79
46. The habitual, excessive use of ganja gene-
rally produces lasting physical injury, mental
confusion and moral deterioration. Loss of flesh
and even emaciation frequently occur from dis-
inclination for food and dyspepsia. A chronic
bronchiectasis is always present, simulating
asthma.
Inertia, due to mental depression and general
physical languor, exists; but there is usually a
complete absence of sexual desire.
The intellect is permanently impaired, and in-
sanity sometimes produced.
Two cases recently came under observation
where acute dementia resulted from ganja excess,
and, in both, the drug was the predisposing cause.
Young and strong, with no history of family
trouble or sickness, these police constables deve-
loped insanity after prolonged excess in ganja
smoking.
The prominent symptoms were despondency,
incoherence, moroseness with occasional maniacal
paroxysms, and a profound aversion to move-
ment or activity of any kind. Both recovered
under treatment, but a temporary relapse followed
renewed indulgence in one case. This man's
second attack resembled a subacute melancholia
without any very violent fits of mania.
47. Heredity cannot be traced in any single
case.
48. Facility in obtaining the drug is quoted
by a few habituals. A habitually drunken father
leaves the drug lying about and the son thus
contracts the habit at a tender age. Heredity
cannot however be made out.
49. Occasional moderate use of ganja and
bhang is practised for aphrodisiac purposes and
does not result in any injury. Moderate habitual
use of both is said to produce impotency, but no
facts bearing on the point have been elicited.
50. Excessive use of ganja and bhan g produce
impotence and often complete inability for sexual
intercourse. This is stated by many fakirs and a
few laymen, but all of an advanced age, well past
the prime of life.
Oral evidence.
Question 1.—I am Apothecary. I passed the
examination of the Calcutta Medical College in
1872. I was Deputy Superintendent of the Native
Asylum at Dullanda (Calcutta).
Question 29 .
—
Tobacco is only used in small
quantities, i.e., about equal quantities of tobacco
and ganja. It is used to " dilute" the ganja. I
have never heard of other admixtures with ganja.
People say, for example, that dhatura is mixed by
others with bhang ; but I have never come across
a case of a man who himself admitted the use of
dhatura in bhang. I have never heard of it in
ganja.
Question 32. —This statement about the use of
hemp drugs at the Holi refers to the Mandla dis-
trict. There the higher classes do not use bhang
to any extent. It is there only the lower classes,
who cannot afford enough of alcohol, who use these
drugs, especially ganja, to supplement the alcohol.
It is only the minority of the lower classes who
thus use both. Others are content with alcohol.
Question 37. —The use of ganja, even mode-
rately, invariably produces mental aberration. It
unfits for mental labour but not for physical labour.
And it is harmless to the constitution. I have seen
much ganja smoking among the lower orders. I
have seen it practised often. The smoker has a
great throbbing of the head, and there is a want
of power of concentration and attention. I think
the fakirs use it to produce abstraction, the non-
attention to all other matters.
Question 45.
—I
do not find that this constant
mental enervation tends to permanent evil in the
case of the moderate smoker, though such cases
occur among excessive smokers. This " aberra-
tion " seems connected with temporary congestion
of brain; and ordinarily one would expect that its
frequent recurrence would lead to permanent
mischief ; but experience is against this. I do
not think that the moderate indulgence leads to
laziness or immoral habit. No doubt the habitual
use creates a desire to repeat the indulgence; but
smokers tell me there is no difficulty in controlling
any desire to indulge at odd times. It is easy to
keep to the regular times fixed.
Question 46. —The two cases I refer to came
under my own observation. Neither has been in
the asylum. Sheoparsad was one of them—a
Purbia, a Police constable. He became insane
at Gugari and was sent to me by the Deputy
Commissioner to be kept under observation in the
jail. He had smoked ganja and drunk bhang to
excess with a fakir at Gugari. I inquired about
admixtures, and was told that there was no dhatura
or other poisonous drug used. The brother told
me that there was no family history of insanity.
The man was insane when he came to me. He
was sent in twenty-four miles and was in Mandla
for a few days. I probably saw him a week after
the excess. He was morose and irrelevant, and was
inclined to beat people. I wanted to send him to
the asylum; but his brother took him to the North-
West. He returned a year after and seemed still
wild of appearance. He hung about the ganja
shop and assaulted a public servant, and was sent
to jail for six months and a year more in default
of security. I did not think him insane, and there-
fore he was convicted. There was no insanity,
but a tendency to irritability and temper, and a
wildness of eye . On the first occasion (a year
before) he was insane, suffering from dementia.
The " relapse " I refer to in the fifth paragraph is
the wild appearance and violence described above
as leading to his imprisonment for assaulting a
public servant. This man is now in the Central
Jail at Jabbalpur. He had been a man of good
character ; and had been only three months at
Gugari. There was nothing else than ganja to
which I could attribute his insanity.
The other case was a Head Constable. I forget
his name. He said he had family trouble; but I
believe that was a hallucination. He took to
ganja privately. He refused to work and asked
for leave. It was refused, as I could not find any
illness. He tore up some papers in the office. He
was sent to me for observation in the jail. He
was in the jail for three days. The family took
him away ; but he came with his friends regularly
to the dispensary. He was insane. He had been
kept from ganja for two weeks before the out-
break. Therefore it was not intoxication. This
man is now sane and at work as Head Constable.
I have seen many ganja cases in my asylum
practice. I cannot say that these two cases are
typical cases. I had more complete history in
these cases than we used to have in the asylum.
There are no such typical symptoms of ganja in-
sanity as to justify its diagnosis apart from case
history. I have never seen any cases of insanity
from dhatura. I have seen cases of dhatura
poisoning. I cannot say whether the symptoms
bear any resemblance to ganja cases.