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support. Want of knowledge, want of healthy
occupation, in some cases disappointment, grief and
remorse, lead their victims to excessive use of these
drug's. Habitual consumers of all these drugs are
taken from ignorant, lazy, and beggarly classes of
people. It is difficult to specify the moderate con-
sumers. Some fakirs drink bhang to immerse in
the devotion of God.
28. Habitual moderate consumers of all these
drugs use about ¼ rupee worth of charas, which
cost about half an anna a day. Bhang is very
cheap, consumed in the same proportion as above,
costing less than a pice. Habitual excessive con-
sumers smoke ½ rupee worth of charas, costing an
anna per day, and a pice worth of bhang.
29. Dhatura is not mixed with it by consumers.
Seeds of cucumber, pumpkin, pepper, melon, milk,
almonds, sugar, aniseeds, poppy seeds, are mixed
with bhang, which people drink. Tobacco is gener-
ally used with charas and ganja for smoking.
30. Generally used in company. Fakirnis, poor
old prostitutes, merasans, who live in company of
such men who are addicted to these drugs, use
them also. Children generally abstain from these
drugs. Very few of them might sometimes drink
bhang, or eat a piece of majun. Young men use
them, when they, for some reason, leave their house
and mix in bad company. Rich men , when reduced
to poverty and unable to procure liquor, take to
these drugs.
31. The habit is not easily formed. It is not
difficult to break off. There is a tendency to indulge
to excessive use of these drugs from moderate con-
sumption; because the intellect and self-respect of
the moderate consumers gradually become weaker
and weaker, and then at last they consume drugs
in large quantities. Small quantities do not give
them pleasure as at first.
32. There is a religious custom in Bengal to
drink bhang in large or small quantities, according
to the taste of consumers, on the last day of the
Durga Puja, after the idol is thrown into the river.
This custom is not essential. It is generally tem-
perate. It does not generally lead to the formation
of habits, neither is it very injurious.
Shiva, the third personage of Hindu trinity,
but who, I think, was a celebrated physician, is
represented to have been the greatest smoker of
ganja and drinker of bhang. So the Shaivas or
the worshippers of Shiva use these drugs in imita-
tion of their object of worship on Shivratri.
33. Smoking of ganja and charas is looked upon
as disreputable, but moderate use of bhang is not so
looked upon. Because those who smoke charas and
ganja, or drink bhang in large quantities, spend
their time idly. They become unfit for work. They
leave good society and generally become crazy and
bad tempered. They become useless members of
society, generally selfish, careless of the comfort of
their families. In fact they become dead to all
useful purposes. Consumers worship it when they
drink bhang. Siddhi or bhang is supposed to lead
to success in every work, if it is carried in one's
dress or a tilak is put on the forehead.
84. There will be some privation for a few days,
especially for fakirs, etc., who live solitary life, and
have little or no occupation. One per cent. smoke
charas. Two per cent. drink bhang. Ganja is not
smoked here.
35. Yes; charas and ganja can easily be prohi-
bited. There is likelihood of bhang being con-
sumed illicitly, as it grows wild in many places.
By closing the shops, and punishing smugglers,
vol. v.
Yes, but it will not produce any political dangers,
as bhangis and charasis are lazy and useless people,
have little or no status in society. Prohibition of
bhang will produce discontentment among the
Akalias and few other people of insignificant posi-
tion. The prohibition may be followed by recourse
to opium.
36. No; drunkards may take to bhang, etc.,
37. The effect of charas is instantaneous, but
does not last long; that of ganja is slower, but
more lasting.
39. Ganja and charas-smoking is less injurious
than eating or drinking them. For in smoking
these drugs, less quantity is imbibed than in eating
and drinking them, and in a most refined form.
Bhang-drinking is the least injurious of all these
hemp drugs, specially when it is mixed with milk,
pepper, etc.
40. Hindi and some Unani hakims rarely pre-
scribe bhang in piles, malaria, fever, convulsion, and
dysentery. Bhang is also given to cattle, when
they do not eat fodder. It is also used as a sopori-
fic.
41. People generally consume hemp preparations
for pleasure, and hardly for medicinal purposes.
42. The use of hemp drugs is neither beneficial
nor harmless, even in moderate quantities. There
is great danger of moderate consumers being excess-
ive consumers, and thus of being useless members
of society. They deaden and weaken nervous
powers, and also intellect.
43. Generally inoffensive.
44. All these drugs produce a kind of pleasure,
by satisfying the craving which the habitual consum-
ers feel for them. They strengthen for the time
being the nervous system which was unstrung.
Bhang creates a false appetite, and generally leads
the consumers to intemperance in eating, and con-
sequently to indigestion and other diseases. Effects
of ganja and charas last for three or four hours ;
but that of bhang for 12 hours. All narcotics
produce after-effects, both bodily and mental.
Hemp drugs make people indolent and lazy. There
is after-effect. Charas and ganja produce immedi-
ate intoxication. People who depend for food upon
the alms of others, generally smoke ganja and
charas.
45. Yes, it produces laziness of body, inattention
and carelessness to all worldly affairs. Disregard
to shame and self-respect. Smoking of charas and
ganja even in moderate quantities ruins constitu-
tion.
47. The consumption of hemp drugs does not
seem to be a hereditary habit. Children of many
such people altogether abstain from consuming
hemp drugs. Of course the example is demoraliz-
ing. I think that even a moderate use of hemp
drugs affects the bodily and mental faculties of
their children to some extent.
48. Habitual excessive use of these drugs affects
the children both bodily and mentally. Besides
such parents being useless, people do not take care
of their children, and allow them to go on accord-
ing to their own wishes. Children of such parents
do not obey, love or fear their parents, which
become the cause of their own ruin also. They are
weak in body and intellect.
49. Yes; because under the influence of the
drugs, people can cohabit for a longer time than in
normal state. Yes, it is used by prostitutes for
the same reason. Persons, who use hemp drugs
for such a purpose, generally indulge in excessive
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