408
its being cultivated anywhere in Burma under
Burmese rule. I never heard of the drug being
used in the palace mixed with tobacco in cigarettes.
It is possible it was used, but I do not think it
could have been. I never heard of its being used
by any servants of the king. There were some
natives of India living in Mandalay under Burmese
rule. I never heard of their using hemp, but if
they broke the laws they were dealt with by the
British Resident, The prohibition against hemp
would not apply to them.
53. Evidence of MYOWUN U. PE SI, C.I.E., late Town Magistrate of Mandalay.
Oral evidence.
I was Town Magistrate of Mandalay during the
Burman Rule for seventeen years. During the
Burmese time, the person who drank liquor would
be dealt with severely : the opium consumer less
severely, and the ganja smoker would. be least
severely punishable. Drink was most severely
punished, because the man who takes liquor is
violent and quarrelsome. Ganja makes a man
more jocose and not violent. Opium is more ex-
pensive than ganja and more difficult to give up
as a habit, and was therefore thought a worse habit.
I think also that the man who uses opium becomes
a lazy man and unfit to do anything. The ganja
consumer does not ; and a man does not get into the
habit of smoking ganja, as in the case of opium,
so as to be unable to give it up. But all three
were prohibited. The prohibition originates in
religion, but the king sanctioned it. No special
measures were taken to enforce the prohibition ;
but when people were found using the drug they
were punished with a light. punishment. The police
might find them ; but they had no special order
to search out the use of this drug. But it was the
practice to read the general prohibition of intoxi-
cants every month at fasts along with the other
moral laws sanctioned by the king. The police,
however, had no special orders to search out such
cases. Only if people became noisy or otherwise
attracted notice the police would interfere. One
or two cases of prosecution for use of intoxicants
might occur in this town in a year.
The prohibition regarding the use of ganja would
not extend. to cultivation. Before becoming Town
Magistrate I was a Commissioner on the southern
border of Upper Burma. There was cultivation,
but very little. There would not be more than a
plant in a hundred houses. There was no part where
I knew of cultivation being more extensive than any
other. I heard that ganja was also imported from
the Shan States, but I did not know that of per-
sonal knowledge.
I cannot speak to the extent of the use in the
country generally. In Mandalay perhaps about
fifteen or twenty in the whole city were convicted
of having used it. I mean fifteen or twenty
Burmans. Hindus and other natives of India use
the drug much more than Burmans. It was always
obtainable at shops where people sell medical drugs.
There was no prohibition against sale of the drug at
all. The prohibition is only against use. Notwith-
standing this prohibition, the ganja was used in small
doses in pipes through water and also in cigars and.
also sometimes without tobacco in cigarette form by
all classes, even by persons employed in the palace
itself. This pipe was never used for tobacco and
not frequently for ganja. Ganja was more gener-
ally smoked in a cigar. Ganja was not widely
used ; not many people used it, but some did of
all classes. In the palace it was only secretly used,
The man smoking it would draw his smoke into
his mouth and blow it into the hole in the floor
made for spitting into, so that the smell might not
get abroad. This was not ordinarily done with
tobacco.
I have seen cases in which persons got mad for
a few days from ganja ; but I have not heard of
cases in which a man got mad permanently from
using ganja. As City Magistrate I dealt with
insane persons. I never had any person perma-
nently mad from ganja before me. I saw about
ten cases in a year of temporary madness from the-
use of ganja during the seventeen years of my
office. They were mostly of the lowest class of
Burmans. The insanity did not last even an hour,
generally about fifteen minutes. Some of these
cases were brought before me as a Magistrate and
some I saw privately. About three or four hun-
dred persons intoxicated from liquor would be
brought before me as a Magistrate in a year.
About twice as many people were found intoxicat-
ed from opium than from ganja. When I said
before that there were only " one or two cases of pro-
secution for use of intoxicants in a year," I meant
cases in which there were complainants owing to
assaults having been committed, and so on. My
jurisdiction extended considerably beyond the city
of Mandalay.