205
India, of whom a very large number
must be using the drugs, specially
bhang, and during the summer season
as thandai, for being mostly Rajputs
and Brahmins, they cannot use tari
or spirit, which they, from religious
notions, consider as forbidden drinks.
(3) The higher classes of the people, speci-
ally Rajputs and Brahmins, of whom
a considerable number consume the
drugs, and who, for the reason given
above, consider spirits and tari as
forbidden drinks.
(4) Men suffering from maladies of which
the drugs are remedies to the use of
which they have therefore been ad-
dicted.
(5) Persons who offer the drugs to their
deities.
(6) Besides those mentioned above, persons
of other classes who have some way
or other taken to the use of the drug
and cannot give it up.
An idea of the bulk of the classes of the con-
sumers of the drugs can well be conceived
from what has been stated above.
35. (a) No; it would not be feasible to prohi-
bit the use of any or all of these drugs.
(b) Yes; experience has shown, that strict pro-
hibition of the use of any intoxicating article
results in its illicit consumption.
(c) and (d) No; because we have not a large
detective force surely. Men who from their
religious notion cannot use tari or alcohol (being
as forbidden drinks), nor can, therefore, find
suitable substitute for the drugs hitherto used by
them, and also those who either offer the drugs
to their gods or have been using them as remedies
for certain maladies, would find it very hard if
deprived of their use. Certainly it would occa-
sion serious discontent among the consumers.
(e) Taking into consideration the classes whom
the privation would affect (Hindu mendicants,
sepoys, Rajputs, etc.) it is very probable that
the discontent
might amount to some such
danger.
I agree with this, except
with the last. If the use of
ganja, a curse as it is to the
country, were stopped, the
majority of its consumers
would
infallibly turn to
something else. A
few
would restrain themselves.
H. C. W.
(f) No; because the bulk of the consumers
are men who
abstain
from drinking alcoholic
stimulants and would not
have recourse to opium,
both on account of its
nature and the
high
price at which it is sold.
I quite agree. The use of
alcohol, on the whole, is not
on the increase, though
more information is known
about it.
H. C. W.
36. For the reason above stated, that the bulk of
the consumers from this
religious notion consider
alcohol as a forbidden
drink, and also from the
statistics relating to the consumption of ganja
during the last many years, I think,—nay I am
certain—that alcohol is not being substituted for
any of these drugs, charas not being used, and
bhang very little.
37. Charas is stronger in its effects than ganja,
of which the reason appears to be that the former
is, as described above, resinous exudation of the
flowers and leaves of the hemp plant, and, as such,
it possesses more of the narcotic powers of the
plant than its leaves and flowers, which constitute
ganja, the thing also smoked.
38. There is no difference in the narcotic power
of these three descriptions of ganja, and they
have therefore no different effects, either in kind
or degree, on consumers.
39. Ganja and charas are smoked and not
eaten or drunk.
The smoking of these drugs is not so injurious
as the drinking or eating of the same, the reasons
for which, as I think, are two-fold.
(1) That the smoke conveys with it only
the volatile matters contained in the
stuff, while it leaves the more noxious
ones in it, which are burnt to ashes
during the process of smoking. But
in eating and drinking the drugs
every particle contained in them is
taken into the stomach.
(2) In smoking, even the volatile matters
are not wholly admitted into the
constitution of the smoker, because
he throws out the smoke after he
pulls it in.
This argument will be found to hold good
analogically with other smokers. For instance,
tobacco-smoking has a different effect from that
of eating it. A man will vomit if he eats tobacco,
but he does not by smoking it.
As regards bhang, the smoking of it is said to
be more injurious than drinking or eating it.
There the circumstances are different, which
require explanation. What is smoked (of course
very rarely and by poor people) is flower of wild
bhang or phul bhanga in its fresh state (when
it has a more warming effect) and not its leaves;
and what is eaten or drunk are leaves of the
bhang plant (not flower) which are, as a rule, not
used when fresh or new, but after they have been
a year old or at least after one rainy season has
expired after the time they have been gathered.
The age mitigates the warming effect in the
leaves, besides which they do not possess so much
narcotic powers as the flowers of the plant, and
it is for the reasons explained that drinking
bhang is less injurious than smoking it.
40. In Bháo Prakásh and other books on thera-
peutics, the hemp plant (bhang) is prescribed as
a remedy for several diseases, of which some
are mentioned below:—
Very largely in Assam.
H. C. W.
Piles, chronic diseases, gleet, phlegm, dysen-
tery.
Yes; bhang is also
used in the treatment
of cattle.
41. Yes, it is said so. I do not know anything
about the effect of charas; but as regards bhang
and ganja, it is stated in Bháo Prakásh and other
books on therapeutics, and also by the people,
that they are beneficial in their effects—
(a) as a food accessory and digestive;
(b) to give staying power under severe
exertion or exposure, and alleviate
fatigue, and ganja alone is said to
be beneficial in its effects;
(c) as a febrifuge and preventive of diseases
in malarious and unhealthy tracts.
Higher classes of the people use ganja or
bhang or both for the purpose (a); labouring
classes for (b); and by both living in malarious
and unhealthy tracts for (c).
Very moderate in the case of
ganja.
H. C. W.
What have been stated
above refer mostly to
habitual moderate use
of the drug.