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Not dissimilar from this last use is the employment by the jaded sensualist
of hemp-preparations to induce an intoxication wherein he can concentrate his
mind on animal thoughts. An historical account of this practice on a large scale
is the story that is told by Taki-ed-din Ahmad of the use, the appearance, and
the fate of the famous Djanina suburb of Cairo, which a virtuous Sultan,
anticipating the nineteenth century in hoping to suppress a vice by scattering its
votaries, razed to the ground in A.D. 1287. The associated practices will be
mentioned in another paragraph ; bhang and majun, very rarely gánjá, are made
use of for this purpose.
Whether the continued use of bhang in this manner tends to insanity it is
difficult to say. It is usual to ascribe mental aberration to this particular
practice, but it would appear that the undoubted cases of dementia that occur have
arisen from the use of bhang to induce frenzy, not from gánjá to induce-a con-
templative state. Most of these mendicants become sodden with gánjá daily,
and appear to go on like this for years, showing as little mental as they do
physical deterioration.
The use of hemp, in order to produce intoxication that is beyond control,
with an objective motive, is of greater historical than every-day interest. The
history of the assassins is a case in point. The use of the narcotic must have been
the same as in the last case—repeated doses of hemp taken till an excited condition
had resulted. But in this case the suggestion and encouragement of companions
or chief, coupled with the subject's own deliberate intention before the frenzied
state was reached, determined the definite course of action that characterised it ;
the accompanying carelessness of danger, partly perhaps the result of temperament,
was mainly due to inability to realise it owing to the perverted interpretation of
the environment induced by the drug. Quite like the assassins, and indeed, though
particularists, their successors in motive and behaviour are the Ghazi,¹ and the
Dyak, whether committing a special murder or merely running amok. And the
accounts of rebels in the Sepoy War "‘bhanged' up to the eyes" doubtless refer
to the same condition induced, however, not to prevent fear in conducting, but
to overcome terror before undertaking an enterprise. The phrase in this case
indicates the suffused and bloodshot eye that is one of the signs of an overdose
of hemp, Similar to this custom also is that described in criminal reports
as practised by dacoits when they meet before setting out to commit robbery
or murder. And it is strange to find that the same fallacy that has been
pointed out as vitiating lunacy returns prevails, but to a less extent, in criminal
statistics as well ; crime of this kind, committed while the criminal was under
the influence of hemp, is sometimes said to be due to the use of that substance.
The substance is made use of, just as any other similar stimulant would be
made use of, to assist in the performance of the criminal act, but that the use
of hemp leads to the commission of unpremeditated crime is a statement for
which there is not only no good evidence, but which is opposed to what we
know of the action of the drug.
In addition to these cases of intoxication, where there is a distinct motive,
there are of course some cases that correspond to those of ‘hard-drinkers'
among alcohol consumers. There do not, however, appear to be many instances
of besotted creatures who intoxicate themselves with gánjá or bhang to this
extreme degree for the mere sake of being intoxicated. They are, I am aware,
mentioned in reports and noticed in returns, but it is difficult to encounter
examples in real life or meet with officers who have seen them. It may be
safely said that gross cases of motiveless bhang or gánjá drunkenness, corre-
sponding to the cases of complete narcosis from alcohol that one sometimes meets
with in Europe, do not exist.
Cases, however, of a class that may be compared to those of delirium tremens
are occasionally seen. They are of two sorts, one marked by violent symp-
toms, the other marked by a dull, dazed condition; they correspond in their
symptoms with considerable fidelity to their causation. They have this in com-
mon, that they are exhibited in subjects who have not been accustomed to the
use of hemp, and that they not infrequently lead to a temporary insanity,
¹ It is comforting to find that those authors who connect assassin with haschisch, and who see in kinnab
(k n b) a bouleversement of bhang (b n k [g]) have spared us the connection of ghazi with gánjá,
g á j á , g á z á , g u a z á , t h e I n d o - P o r t u g e s e n a m e t h a t , t h o u g h u n k n o w n i n I n d i a , i s t h e n a m e g i v e n b y L o n d o n
brokers to this form of hemp !