200 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [CH. X.
attached to the evidence tendered by each of these classes, the Commission con-
sider it necessary to point out that the superior medical officers are by their
training necessarily in a far better position to judge intelligently of the effects of
the drugs than the other two classes; but the superior medical officer class com-
prises both European doctors and assistant surgeons. The former class—in all
but exceptional instances—do not see nearly so much of the common or general
dispensary practice as the assistant surgeons. Though at head-quarters they visit
the dispensaries as regularly as possible, and see some of the patients and assist in
prescribing, they are rather the "superintendents of the dispensaries," and occupy
generally a position more or less of "consultants" to the assistant surgeons,
who actually conduct dispensary practice, and who diagno se the ordinary diseases
and prescribe for them. It therefore appears to the Commission not unlikely
that the views of most European medical officers may have been based on less
direct contact with the people, and may have even been sometimes derived more
or less from the assistant surgeons, their immediate subordinates. The hospital
assistants as a class are much inferior to assistant surgeons in medical training
and general intelligence; but they possess one advantage over the assistant
surgeons. From their inferior social position they have a more intimate know-
ledge perhaps of the habits of the persons who frequent dispensaries, and who
constitute the class to which hemp-drug consumers belong. The native practi-
tioners probably have a still more familiar knowledge of the habits of the people;
but the absence of systematic training renders them practically incompetent to form
a true estimate of "cause" and "effect," and their ideas of the noxious effects
of the drugs are doubtless largely coloured by the popular and common views on
the subject.
General view of the whole evid-
ence regarding evil effects.
495. In respect to the evil effects—physical, mental, and moral—ascribed to
the habitual use of these drugs, there is one feature
that must strike any one who reads the evidence—
that is, the large number of witnesses who do not answer at all the questions (No.
45 and No. 46) regarding evil effects. Among Europeans over one-half of the
witnesses and among Natives about one-third abstain from answering. This must
be due in large measure to the fact that the effects have not obtruded themselves
on observation. This is what is stated over and over again by witnesses of the
greatest experience. Of those who do answer, about one-half of the Europeans
and one-third of the Native witnesses ascribe no evil effects at all to the moderate
use of ganja and charas. Those witnesses who specially mention bhang do so,
as a rule, to except it from their statement regarding the evil effects alleged to
result from hemp drugs generally. These are not, however, very numerous. It is
unnecessary to do more than take up the evidence regarding hemp drugs gener-
ally. About one-half of the European witnesses and two-thirds of the Native
witnesses who answer at all the question regarding the alleged evil effects of the
moderate use do so in the affirmative. But of these about one-half of both
classes do not discriminate between the moderate and excessive use. They
answer generally concerning the use of the drugs without drawing the line
between moderation and excess. The number of witnesses who really give
evidence to the effect that the moderate use of these drugs causes injury is
therefore less than those who distinctly affirm that they do not, and forms but a
small fraction of the whole body of witnesses. The evidence regarding the evil