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7. Yes; hemp is cultivated here—for production
of charas; for its seeds, which are sold here as an
ingredient or condiment for vegetable food; oil is
extracted from the seeds for home consumption;
for its fibre, which is manufactured here into cloth,
of which sheets, suits of clothes, bags, nets, cords
and strings, etc., both for home consumption and
sale in the plains markets; its stems (after being
divested of fibres) are used for torches; its leaves
and roots are also sometimes used for cattle diseases.
It is cultivated everywhere in these hills, but the
Parganas where it is extensively grown are Chau-
garkha, Gangoli and Pali.
8. Formerly it used to be cultivated only in
Chaugarkha and Gangoli, but its cultivation has
found a way now to every other place owing to its
usefulness. It is cultivated as other grains, but it
needs more manure for its proper growth.
10. This is cultivated by all classes of agricul-
tural cultivators, but the string weavers are special
classes called Boras and Pajais.
11. Ganja is not manufactured here.
12. It is not cultivated for production of ganja.
13. Ganja is not produced here, but the hemp
plant can be cultivated in every part of the district.
14. Yes. Charas is prepared chiefly in Chau-
garkha, Gangoli and Pali; very little in other
parganas.
15. Charas is manufactured by rubbing the raw
(green) hemp leaves within the hands and feet.
The charas is prepared for smoking, and never for
eating or drinking. The drug is extracted from
the hemp plant either cultivated or wild, but
mostly from the cultivated kind, which yields much
more charas than the wild.
16. Charas can be prepared from the wild plant
wherever it grows. It is prepared openly in the
fields or villages.
17. The preparation is generally made by all
classes of people.
18. The charas by keeping becomes lighter in
weight after two years, and also deteriorates in
strength after four years. No precaution except
that of preserving it from damp is found effectual.
19. The charas is used for smoking, but some-
times it is also used for fomentation of wounds
mixed with warm water, and for fomenting sore
eyes, etc., by native physicians. Ganja for majum,
a kind of sweetmeat prepared and sold during the
Holi festival, and also for cattle diseases. This
applies to all parts of the district.
20. The charas is smoked by all classes of people
here. It can be approximately conjectured that
3 to 5 per cent. in a town, 1 per cent. in the
country, but in some towns, such as Almora, Rani-
khet and Naini Tal, great numbers smoke. The
fakirs among the pilgrims also are great charas
smokers.
21. No ganja is smoked here.
22. Both native and foreign. The latter comes
from Garhwal, Doti (Nepal), and a kind of charas
called Arkand or Garda from Punjab.
23. No bhang leaves are smoked hero.
24. No one cats or drinks bhang here.
25. The use of charas is apparently on the
decrease, being substituted by the use of tobacco.
Respectable people used to smoke a little charas as
an appetiser before meals, but have now given it
up.
26. (a) 1 per cent. of population.
(b) 1 person per every thousand.
(c) 5 persons per every thousand.
(d) Hindus during the Holi festival indulge
excessively for the five days of the festival only.
27. All classes smoke charas. At first sick
people are advised to smoke charas in the way of
medicine, and some people imbibe the habit in the
company of smokers; the habit thus takes root
gradually.
28. (a) One pice worth for 4 or 5 days.
(b) Two annas to four annas. (Fakirs are gene-
rally of this class).
29. In order to lessen its influence or intoxica-
tion, some people smoke the charas by mixing it in
cake tobacco. No other bhang massalas are used
here. Rich people, with a view to have more
warmth and odour, smoke charas mixed with a
little particle of musk, especially during the intense
cold season. Dhatura is not mixed with it here.
30. The charas is smoked by the male sex in
company of others generally. Among the other
sex harlots and debauched women generally smoke
it. Children are not allowed to smoke it except
during the five days of the Holi festival, and no
more.
31. The habit of consuming the charas is not
easily formed, but by continuing it for a longer
time either as a medicine or in the society of con-
sumers. It is an easy thing to break the habit off.
There is no general tendency for the moderate
habit to develop into the excessive.
32. It is generally taken excessively during the
Holi festival by almost all male classes, who beat
drums, sing and dance for the five days of the
festival. During this occasion they also eat a kind
of sweetmeat called majum or lakshmibilas pre-
pared with the essence of ganja. These drugs are
considered essential for the festival in order to keep
them frantic and merry. For the Hindu religion
enjoins that all, in order to secure safety for the
year to come, must play like ghosts during the
occasion. This celebration of the festival does not
at all habituate them to smoking charas, for after
the festival none of them indulge in it.
33. The smokers of charas on days other than
the Holi festival are contemned and called " bhang-
rhis," and they are less trusted by people at largo
on the score of the slur of smoking charas which
is considered to affect their morality. All narcotics
are held in disrepute on the same account. No one
ever worships a hemp plant here.
34. The foregoing of the use of charas would
not cause any privation at all to the moderate
smokers, and it would also not affect the excessive
smokers seriously (though they would feel uneasy
without it for some time) if they leave it gra-
dually.
35. Though there would be no political danger
in prohibiting the use of charas in these hills, still
an order to the effect would cause discontent and
inconvenience to the people and lead them to
prepare private illicit charas for their use from the
wild hemp which grows abundantly here in every
bit of land, glen, jungle or ravine which has not
been cultivated, and thus cause also a loss of Gov-
ernment revenue. The prohibition would also
compel the habitual consumers to have recourse to
alcoholic stimulants and drugs, such as dhatura,
kuchila and other vegetables which grow sponta-
neously here, and which have not been used here up
to this time. Petty charges would cause incon-
venience both to people and Government, and the
multiplication of offences in this way would have the
same effect.