48
37. According to one of the first authorities on
the subject, charas is the basis or type of all hemp
preparations. As sold in the bazars of Allahabad,
it is sticky resin which feels and looks like dirty
bees' wax with a greenish tinge. When pure it
is greyish with a steely feature. Its effects do not
differ markedly from the effects of smoking good
balucher ganja, and it has the same odour and
taste as good ganja. It is, however, so subject to
adulteration that it is hardly possible to find a
pure sample outside a museum, hence the contra-
dictory nature of the replies as to its potency. If
pure, bulk for bulk, it should be five times
stronger than ganja. By the poorer classes a
narrow chillum alone, without the hukka, is used
in smoking both ganja and charas, and 1 have
seen alternate chillumfuls of both smoked. The
smokers declared there was no difference to their
taste. Some smokers use a greasy looking rag to
the naked end of the chillum to filter the smoke
and prevent ashes entering the mouth. Both
ganja and charas are mixed with crude tobacco
and also prepared hukka tobacco. Charas smok-
ing in the Allahabad district is cheaper than
ganja. A chillum of charas costs one pice.
Moosahirs and aboriginal tribe here smoke it.
52. My denunciation of tobacco-smoking and
its comparison with hemp-smoking might, by
some, be considered extravagant, so it may be
perhaps as well to point out that the comparison
was made as early as 1839 by Sir William
O'Shaughnessy, who emphatically states in his
memoir on hemp that the sequelæ of hemp smok-
ing, dwelt on by other writers, did not appear to
him to be so numerous, so immediate, or so formid-
able as many which may be clearly traced to over-
indulgence in other powerful stimulants and
narcotics, such as alcohol and tobacco. It may
not generally be known that tobacco juice, after
being masticated and mixed with saliva in the
human mouth, is a more certain and virulent
poison to the puff adder than the poison of the
puff adder to man. Human beings can swallow
the poison of the puff adder with impunity and
often even survive its bite, but there is no known
instance of a puff adder having survived after
tobacco juice was squirted into its mouth.
Tobacco has been nearly as highly lauded by an
eminent English divine, as soma or bhang by
the Vedantist Hindus. The following quotation
is from the Revd. Chas. Kingsley's Westward
Ho : "When all things were made, none were
made better than tobacco. To be a lone man's
companion, a bachelor's friend, a hungry man's
food, a sad man's cordial, a waked man's sleep,
and a chilly man's fire. There is no herb like it
under the canopy of Heaven."
The admission that tobacco is the bachelor's
friend is noteworthy, and I have often heard
tobacco praised for its chastening effects on mind
and body.
This (anaphrodisiac) quality is probably due to
the poisonous effect tobacco has on the lower
forms of life among which the human blood
corpuscules must be included.
It would certainly be safer for a man to swallow
ten grains of ordinary ganja than to swallow
ten grains of tobacco. And it is this noxious
weed that it is proposed to raise a revenue from in
India, and which largely contributes to the
revenues of England and France. I must here
repeat that hemp is only smoked with tobacco,
and the tobacco habit and hemp habit are not only
analogous, but indissolubly connected.
57. A tincture of hemp leaf (i.e., bhang) in wine
or spirits was the celebrated stimulant in which
Sheikh Haidar indulged, and I have since found
that most educated Muhammadan gentlemen are
acquainted with this method of using hemp.
Oral evidence.
Question 12.—The substance that would be
extracted in this way would be an intoxicating
principle, not the resin. My information is got
from Dr. Watt's article in the Dictionary of Eco-
nomic Products, or some other source. I have no
personal experience on the subject.
Question 16.—The substance resembling charas
can be most easily got by rubbing the flower
heads with the hands. I have got my information
from the works of Dr. Honiburgher and Dr.
O'Shaughnessy and Baden-Powell.
Question 20.—I have, since answering these
questions, found out by personal enquiry that
charas is stronger than ganja.
Question 22.—A bigha of hemp grown in
Kumaon and Garhwal produces 3 seers of charas.
It sells at Rs. 2 a seer. I conclude from this that
the amount produced in Kumaon and Garhwal
cannot he less than 500 maunds. 1 think there
must be between 5,000 and 10,000 acres of culti-
vation in Kumaon and Garhwal. The plant is
grown for fibre ; but it would hardly pay to grow
it for that purpose alone, or to turn the charas to
no use, which is an extremely valuable product
and untaxed. Baden-Powell says in his Punjab
Products that the hemp plant is very extensively
cultivated in nearly every village, and charas is
made in large quantities.
Question 29.—Dhatura is largely smoked by
sadhus. O'Shaughnessy mentions that use. I
have had a sadhu smoke the seeds before me.
Question 35.—I do not think there is much to
choose as regards effects between bhang and alcohol.
All smoking is, in my opinion, injurious, and the
use of ganja and charas in that way is not com-
parable with the drinking of liquor. In my
answer, stating that the prohibition of the drugs
would lead to an increased use of alcohol, I refer
to bhang alone of the hemp drugs. I do not
think the prohibition of bhang is feasible.
Question 38.—In saying that balucher can
hardly be obtained pure, 1 was speaking from my
examination of the drugs in the shops in smaller
towns. I found that it was always mouldly and
bad, and generally mixed with pathar. I only
found a good sample in Allahabad, and even there
I had reason to suspect that adulteration was
practised.
Question 45.—My statement that people with
diseased brain seek relief in the drugs is based on
personal experience. It relates to intoxicants
and narcotics generally and to the hemp drugs.
I cannot give a case in which a native of the
country or a European has taken hemp drugs for
this purpose, except to the extent that extract of
hemp may enter into the composition of chloro-
dyne.
Question 57.—The instance I have in my mind
in saying that both ganja and charas are now
largely used dissolved in alcohol is that of Sheikh
Haidar mentioned by O'Shaughnessy.
I have
been told that it is done, but I have no per-
sonal knowledge on the subject. I never heard of
ganja and charas being used to adulterate country
spirit.
Question 65.—I think that the cost of balucher
ganja is about the same to the consumer as that
of opium.