196
temporary insanity occurred three years ago.
They were all resident in my village. The
permanent case was that of the son of a Brah-
min landholder. He was about eighteen years
old, and went to a party of ganja smokers com-
posed entirely of Brahmins. They were well-
to-do persons, not priests or mendicants. One
of the party invited the boy. Though he fre-
quented this company, the boy did not smoke for
a whole week. He gradually acquired the habit,
and, after indulging and increasing the habit for
three years, he went mad. He has property,
but wanders about, careless of everything. He
still smokes in that company. I say he is mad
because he neglects his property and his ablutions.
He is sometimes coherent and sometimes inco-
herent. It is possible the boy was originally
invited to join the company because he had
means. His property has suffered since he
joined the party. It has been mortgaged. The
company get nothing from him but ganja. The
company was composed of men from twenty-five
to thirty-five years of age. They were none of
them drinkers of liquor. They were not of loose
or vicious habits. The company was composed
of some fifteen men. The village contains about
fifteen hundred inhabitants. The young man in
question was very strong and healthy before he
began smoking ganja. I knew his father, who
was a man of good physique. His relations are
strong men. None have gone insane. I don't
remember the grand-parents. It is a family of
good standing, and I know of no mad men in it.
I can say that the company did not indulge in
anything but ganja. Some of the company
were well known to me. I never sat with them
when they smoked. The drugs I have mentioned
in answer 35 could have been procured by them.
They smoked daily. There is a ganja shop in
my village. The company used to smoke
together in a temple or in one another's houses.
They are all fairly well-to-do and of respectable
families ; but they are all regarded as disreputable.
The houses were used by the young men for
their meetings without the knowledge of their
parents. These meetings were therefore, as far
as possible, secret. Their families and their
caste-fellows regarded their smoking with great
disapprobation. I am personally acquainted with
half of the company of smokers. They smoke
in secret, and therefore their relations with their
elders are not honest in that they involve con-
cealment. They are none of them related to me.
I know their habits, because I watched their
actions. They have spoken to me about ganja,
and therefore it is unlikely they have concealed
other habits from me. The boy's father must
have been dead when he first joined the company
of smokers. He was a friend of my father. I
am forty-two years of age. I have lived in my
village for thirteen years, and I never saw the
father during that time. I was away from my
village ten years before that. The boy used to
attend the village school. His uncle was in
charge of him. His property has nearly all been
mortgaged. About one-fourth has been mort-
gaged by his uncle or his elder brother. The
uncle and brother were not ganja smokers. It
must have been the boy's want of money that
made them mortgage the property. The boy
actually stole money from them. The boy was
not a liquor drinker or frequenter of prostitutes.
The answer I have given under 49 is what I have
been told. It is said that the sons of well-to-do
people begin by taking the drug for this purpose,
and the use of it grows upon them until bad
results eventually ensue. In the case under
notice, the boy did not, as far I know, take the
drug for this purpose. I did not know this
young man better than the other members of the
company. The bad repute of the company pre-
vented my becoming intimate with them. A man
would not necessarily confess all his habits, such
as the frequenting of prostitutes, because he
confessed the use of ganja, I possess little
medical knowledge. The scientific language
used in my answer 46 is borrowed from a doctor
to whom I related my experiences. I don't
know physic enough to state how insanity is
caused or what its symptoms are. None of the
company of smokers but the boy went mad.
The other members of the company did not go
to excess like the boy did. The madness came
upon the boy gradually, and showed itself first by
occasional neglect of his meals, until finally he
became altogether careless of his food and every-
thing else. One of the temporary cases went into
the lunatic asylum. In that case bhang had been
used to excess.
Question 48.—The want of intelligence I have
mentioned has been noticed by myself in some
five or six families. On my describing this to the
doctor, he supplied the explanation that the
children were wanting in all the functions of the
brain. There are other silly children in the
village. I cannot say if the silly children of the
ganja smokers are more or less numerous than
the other silly children.
Question 59.—The recommendations I have
made in this answer are, I think, necessary to
control the use of the drug. The maximum of
lawful possession is, I am told, five tolas, and I
think that is a proper amount. Taxation should
be increased in order that price should be raised
and consumption discouraged. The hemp drugs
are taxed much lighter than alcohol. People
will go to cheaper drugs before they go to alcohol.
Alcohol should always be kept at a higher price
than the hemp drugs. We have a religious objec-
tion to liquor, and therefore regard it as a worse
habit than that of ganja. Excess in alcohol causes
death more frequently than. ganja does. I don't
advocate total prohibition, because there is a
natural desire for stimulant, and people will have
it in some form or other.
Question 69 .—I should be in favour of stop-
ping the sale of the hemp drugs in my village ;
but if Government directs its efforts to reducing
consumption gradually, I should be satisfied to
leave the matter in its hands.
103. Evidence of REV. D. O. Fox, Minister, Methodist Episcopal Church, Poona .
In answer to your question as to the effects of
the use of ganja, permit me to state a case that
has come under my own observation. In 1891,
while preaching to the people a man came to me
much interested about the story of the Gospel.
We encouraged him and taught him the Christian
truths. I noticed from time to time a strangeness
about his conduct. After his baptism I saw him