CH. X.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. 185
pany of smokers. The first effects produced in the novice by the drug, espe-
cially if smoked, are also far from pleasant, and must tend to make the
habit somewhat difficult to acquire. The first effects of bhang need not be un-
pleasant if the consumer is careful to begin with very smal l doses. But it is other-
wise with hemp smoking. To produce any effect, the smoke has to be taken into
the lungs by strong inhalation. The effect of this is often unpleasant and dis-
tressing, especially to those who are not accustomed to smoke tobacco in this
particular way. It is doubtful, however, whether these first effects are ever more
deterrent in character than those which European lads experience on their first
acquaintance with tobacco, and it cannot be said that they present any real
difficulty in the way of those who from any motive desire to consume these
drugs. Once these initial difficulties are past, the habit is easily formed. As in
the case of every other intoxicant, consumption tends to become habitual.
Strength of habit.
479. The pretty general belief is that the habit is not easily broken off when
once formed; but the difficulty is not believed to be
so great as in the case of either alcohol or opium.
It is apparently greater than in the case of tobacco. The experience of
our jails seems clearly to confirm the general opinion that the opium habit takes
a much stronger hold than the ganja habit, and that no injurious physical effects
follow the compulsory cessation of the latter. But even the moderate habitual
consumer looks for the effect which he associates with the drug, and finds it a
considerable effort to give up the habit—an effort which demands considerable
strength of mind in cases where the necessity for abandoning the habit may
have arisen. In case of habitual excess the difficulty is greatly increased.
The weakness of mind at once displayed and intensified by this excess renders
it sometimes impossible to give up the habit without restraint. But even in
cases of excessive consumption, the difficulty appears to be less with ganja than
with alcohol or opium.
Moderation and excess.
480. It is a general belief that there is a tendency for the moderate habit to
develop into the excessive. This belief is based on
the general view that such a tendency must exist
more or less in the case of all intoxicants, on the fact that as the system becomes
accustomed to the use of a drug a larger dose appears to be required to produce
the same effect, and on the undoubted fact that there are some excessive con-
sumers who had begun and continued for some time the use of these drugs in
moderation. It is, however, a matter of ordinary experience that in the case of
a moderate consumer of alcohol, for example, who is in normal health, the effect
which he wishes to produce by his moderate use is regularly produced by the
same dose without any necessity for increasing it. And the fact that there is
comparatively so little of excess in the use of hemp drugs, and that so many con-
sumers, especially of bhang among the middle classes and of ganja among work-
ing people, retain their moderate habit and regularly have their accustomed
dose twice or thrice a day, seems to show that this tendency is certainly not
stronger in their case. While individual differences in strength of mind must
always lead to difference in results, and hereditary mental instability is in certain
cases a factor which must not be overlooked, the fact seems generally to be that
excess is found (as in the case of alcohol) to be mainly confined to idle and
dissipated persons, and to be often due to the force of example and foolish
emulation in bad company. The man who takes these drugs regularly as a food
47