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hold aloof, there is wanting the check on their conduct that respect for public
opinion in their native village would inspire ; leading a lazy, and therefore in
itself demoralising, life, they are further deteriorated by the opportunities for
petty extortion which their position offers. Even those unaccustomed to the
external effects of the habitude will have recognised the insouciance of manner
which so frequently accompanies the use of the intoxicant ; this style of address
is the effect of the distorted sense of relativity which accompanies the use of
bhang.
The dose of siddhi taken on such an occasion may be from three to five
tolas, but it is not quite easy to say how much is taken, as it is usual for a large
quantity to be made, of which a company may partake. Among durwans, for
example, it is a common enough custom in establishments where the practice
prevails (it should be understood that there are also many where none of the
durwans use it at all) for one man to make a decoction to be used, at the com-
mencement of the day, by himself and his intimates. The effect of taking
the dose is that the man feels 'pulled together' by the stimulant effect of his
morning dram, and spends the rest of the day more or less under the subsequent
depressant influence of the drug. Temperament comes in to modify the effect,
and the man may be talkative and smiling, dull and quiet, rarely sub-melancholic,
or surly and uncivil—at least to his equals, rarely agressively quarrelsome, during
the rest of the day. And one effect of such a depressant naturally is that he
repeats the dose next morning.
The dose that in an habitué has the effect just described, in the unaccus-
tomed produces much greater disturbance. The full physiological effects are
often produced, and with the thirst, unsteadiness, and other symptons of narcosis,
is associated the odd desire to laugh and the comic aspect presented by surround-
ing objects. The man takes his dose among jovial companions who have just
been preparing his mind to expect pleasureable effects; the symptoms indicated
are, therefore, as is only natural, the result of misinterpretation of the environ-
ment as determined by his state of mind and the suggestions which induced
that state of mind at the time the dose was taken.
It is the subject who uses the substance in this way who comes to fulfil the
conditions that are in India generally popularly associated with the use of
h e m p , t h e i m p a i r e d d i g e s t i o n , f l a b b y a n d u l t i m a t e l y d r o p s i c a l b o d y , p a l e — t h e
nat i ve expr essi on ' monkey- f aced' sui t s ver y wel l —f eat ur es ; and f i nal l y, an
i nabi l i t y t o resi st t he ‘chroni c bronchi t i s' whi ch so frequent l y t ermi nat es l i fe i n
India. Here, as in so much else associated with hemp, some misunderstanding
has arisen among natives and Europeans alike, and it has been supposed
that the use of hemp causes t h e ‘ b r o n c h i t i s . ' A s a ma t t e r o f f a c t c a s e s o f
t h i s ‘ b r o n c h i t i s , ' c o l d - w e a t h e r c o u g h , w o u l d s e e m t o b e r a t h e r l e s s c o m m o n
among siddhi-tipplers than among, other people of the same class. What
does happen is that digestion is impaired, the daily consumption of such a
dose of narcotic overburdens the alimentary and climinating system ;
t h e m a n ’ s
a p p e t i t e g o e s , a n d t h e f o o d h e t a k e s i s n o t p r o p e r l y a b s o r b e d . T h e s y m p t o m s
mentioned are the signs of this indigestion, and the impaired vitality which
renders the system unable to throw off an illness is its result. Another thing
that has to be recollected is that the votaries of hemp who use it in this
fashion are generally town-people and denizens of ill-smelling unhealthy bazars.
T h e u s e o f t h e d r u g i n t h i s p a r t i c u l a r w a y i s n o t p u s h e d t o g r o s s e x c e s s ; i t s u s e r s c o r r e s p o n d e x a c t l y t o t h e ‘ f r e e - d r i n k e r s ' o f h y g i e n i c a l c o h o l s t a t i s t i c s , a n d
it is just as rare for a siddhi -drinker to become a furious or impotent bhang
drunkard as i t i s for a ‘ free-dri nker ' to devel ope i nto a ' hard dri nker. '
The next use of the intoxicant that may be considered is that where
it is deliberately employed to produce complete uncontrolled intoxication. It
is convenient to deal with
this use before discussing the other cases of
drunkenness, partly because these cases are rare, partly because this use of any
intoxicant is in itself so uncommon.
Even this usage has to be further subdivided into those cases where the
motive is objective, and those where it is not. The last is practically
confined to the class of religious mendicants, and to a small section of that class,
whose members, usually by means of considerable doses of bhang frequently
repeated, induce a condition of frenzy which is supposed to indicate super-
natural 'possession.' The mode of inducing the state is easily understood;