254 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [CH. XII.
but, generally speaking, the acute stage, if recovery should follow, does not last
more than a few days or weeks. In chronic voluntary intoxication the cause of
the symptoms depends necessarily on the habits of the patient and the indi-
vidual re-action. The chronic period does not generally establish itself from the
first. There are first the acute phenomena, which may reproduce themselves a
number of times, without, however, preventing chronicity from establishing itself:
these acute symptoms are nothing but epiphenomena, which appear again and
again in the course of this period: the two essential kinds of symptoms, how-
ever, are the irresistible appetite for the poison, with periodical return of the
acute and sub-acute symptoms, and the progressive decay of the mental faculties.
The acute symptoms correspond to the temporary saturation of the body with the
poison, while the chronic symptoms are the expression of definite anatomical
lesions in the brain gradually developed under toxic influence. The prolonged
use of mind poisons thus gives rise to progressive weakening of all the facul-
ties passing over into dementia. Acute toxic insanity is a secondary insanity:
it is polymorphous; all forms of insanity may be observed, not only in two differ-
ent intoxications, but even in the course of one and the same intoxication. It is
temporary, nothing but a momentary acute effervescence terminating with the
elimination of the poison.
Intoxication and insanity.
539. Before leaving the subject of insanity, there is one point to which it seems
desirable briefly to allude. The impression left on
the minds of the Commission by the perusal of a
large number of records in criminal cases and by the examination of some asy-
lum cases is that there is occasionally seen a tendency to confound intoxication
and insanity in connection with hemp drugs. The result is that in some cases
men who should have been simply punished for being intoxicated have been sent
to the asylum, and, though sane when they reached that institution, have been
detained there. These cases are, however, much rarer than they used to be, if
one may judge from the old asylum reports. A more serious result of this con-
fusion is that there are cases in which men who have committed offences, espe-
cially crimes of violence, under the influence of hemp drugs have been acquitted
on the ground of insanity, although the circumstances have been such that had
the intoxicant been alcohol, they would have been convicted. It is undoubtedly
more difficult in the case of ganja than in the case of alcohol to recognize the
line drawn for social and legal purposes between intoxication and insanity. But
the difficulty is not insuperable. The main reason for the confusion that has
existed is probably the ignorance that has prevailed regarding hemp drugs.
When they are recognised as a common intoxicant, it is to be hoped that the
practice of the Courts will be freed from the occasional blemishes above indicated.
It is not expedient, nor is it just, that intoxication from hemp drugs should secure
immunity from punishment which is not allowed to alcohol; and, on the other
hand, the Commission cannot concur with Dr. Walsh (Bengal witness No. 112)
when he says: "It is not my opinion from experience that it is either dreadful
in itself or possibly disastrous to a man's mind to have to herd for years with
lunatics, though sane."