362
23. Bhang is occasionally used for smoking by
the poorer classes on account of its cheapness.
They can generally get it for nothing, but only
resort to it when they have no money to buy
ganja.
24. If bhang is eaten or drunk, it is only in
very rare and exceptional cases.
25. All the older people state that the use of
ganja is on the increase. They say that this is
due to the restrictions on the production and sale
of alcohol. Formerly the private distillation of
arrack from the bark of the babul tree was very
common, and in consequence liquor could be pro-
cured at a very small cost. Now that the price
of alcoholic liquors has risen so largely, very
many, it is said, are abandoning alcohol for the
cheaper drug. A man can get drunk for quarter
to half an anna, if he uses ganja ; it will cost him
ten times as much if he resorts to alcoholic liquors.
26. I could hardly answer decidedly, but I
should think the following proportion about right,
so far as this district is concerned :—
Per cent.
Occasional moderate consumers
10
Habitual excessive consumers
10
Habitual moderate consumers
30
Habitual consumers who occasionally
g o t o e x c e s s
50
Occasional excessive consumers
rare.
27. All classes are occasional moderate consum-
ers and habitual moderate consumers. Excessive
consumers I have found in almost all classes, but
they are most numerous among the fakirs and
beggars.
28. (a) About 1/16th of a seer, costing 1/4 to
1/2 an anna.
(b) From quarter of a seer upwards, costing
from 2 to 4 annas. Ganja costs 8 or 10 annas
a seer, if purchased in a licensed shop, but can be
had for 4 annas a seer in the gradens where it
is grown.
29. Tobacco is commonly mixed with ganja for
smoking. I have never known dhatura to be so
used. No, I do not know of any bhang massala.
30. Generally in company. There is a sort of
freemasonry among ganja smokers, and they
usually club together to purchase the drug and
consume it in company. I have never heard of a
woman using these drugs, but lads sometimes
begin to use them at the age of 15 or 16.
given to it believe that the intoxication produced
by the drug enables them to obtain a vision of
divine things. They call ganja gnana patra
(wisdom's leaf) and describe those addicted to it
as gnannen (wise men). I have had a poor dull
looking creature pointed out to me as a gnanni.
The use of ganja in this way always tends to
excess as the d esired experience cannot be obtained
unless there is a considerable amount of intoxi-
cation. A good many men, I believe, become
addicted to ganja through joining such sects.
33. The use of ganja is generally regarded as
disreputable. I don't know of any religious senti-
ment on the subject, but there is a strong feeling
against the drug. People generally recognise
the injurious effects of the drug on the moral and
intellectual as well as on the physical nature of those
who use it and condemn it accordingly. I have
not been able to discover the existence of any
custom of worshipping the hemp plant, but
smokers commonly do reverence to the drug by
a simple salutation or prostration before they
begin to smoke, just as women bow before a
lamp on lighting it in the evening.
34. For some time consumers would feel it a
very severe privation if deprived of the drug, with
1 occasional consumers there would not be much
difficulty, but habitual consumers, whether moder-
ate or excessive, would undoubtedly suffer con-
siderably for some time. After a month or two
months however had passed, they would no longer
need the unnatural stimulus, and before long would
recover their natural vigour.
35. Yes, if the cultivation of the plant were
strictly prohibited. The plant cannot be grown
in secret, and if its cultivation were declared ille-
gal, the use of the drug would almost cease. The
evil can be met with in no other way, for so long .
as the cultivation of the drug is permitted its
illicit consumption is easy. At present, although
only about a dozen shops are licensed for the sale
of the drug in this district, it can be bought at
any garden where it is grown, and in very many
places can be purchased in non-licensed shops. If
the cultivation of the plant were prohibited, there
would undoubtedly be a good deal of grumbling
among consumers, but public opinion is so strong
against the drug that such prohibition would be
most popular with the great majority of the people.
There would be no possibility of political danger.
Possibly consumers would take to alcohol or opium
if deprived of the drug, but the very much greater
cost would certainly be a great deterrent, and in
most cases would necessarily restrict them to a
moderate occasional use of these drugs.
31. The habit is easily formed, though at first
if one indulges immoderately, the effects are
unpleasant and the consumer is troubled by diz-
ziness, vomiting and diarrhœa ; when the habit is
once formed it is extremely difficult to break it off.
If the drug is given up, the man suffers great
distress for about a month, and is dull, restless
and incapable of work. After a month has
passed, this passes away. The moderate habit
inevitably tends to develop into the excessive, as
a consumer must go on increasing the quantity
as his system becomes habituated to the drug, if
he is to obtain satisfaction.
32. Ganja is frequently used in curry at funeral
feasts, but it is not essential. It is also used at
times in the goshti, or secret feast of the Rama-
nuja sect, but is not by any means essential. Ad-
herents of the Brahmagnani and other mystical sects
are much addicted to the use of ganja. This use
is not regarded as a religious ceremony, but those
36. Certainly not in this district. The ten-
dency is, as I have pointed out in reply to question
25, exactly the reverse.
37. I know nothing of charas smoking, as it
does not prevail in this district.
39. All consumers whom I have asked say that
the eating or drinking of ganja is much worse
than the smoking, as they tend to produce madness
and frenzy.
40. By no particular school, so far as I know,
but the people occasionally use ganja under the
impression that it will cure rheumatism, bronchitis,
asthma, etc. I have met several ganja smokers
who have told me that they began to use the drugs
as a cure for rheumatism. Ganja is sometimes
applied externally to sores and protrusion of the
anus in children.
I don't know of the hemp drugs being used in
the treatment of cattle disease, but when cattle