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31. Evidence of KRISHNA CHANDRA SANYAL,* Brahmin, Medical Practitioner,
Sylhet.
1. I am a native of Rajshahi, where hemp drugs
are cultivated. I have in my professional ex-
periences come across with patients who are
addicted to hemp drugs. I had an up-country
servant for some time who used hemp drugs.
2. Yes. Ganja, bhang, and charas.
3. Rajshahi, Jaintia Hills, Laur in Sylhet. In
Rajshahi it is abundant.
4. Ganja, bhang, and charas. Yes.
5. I have no definite idea about it. Possibly it
grows better in marshy soil.
6. Dense.
7. No.
10. No special class.
13. Yes. All the districts of the province.
14. No.
16. Yes; I have seen in Rajshahi. Possibly
bhang can be prepared from the hemp plant
wherever grown.
17. I know only of bhang made by all classes.
18. I know bhang deteriorates and possibly
loses its effect in time. It keeps good a year.
Cold and damp cause deterioration. The leaves
may be packed up and kept at a place free from
moisture to prevent deterioration.
19. No. Ganja is used in the form of pills or
drink in Sylhet, where people generally do not
distinguish between ganja and bhang. Charas is
used in sweetmeats at Rajshahi and Berhampur.
20. Ganja is used by the lower classes, middle
classes, rarely higher classes. Charas is unknown
here. At Rajshahi middle classes use charas;
but a greater proportion of the middle and lower
classes use ganja.
21. Flat.
24. In Bengal the middle and upper classes
generally drink bhang. In the North-Western
Provinces eating of bhang pills in sweetmeat
prevails.
Drinking of bhang is the ordinary
form of use.
25. The use of bhang is on the decrease and
has been replaced by that of alcohol. The middle
and higher classes of men, in imitation of the
West, have mostly renounced bhang and taken to
the whisky bottle. The use of ganja is on the
increase. The lower classes who use it are growing
more luxurious than before.
26. (a) Out of ten persons, eight consume
ganja, two siddhi.
(b) Ditto.
(c) The proportion is equal between ganja and
siddhi consumers as five to five.
(d) Ditto.
27. (a) Working men, fishermen, bearers, men-
dicants are moderate habitual consumers of ganja
and siddhi. They take to them on account of the
damp and cold they are subject to. Each of the
drugs, specially ganja smoking, has staying
power.
(b) Sweepers, some mendicants, Doms, licen-
tious youths, etc., take to habitual excessive ganja
smoking.
(c) Upper and middle class men consume
ganja and siddhi in company of friends in festivi-
ties.
(d) Higher, middle, and lower classes on
bereavement, in festivities, and as an anodyne to
kill pains. Ganja and siddhi are taken too.
28. (a) Ganja costs half an anna per day.
(b) Four to six annas per day of ganja.
29. (a) Dried tobacco leaf with ganja, and milk
and sugar with siddhi.
(b) Dhatura with both ganja and siddhi.
Dhatura is used to increase intoxicating power.
No. I do not know bhang massala.
30. Habitual moderate consumers of ganja and
siddhi practise in solitude. Excessive habitual
consumers practise in company. The number of
the former is greater than the latter. No prosti-
tutes use ganja. Siddhi and ganja are indulged
in from youth to any time of life. The habit is
contracted in youth. Children do not consume.
31. (a) No.
(b) Not without uneasiness.
(c) Ganja has this tendency; siddhi slightly so.
32. In Bengal people drink siddhi on Dasara
day. It is not socially binding. There is no
social or religions injunction as to the consumption
of ganja or siddhi. Mendicants use either or
both of them to procure abstraction of mind for
the purposes of deep meditation. It is generally
temperate. Yes, it is likely to lead to the forma-
tion of the habit.
33. As disreputable, except in the case of
mendicants who do no mischief to any one.
Siddhi is supposed to increase intelligence; ganja
drives away the star of fortune. The sentiment
is due to health and morality. I don't know any
custom of worshipping the hemp plant.
34. For some time, of course. But they can
quite get rid of the habit in a month or so.
Habitual moderate consumers and habitual exces-
sive consumers will be mainly affected; they form
the larger number of consumers.
Occasional
moderate and excessive consumers will not suffer
any privation by altogether renouncing the drug.
35. (a) Not quite feasible.
(b) Probably so.
(c) By restricting the cultivation and sale of
hemp drug.
(d) Some uneasiness and murmuring for a time.
(e) No.
(f) To some extent, of course.
36. Siddhi, in days gone by, used to be drunk
by the upper and middle classes, who having now
been saturated with Western civilization find
alcohol a better substitute.
39. No; because smoking carries its injurious
effect more rapidy and directly into the brain than
the drinking of the same drug does. The nar-
cotic action is moderated in its way through the
stomach and alimentary canal. I refer to ganja
and siddhi.
* Invited to attend at a sitting of the Commi ssi on for oral examination, but failed to appear.