430
makes the person happy and gay. It is refreshing.
In the form of bhang mixture it excites appetite;
as charas or ganja smoked it allays appetite. There
are no marked after-effects from the moderate
habitual use of it. The want of it produces a long-
ing, but not nearly so great as that for opium,
morphia or alcohol.
45. The habitual moderate use in a person liable
to insanity would tend to bring on insanity. It
also tends to wasting of the tissues and emaciation.
No moral defects. The constitution is weakened.
Charas and ganja smoked would impair digestion.
Charas and ganja smoked cause chest affections,
but not dysentery. It would induce laziness and
want of thrift, which is a moral defect. Would
not induce active immorality or debauchery. It
dulls the intellect, and in predisposed persons pro-
duces insanity of the mania type, usually tem-
porary, unless some organic cause also exists. In
temporary cases symptoms would be reinduced by
use of the drug. There are no special symptoms.
Insanes who were addicted to the use of the drug
admit this and crave for it.
I do not think that the moderate use of the drug
would induce insanity in a person of strong and
healthy intellect, but in unstable people I think it
might do so.
I do not think that weakness of intellect often
leads to the use of the drug in this country; but
when such people use it, they are likely to lose their
balance.
Having severed my connection with lunatic asy-
lums before the appointment of this Commission, I
made no special enquiries or investigations on this
point, and my impressions gained during ordinary
observation guide me in the opinions above express-
ed.
46. The excessive use of the drugs would have a
much greater and more deleterious effect than the
moderate use, and would probably be quite sufficient
to cause insanity, or serious disease in originally
quite healthy people. It would greatly impair
moral sense and tend to debauchery, just as exces-
sive indulgence in alcohol notoriously does.
47. It appears not.
48. I have never heard of the failing being
hereditary, but the children of persons who are
wrecks from over-indulgence, begotten after physi-
cal deterioration had set in, would be weak, puny
creatures. I saw an example of this to-day—a
thin miserable boy, the son of a man addicted to
the drug, who himself was a wreck (" badan sukh
gaya," as he himself expressed it). This man's
intellect was quite clear, but he informed me that
his sexual desire was allayed.
49. I believe there is no aphrodisiac effect pro-
duced by the drug beyond that which temporary
stimulation produces. The use of the drugs tends
to produce impotence.
51. Bad characters in all countries and times are
given to excess in national weaknesses : in India, the
cheaper drugs would be consumed in excess; in
western countries, alcoholic stimulants generally.
Any original moral defect existing in a person
would be increased by the use of these drugs.
52. The same, only more so.
53. It might do so in a person predisposed to
homicidal or violent mania by inducing or develop-
ing these, but not in a healthy person. Persons in
India before "running amok" often take large
quantities of these drugs to give them nerve, but in
these cases where jealousy or rage induced the
frenzy, the drugs called in to assist cannot be
entirely blamed.
54. Yes.
55. I believe it is mixed with dhatura and so
administered. The dhatura being the drug which
induces stupefaction, a very large dose of the hemp
drug would induce complete stupefaction.
57. Ganja is probably never, and charas seldom,
used for eating or drinking in the Punjab.
59. I would increase the duty on the drug, and
thus tend to limit the extent of its consumption.
36. Evidence of ASSISTANT SURGEON BHAGWAN DAS, Khatri, in Medical charge,
Jhang.
1. I have served nearly twenty-five and half years,
and have been employed in Lahore, Dera Ismail
Khan, Jhelum, Delhi, Karnal, Jallandar, Ludhiana,
and Jhang districts. I have also seen other districts
of the province where hemp drugs are in use.
2. Yes; bhang is also named shivbuti, vijya,
sukha and savi, whether cultivated or uncultivated.
The people of Jhang district give the name of
" shehun " to the cultivated, and " bhimbar " to
the wild plant. Kuyee is also another name for
wild hemp, which is more intoxicating than shehun
and bhimbar. Ganja is known in the East by the
name of " husheesh" and in Sanskrit as ' ugra
madini,' and 'harasine.'
3. Hemp plant grows wildly in the hills from
Murree to Kashmir, and in the Kashmir valley
especially on the banks of the river Jhelum, where
it is abundant. It also abounds in most parts of
the submontane regions.
4. Bhang, siddhi, sabji, shivbuti, vijya, sukha,
savi, bhimbar, and kuhi.
Yes ; the height of the plant varies considerably
on account of soil and climate.
5. Like flax it wonderfully adapts itself to
diversities of climate, but is readily injured by frost,
particularly when young.
6. Dense.
7. (a) No.
(b) No.
(c) Yes.
(d) Yes, for seed only.
Bhang is cultivated in Jhang district, at Massan,
Germala, Rasidpur, Lau, Mirak, Jhang, and
Maghiana, but to a small extent.
8. No.
9. Hemp is cultivated exactly like wheat. The
land is first ploughed, then the seed is thrown in,
then the ground is levelled and watered.
10. No. They are ordinary cultivators in the
employ of the fakirs for whose consumption they
cultivate the plant.
14. (a) and (b) are not prepared in the districts
known to me; (c) is prepared; for the plant is
solely sown for this purpose.
15. In the Jhang district, the cultivated variety
is called shihan. It is appreciated much more than
the wild plant, on account of its causing less dry-
ness of the mouth, and very rarely leading to
insanity. It is prepared in several ways ; roasted
with copper coins in an iron pan ; and taken in the