CH. XIV.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. 271
Greece.
560. In Greece there is no law regulating or specially alluding to the produc-
tion, manufacture, or export of hashish. The sale of
it as merchandise is allowed, but a Police order of
1891 prohibits its sale and consumption in the small cafés of Athens and the
Pirœus, in some of which, during the previous ten or fifteen years apparently,
the habit of using this drug had been gradually introduced. The order was based
upon a report of the Sanitary Board at Athens, in which prominent mention is
made of the observations made in India by English doctors, and the statistics of
insanity in Bengal lunatic asylums ascribed to the use of the hemp drugs are put
forward as justifying repressive measures. The effect of the order passed is not
mentioned, sufficient time not having elapsed.
Trinidad.
561. As regards Trinidad, the Commission are not sure that the hemp drugs
are prohibited. The fact has been stated by the
Indian Immigrants Commission, Natal, 1885-87,*
and by Dr. Thomas Ireland, Government Medical Officer, British Guiana, in
a paper published in the Alienist
and Neurologist, St. Louis, in October 1893.
But, on the other hand, Surgeon-Major Comins, lately on special duty in British
and Foreign Colonies and the Netherlands, in his Note on Emigration from
India to Trinidad, 1893, quotes a statement of the Protector of Immigrants, who
says that in the year 1885 an Ordinance was passed requiring the payment
of £100 per acre to obtain a license to grow ganja, which had previously been
grown in large quantities. This practically put a stop to the growth and con-
sumption for several years, but immigrants who had left Trinidad two years
previous to the writing of his report had been growing it in Venezuela, and
several seizures had been made by the Customs officers from persons endeavour-
ing to introduce it into Trinidad. The Protector adds: "With a coast line
such as ours, adjacent to that of the Spanish Main, it will be impossible to
prevent its introduction into this colony if immigrants who go there continue to
grow it." Dr. Comins himself says: "I do not know what are the laws in force
here regarding the sale of opium and ganja."
Basis of prohibition and results in
these countries.
562. Thus in the case of other countries, where the use of the drugs has
been prohibited, the Commission do not find in the
literature available to them many arguments for pro-
hibition. In Turkey it rests upon the theory accepted by orthodox Muhammadans
that hashish "being a narcotic its use must of necessity be injurious," while in
Egypt the prohibition emanated from Turkey. In both these countries the measure
has by no means been attended with complete success. In Greece the prohibition
in the cafés of Athens is based largely upon Indian experience, which the Commis-
sion have had cause in great measure to recast. In Trinidad, if there has been
prohibition, it does not seem of late to have been effectual. It must be added that
the Commission have no scientific information regarding the strength of the article
of commerce called hashish, and it may differ to some extent from the Indian pro-
ducts. From the description of its manufacture given by the Mayor of Orchomenus
in Mantinea in Arcadia, whence the Egyptian supply is mainly derived, it appears
to resemble more the charas of Yarkand than the ganja or bhang of India.
Is prohibition in India justifiable,
feasible, and advisable ?
563. Starting, therefore, from the position that what is known of the hemp
drugs in the past is not sufficient to justify their
prohibition in India, and that for such a measure
there must be strong justification based on ascertained facts scientifically and
* Report, Chapter II, paragraph 9.