CH. X.] REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. 171
this distinction. At the same time it cannot be said that the evidence is practi-
cally clear and decided. Many witnesses feel themselves unable to deal with
the matter. A few decline to discriminate between the effects of smoking and
those of the other modes of consumption. Well over four hundred witnesses,
however, institute a clear comparison. Of these there are over a hundred medi-
cal men trained more or less thoroughly according to European methods, of
whom four-fifths regard smoking as the most injurious form of consumption.
There are over forty practitioners trained after native methods, of whom
nearly three-fourths hold the same opinion. There are nearly three hundred
non-medical witnesses who are similarly divided. These figures show that the
decided majority of such witnesses as have given an opinion regard smoking
as the most injurious form of consumption, and this is found to be the case
both for all classes of witnesses and for all provinces. The majority is least in
Bengal, being precisely two to one in each of the two classes of medical, and
rather less than that among the non-medical, witnesses who have recognised
any difference. It has also to be borne in mind that among the minority there
are some who clearly state that though ganja smoking may be less deleterious
than drinking or eating ganja, it is more deleterious than drinking bhang. And
there are probably others who hold this view, though they have not thought of
stating it.
There are some witnesses whose experience is that drinking bhang is a habit
which is more likely to go to excess than smoking, because more seductive and
more sociable. But there are many others whose experience is precisely the
reverse. There are one or two witnesses who think smoking less harmful than
drinking hemp, because the latter form of consumption lends itself in their
opinion more readily to deleterious mixtures. But there is a great deal of
evidence to a precisely opposite effect. There are also some witnesses who
emphasise the injurious effects of the excessive use of bhang on the digestive
system. But the preponderance of opinion is that excessive smoking of charas
or ganja has still more injurious effects on the system.
Common experience then as indicated in the evidence of all classes of
witnesses seems to teach that smoking ganja or charas is more injurious than
taking bhang. There seems no reason to decline to accept this view. The
following reasons seem to support it: (a) there is much less of the resin in what
is properly known as bhang than in ganja or charas; (b) the products of the
destructive distillation of the resin appear to be capable of doing injury, especially
if used to excess, and to be carried to the lungs and readily absorbed by the
inhalation which is the invariable method of smoking. At the same time no
one can read the evidence or observe the facts without realising that the use of
bhang, at all events if carried beyond moderation, may also be distinctly injurious.
Admixtures.
456. In considering the effects of hemp drugs, it is necessary not to forget the
admixtures used more or less frequently with them.
These are discussed more fully in other parts of the
report. There are certain of them, such as the spices used to render bhang a
more palatable drink and also perhaps less irritating to the digestive system,
or the almonds used to emulsify the resinous matter in the bhang, or the
tobacco used as the most pleasant vehicle and diluent of charas or ganja
when smoked, which need not be discussed here. Their effects are unimportant.