating ganja and charas causes most harm
because the woody fibre is swallowed, whereas in
smoking only the vapour is swallowed. For same
reason eating bhang is worse than drinking.
40. Ganja and charas are not used. Bhang is
used in medicines for cattle and human beings.
41. It is generally considered that ganja is —
(a) Food accessory and digestive.
(b) Wards off fatigue and prevents ill-effects
of damp.
Bhang is a preventive of grief and fatigue. Is
also used to deaden pain and cheer up the spirits in
cases of scorpion bite or bad fever. Charas, no
special good result.
43. Chute inoffensive.
44. Bhang has no effect for half hour, and then a
feeling of pleasure and contentment comes over the
moderate consumer. Is refreshing. Causes hunger.
Lasts for four hours. Followed by a feeling of dry-
ness. Ganja and charas cause immediate feeling of
pleasure. No insensibility. Causes hunger. Lasts
for 1 to 1½ hours.
47 and 48. Not hereditary.
49. Not aphrodisiac.
50. Excessive use of ganja tends to cause impo-
tence, and hence is much consumed by fakirs.
51. Bad characters are not the consumers more
than other people. On the contrary, well-conducted
people are the chief consumers.
55. Bhang, charas, and ganja do not produce
unconsciousness unless dhatura is mixed with
them.
57. Ganja and charas are only smoked.
58. The present working is satisfactory.
60. None produced.
62. Only wild hemp in these parts. No harm
has been caused hitherto by the absence of control.
63. No objection.
64. Duty is only taken on ganja coming from
Bengal. Should also be levied on that coming
from Punjab and other States.
65. Reasonable.
66. Different rates are taken. This is reason-
able, for there is a lot of woody fibre in ' baluchar,'
and none in ' gol.'
67. No objection.
68. Often consumed close to the shop, but there
are no licensed shops in which drugs may be con-
sumed on the premises.
69. No special measures for consulting the people.
Before a shop can be started the contractor must put
in a petition and get it sanctioned.
70. No general use of untaxed drugs.
Oral evidence.
Question 1—I have fifteen years of service and
have been Excise Naib Tahsidlar two years. All
my time has been in Gorakhpur.
Question 16.—I have never seen or heard of
charas being prepared from the wild hemp. I have
not heard of it in Gorakhpur.
Question 33.—I am not of opinion that men,
under the influence of these drugs, cannot ordinarily
do their work; and I do not attribute the disre-
pute to that cause. The disrepute is to the bad
view of intoxicants taken by those who do not use
them. This view is not shared by those who do
use them. Hindus have no objection to bhang.
Question 51.—Those who use these drugs in-
clude well-conducted persons of several kinds.
There is no misconduct produced by the drugs and
they are not used by ill-conducted people more than
by others, i.e., by well-conducted. I speak from
my experience of town and country in Gorakhpur.
Brahmins and Chhatris use the drugs largely, as
they do not use liquor.
64. Evidence of MR. F. PORTER, Inspector General of Police.
Oral evidence.
Question 1.—I am Inspector General of Police,
North-Western Provinces and Oudh. I have
twenty-eight years' service in the Civil Service in
this province, and a little over two years as
Inspector General.
Question 51, etc.—I do not think that a larger
proportion of bad characters are habitual moderate
and (â fortiori) excessive consumers of the drugs
than of people generally. I do not think the
moderate habitual use has any connection with
crime of any kind. The only connection between
these drugs and crime that I know of is that when
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