37
keeping for more than a year. If properly packed
and secured from exposure to heat and dampness,
they will keep well for about 18 months or two
years. Charas can keep any length of time.
19. Charas is only smoked. Ganja is eaten like
bhang made into "gota" in this district for want
of bhang.
20. In this district fakirs, bairagis, gosavis, and
other mendicants use ganja, as also dowries and
other itinerant classes. In higher classes the use
of this drug is very rare.
21. Flat ganja alone is imported.
25. It is difficult to answer this question. But
looking to the quantity of ganja imported from
year to year, it would appear that consumption is
stationary.
26. There are no statistics available.
27. Habitually excessive smokers are from the
mendicant classes, such as fakirs, bairagis and
gosavis.
Habitual moderate consumers come from all
classes, particularly from the lower strata. Occa
-
sional moderate consumers can be traced to all
castes, not excluding Brahmins and Lingayets.
I believe there are no occasional excessive con
-
sumers. Fakirs, bairagis, gosavis, dowries, and
similar mendicant classes are initiated as soon as
they enter mendicant orders, or when they attain
the age of puberty. Bairagi boys are initiated at
even the early age of 12 and 14. In other classes
this habit is contracted on account of bad company,
and is seldom acquired for medicinal purposes.
28. It is difficult to say what class of consumers
may be called habitual moderate consumers. There
are persons who smoke only once in company with
six or eight persons. One or half a tola is pre
-
pared and filled into a pipe, and is smoked by six or
eight persons together in the afternoon once a day,
each person paying the day's cost by turns.
There are others who smoke two or three times a
day and require a tola, and they are considered
moderate consumers. The excessive consumers are
persons who remain always under the influence of the
drug. Such persons want about two to four tolas
of ganja every day. They cannot do without one
tola. This class of consumers is limited to a por
-
tion of itinerant mendicants who get the neces
-
saries of life without trouble. I should think that
q u a r t e r t o l a i s t h e a l l o w a n c e o f a n a v e r a g e m o d e r a t e
consumer, and two tolas is that of an excessive
one. The cost of one tola by retail is two pice.
Wholesale prices are annas 12 to Re. 1 in the Bri
-
tish districts and six to twelve annas in Native
States.
29. Nothing is mixed with ganja ordinarily
except tobacco. It is said that exceptionally
dhatura, kutchala and aconite are used in very
small quantities. My informants have not seen
instances of this kind.
When gota is made, undermentioned articles
are used :
—
(1) Sugar, (2) milk, (3) water, (4) poppy
seed, (5) coriander, (6) dried rose buds, (7) anise
seeds, (8) cucumber seed, (9) almonds, (10)
jaiphal, (11) cardamom, (12) cocoanut or its
juice, (13) black pepper.
Exceptionally— (14) kulpa, (15) kalubij,
(16) aconite, (17) dhatura, (18) kutchala, (19)
arsenic.
These articles are used both to make the drink
palatable or tasteful and to increase
- t i o n .
No bhang massala is sold in these parts like
Upper India.
30. Consumers of these drugs are very fond of
company. They will indulge alone when they
cannot afford the expense or cannot get company.
It is said larger the circle, greater the enjoyment.
The consumers are very obliging to each other in
this respect.
This vice is confined to the male sex, and is
generally acquired after the age of 20. The
bairagis are said to initiate their children at the
age of 12 to 14, and women are free, except
bairagis of abandoned character.
31. The habit of smoking tobacco is the preli
-
minary step to acquire this habit. No length of
time is required in forming this habit; a week
or a fortnight is quite sufficient. A man is allowed
to smoke the exhausted pipe or use small quanti
-
ties at first.
The drug itself does not give a craving for
increase of its use, but bad company and want of
occupation lead to excessive use. On the first
occasion the head is immediately affected and
the smoker sometimes becomes insensible, but
with habit the effect is lessened or reduced to a
minimum. The habit is not difficult to break
off; more moderate smokers do not feel the want
of it, while habitual moderate ones feel want of
it at their usual times and feel their stomach
windy, and the excessive smokers sometimes get
dysentery, and, besides feeling very uneasy, are
subject to pains in the limbs and show most un
-
willingness to work.
32. I am told that some people think it neces
-
sary to offer a drink of bhang to Mahadev, and
then drink it themselves on the Shivaratri.
Dowries have a custom of offering a ball made
of ganja and ganja drink to their family god
Sonkarshid or Kalbhairav (different names of
Mahadev) in the month of Chaitra ; and then
eat or drink the same themselves. They have
also a custom of vowing that if the god be pleased
to give them the desired thing, they would give
ganja to a certain number of dowries to smoke
or to drink. Patvegars, who are said to be
Kshatris, serve in small quantities some prepara
-
tion of ganja on the anniversary of their fathers
called " paksha " to all persons called to dinner.
33. The use of these drugs is considered as
disreputable, though it does not render one liable
to lose his caste. Its use is considered as a vice.
A man who is addicted to it is looked down upon
as a low man. He avoids exposure, and will
conceal his habit as much as possible. All this
is due to the intoxicating effect of the drugs.
In castes and sects where the use of these drugs
is quite common or is considered necessary, there
is no public opinion about it.
This plant is not worshipped.
34. It is thought that to habitual smokers,
such as fakirs, bairagis, gosavis, and itinerant
classes, who are exposed to inclemencies of the
climate, it will be a privation to forego the use.
35. The effective way is to stop the cultivation
of the plant in British districts and also in the
Native States, and to prevent imports, as is done
in the case of opium. The drug will be consumed
illicitly, as long as the persons now using the
drug live or are not weaned from the habit. Some
discontent will be caused among the consumers,
but it will never in these parts develop into a
political danger, as the discontented consumers
are the dregs of the society, and their discontent