26
REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94.
[APP.
11. In the Himalayan districts the plant is cultivated and yields fibre which is of some
economic importance. It supplies the people with material for their cloth and cordage, and
was once a valuable monopoly of the East India Company. In most cases the plant is grown
primarily for the fibre, and charas is gained as a subsidiary product. But in some places the
charas is said to be the primary object of the cultivation. So far as I can discover, fibre is
nowhere extracted from the plant grown in the plains. In some localities, where it grows
wild, the stalks are utilized for making thatches, screens, &c.
12. Where grown for fibre in the hills, the plant is sown in the best soil and receives
careful cultivation. But both in hills and plains it can and does grow without any care or
cultivation of a sufficiently good quality to yield drugs. The brief and material conclusion is
that besides a very large and general spontaneous growth, wherever people choose to grow
the hemp plant, they can and do grow it in any part of the provinces, and it can be grown
under conditions where suppression would be impossible.
13. Under the rules now in force under section 11, Excise Act XXII, 1881, the cultiva-
tion of the hemp plant in these provinces is free to all parties. The possession of the drug is
permitted to cultivators, to owners of laud in which the plant grows spontaneously, to licensed
vendors or to persons duly authorized to supply licensed vendors. Its possession by other
persons in larger quantities than one quarter of a seer of bhang and five tolas of ganja or
charas, is prohibited under sections 22 and 23, clause (k), Excise Act.
Section 12 (d) permits any cultivator to sell intoxicating drugs prepared from his plants to
any person licensed to sell drugs or specially authorized to purchase the same. This permission
to cultivators is considered to extend to the sale of their bhang by owners of spontaneous
produce. Bhang requires no preparation or manufacture, being only the dried plant stripped
of its stalk.
The rules are silent on the subject of manufacture or preparation of drugs. This is
probably because outside the hill districts there has hitherto really been no manufacture or
preparation in the proper sense of the word carried on in the provinces except a little quasi-
surreptitious manufacture of ganja which will be noticed further on. Excepting the wholesale
contractor in Saharanpur, no persons are specially authorized to purchase under section 12 (d).
The business is entirely in the hands of the contractors, who are licensed to sell.
14. In the few cases abovementioned, where the plant is cultivated, the produce is stored
by cultivators themselves in their own houses. It is sold to contractors, and when bought for
export, is weighed and sealed before the tahsil officials, and exported under pass in the usual
way (hereafter described). The produce of the wild plant is similarly treated. The real
control lies in the restrictions on sale and transport. But the rules governing cultivation,
collection of wild plant, preparation and manufacture, are, I think, susceptible of improvement.
So far the rules, however, have worked well enough, partly because the supply of drugs has
been ample and cheap and partly because the people generally have not known or realized how
far they might go without violating the law and rules. They see that all excisable commodi-
ties are a Government monopoly, and, except where hemp is cultivated or collected for sale,
they have a belief that its cultivation would render them liable to penalties. The ignorance
is shared by some of the officials, who occasionally take cognizance of cases where a few plants
are found growing in or about a man's house. In such cases he never pleads that he is
entitled to grow them; he always denies the fact or alleges that the plants grew spontaneously
without his knowledge. If drugs were forbidden or made prohibitive in price the case would
at once alter, cultivation, collection, and manufacture would have to be placed under such
control and restriction as might be found possible.
15. The question of manufacture as well as growth of bhang has, perhaps, been sufficiently
explained in the foregoing paragraphs. In the case of ganja the manufacture and growth
cannot well be separated. The hemp plant, as I have stated, can be, and is grown everywhere,
but the production of good ganja requires either the extirpation of the male plant or the
isolation of the female plant. The regular cultivation of ganja in this way is not carried on
openly anywhere in these provinces. The whole of the ganja offered for public sale is import-
ed. At the same time it would be incorrect to say that ganja is nowhere grown or manu-
factured. Careful enquiry has elicited reports from several districts that a small amount of
ganja is surreptitiously made. I have endeavoured to verify this by obtaining specimens of
the local manufacture. It is naturally difficult to obtain a clandestine article, but I have
succeeded in getting specimens from Ghazipur and Sultanpur, which have been handed over
to the Commission. In appearance the Ghazipur ganja is better than the ordinary "pathar,"
and not much inferior to Bengal "baluchar" (flat). The other is much the same as " pathar."
I hope to obtain further specimens which will be duly submitted. These two samples are
clearly made from unfertilized flowers, and the people who made them knew the necessity of
preventing fertilization. In Ghazipur the male plants are extirpated and the ganja is pre-
pared from the female flower by a process which closely resembles that employed in Bengal.
It sells, I am informed, for two annas per tola. The method of cultivation and manufacture
in Sultanpur has not been described.
16. The deduction is significant and instructive. Ganja, of fair or good quality, can be
made, and is made, locally. People understand the principle of its manufacture. If this