CH. VI.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. 99
"(c) Bhang.—This name is given indifferently to the refuse of the treading-floor
where ganja is prepared, and to the produce of the seeded plants and of male plants
when the crop has been grown for seed. In the latter case the tops are laid on a floor,
and the seed is beaten out with sticks or trodden out by foot. The seeds are separated
from the mass by means of a sieve, and the balance of broken leaves, etc., is called
bhang."
The bhang crop in Gujarat is turned into drug by drying the plants and
shaking or beating them so as to detach the leaves, flower, and fruit. The
character of the bhang of the Bombay Presidency must be noted. When it comes
from the ganja crop, it consists very largely of pieces of the female flower head,
and is in fact, as many witnesses have described it, largely composed of what is
known in Bengal as chur. If the customer asked for chur, the shopkeeper would
produce what he calls bhang. The preparation of the drugs is generally carried
out by the cultivators themselves, sometimes by contractors.
Bombay States.
256. The States in the Deccan which cultivate ganja prepare the drugs in the
manner already described. In the Northern Agen-
cies there is but little cultivation, and that of scattered
plants only. There is no evidence that the flower heads undergo any preparation
besides simple drying.
Aden.
257. The drugs are not prepared in Aden.
Sind with Khairpur.
Preparation of bhang.
258. The cultivation in certain districts of Sind and in Khairpur is said to be
for the production of bhang only, and no doubt that
is the principal product; but a small amount of supe-
rior flower heads is turned out which goes by the name of ghundi or ghundi
bhang, and is occasionally used for smoking. Mr. Giles (2) states that when
the crop is ripening, the upper portions of the plants are cut off and preserved
separately. These are regarded as the "tit bits." They are dried with their seed
and stalk, and do not appear to be subjected to any special process. They are
called ghundyun,
and are practically no doubt ganja. The rest of the crop is
dried and flogged, and the broken leaves, flowers, and seed form bhang. A cer-
tain amount of this is winnowed for the seed; but the mass is sold as it is to
the contractor, who seems generally to sift it and clean it of seed before retail-
ing it.
Miscellaneous information.
259. Witness (5) from the Upper Sind Frontier, while stating that ganja and
charas are not prepared in the province, gives in an
appendix some information regarding the prepara-
tion of these drugs elsewhere, which may be shortly noted. Ganja is prepared,
he says, by burying the flower heads in a pit four or five feet deep coated with
goats' dung. The pit is filled in for fifteen or twenty days, after which the
ganja is taken out and sold.
The consumer picks off the smokable part,
crushes it, heats it on a cinder, makes it into small lumps or cakes, and smokes
it in a huka. Charas is collected by people walking to and fro through the
bhang plants with greased leather coats on, and also by going clothed only in a
loin cloth with their bodies smeared with oil. The latter process is followed, he