142
REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94.
[APP.
EXTRACT FROM MEMORANDUM REGARDING GANJA AND ITS PREPARA-
TIONS IN MYSORE BY MR. J. G. MCDONNELL, SPECIAL
ASSISTANT
EXCISE COMMISSIONER IN MYSORE.
(1) Pros. of the Government of
Mysore, No. 212, dated 27th February
1885, covering Notification No. 229,
dated 27th idem.
(2) Notification No. 2531-2756,
dated 11th September 1886, by the
Resident of Mysore.
I.-I
framed the two sets of draft rules to deal with the check and supervision over drugs
falling under the Excise Act for both the Mysore State and
the Civil and Military Station of Bangalore, vide references
quoted in the margin. The new rules (draft) printed and
sent up to, and now before the Mysore Government, were
originally drawn up by me in 1889, in co-operation with
Colonel Campbell, the first Excise Commissioner in Mysore.
For the purposes of the present enquiry I have made it my
special duty to conduct personally a thorough investigation again into the whole subject, and
the results recorded in this paper have thus the benefit of having been effected by an officer
who has had 14 years' experience of this subject, and who has, moreover, been brought in con-
stant and direct contact with both sellers and consumers at Bangalore and throughout the
Mysore State during his tours of inspection. To render this paper as complete as possible I
have enlisted the aid of a medical practitioner to give me the help required to dispose of the
medico-legal queries put by the "Indian Hemp Drugs Commission."
II.-The following may be accepted as the definitions of ganja and the names under
which the different productions and preparations thereof are locally known in the Province of
Mysore:—
(1) Botany.*—It
is an annual, generally diœcious. Root, white, fusiform. Stem, three
feet to six, or twelve or more feet high in Mysore, erect, simple when crowded, branched when
growing apart, angular, pubescent. Leaves, on long weak petioles, opposite or alternate, digi-
tate, scabrous, leaflets 5 to 7, narrow, lanceolate, sharply serrated. Stipules, subulate.
In-
florescence, males, racemose; females, in spikes. Fruit, ovate, one-celled, with a solitary seed.
(2) Characteristics of Ganja.*—The flowering tops of the female plant bearing the remains
of flowers, the ripe fruit and seed, the whole forming with the resin exuded and moistened
with dew an agglutinated spike—rather longer than broad—carefully picked off and dried.
It is of a dusky green colour and a characteristic odour.
(3) Designations of Ganja, its products, and preparations.—The
"Indian hemp" refer-
red to in the Ganja Rules and by the Indian Hemp Commission is the Cannabis sativa, Linn.
N. F. Urtricaceœ of the Pharmacopœia. Hindustani—Ganja;
Canarese—Bangi-Soppu;
Tamil—
Ganja-Yela;
Telugu—Bangi-Aku.
The intoxicating native productions and preparations of
the plant are known as (1) ganja, (2) charas (resin), (3) bhang, (4) majum, (5) alwa, (6)
churun, (7) curry, (8) preparations according to pharmacopœia, (a) Cannabin, (b)
Extractum
Cannabis Indicœ, (c) Tinctura Cannabis Indicœ, (d) Cannabinœ Tannas, and (e) Cannabinon.
1. Ganja.-There
are three varieties of ganja, which are or have been utilized in the
Province of Mysore:—
(a) Mulki
or Kulli
Ganja—sample in bottle marked (A).—See para. II, clause (2),
above for a description of the plant and para. III (a) for mode of cultivation, &c.
As a rule the tiny leaflets are picked out by hand from the tops or agglutinated
spikes as they appear when the plant is growing and the leaves are only seen on
the larger branches and stems. The sample sent was not preserved by a profes-
sional cultivator, and clearly appears to have been prematurely removed from the
plant, as the leaflets are apparent and large instead of being absent. The tops or
agglutinated spikes are pinched off after heavy dew has fallen. In the sample
sent it has been pressed instead of being preserved as usual in spikes. It will
thus be seen that in good mulki or kulli ganja there should be very few or no
tendrils at all: the resin, the flower, the ripe fruit, and a few immature seed all
combined constituting the drug. The price is Rs. 75 to 80 per maund of 25 lbs.
The ganja, when moistened with dew or water, is clammy to the touch as the resin
is thus partially dissolved. The tops or agglutinated spikes when plucked are
then put into a pot, the mouth secured against the action of the air with cloth
covered with a coat of moistened clay and preserved for use. Thus treated and
preserved from the action of the air, damp, etc., it retains all its virtues for a very
long while. In one chemist's shop I saw the ganja preserved in a large glass-
stoppered jar. In another I observed the "tincture"
to be kept in a crystal-
stoppered bottle, while the "extract" was kept in a loosely covered porcelain cup.
In the latter case it must necessarily lose its virtues sooner than in the two former.
In out-lying villages, where it is not pressed, it is exposed to the sun for three days,
* Note.—From Dr. Alexander Milne's "Manual of Materia Medica and Therapeutics," Second Edition, p. 49,
modified to suit the circumstances in Mysore.