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Indian Hemp Drugs Co TTHil ission Report
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Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report
Introduction
by Tod Mikuriya, M.D.
The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report*, comprising some nine volumes and 3,698 pages, is
by far the most completed and systematic study of marijuana undertaken to date. Because of the
rarity and, perhaps, the formidable size of this document, the wealth of information contained in it has
not found its way into contemporary writings on this subject. This is indeed unfortunate, as many of
the issues concerning marijuana being argued in the United States today were dealt with in the Indian
Hemp Drugs Commission Report.
It is both surprising and gratifying to note the timeless and lucid quality of the writings of these British
bureaucrats. It would be fortunate if studies undertaken by contemporary commissions, task force
committees and study groups could measure up to the standards of thoroughness and general
objectivity embodied in this report. In the current context of violently polarized attitudes toward
marijuana, the prospect of a study of similar stature would be improbably if not impossible.
History of British Involvement
The British government in India had substantial knowledge of intoxicants other than alcohol because
of their active involvement in regulation, taxation and actual trafficking in these substances for over a
hundred years prior to the Hemp Drugs Commission investigation and report.
In 1790 duties on alcohol and other intoxicant drugs were first levied by the British on Landlords in
India. The regulation of cannabis preparations was further specified in 1793 in regulation XXXIV of
that year: "No personal shall manufacture or vend any such drugs (bhang* ganja**, charas*** and
other intoxicating drugs) without a license from the collector of the zillah_."
This system of regulation was instituted "with a view to check immoderation consumption, and at the
same time to augment the public revenue."
In 1800 in a further modification of regulation, the manufacture and sale of charas was prohibited as
"being of a most noxious quality," while daily rates of duty were declared as the basis for taxing
procedures. Curiously, in 1824 the restriction on charas was rescinded "as this drug was found on
examination to be not more prejudicial to health than ganja or other intoxicating drugs."
In 1849 limits on retail sale of cannabis drugs were fixed "for better securing the abkari
Calcutta," and later extended to the
revenue of
* Leaves and flowers of wild growing or inferior cultivated cannabis plants.
** Flowering tops of the cannabis plant
*** Resin from the mature cannabis plant
A county-sized district or administrative division (India)
_ Manufacture or sale of intoxicating Liquors or drugs; hence, an excise or internal revenue tax on
such manufacture of sale (India)
[Abkar: A wine seller; distiller. Also, one whose trade is subject to abkari tax]
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whole of Bengal. Four years later the daily tax method was abandoned and a fee charged on a per
weight basis, and in 1860 an additional set of dealers' fees imposed.
It should be noted, however, that the system of the state of Bengal was only one of several schemes
among the many provinces. Variations on this approach existed in the other states, a function of the
differing local administrations, reflecting the degree of administrative and fiscal controls exerted by the
Imperial government.
There had apparently been controversies as to the possible noxious effects of cannabis drugs, at least
from the time of the inception of British controls on these products, unless we assume that the initial
stated reasons for regulation were merely cynical rationalizations for obtaining additional sources of
revenue. Within a country of several hundred millions of inhabitants, divided into hundreds of regions,
and with only rudimentary "homogenizing" forces of effective transportation and mass media, it is
perhaps reasonable to infer that wide variations in opinions and beliefs would be encountered.
Formation of the Commission
On 2 March 1893 a question was raised in the British House of Commons concerning the effects of
the production and consumption of hemp drugs in the province of Bengal, India. In response, the
Government of India convened a seven-member commission to look into these questions, 3 July
1893. Upon the suggestion of Lord Kimberley the scope of the investigation was expanded to
include all of India.
Procedures
The Commission actually met for the first time in Calcutta 3 August 1893. Between this date and 6
August of the following year, when the study was finished, the Commission received evidence from
1,455 witness. Field trips were made to thirty cities in eight provinces and Burma from the end of
October 1893 through the latter part of April 1894. Eighty-six meetings for examination of witnesses
transpired during the inquiry. Actual participation of the members of the Commission was duly noted
and reported — a custom that it might be worthwhile to revive:
The following statement shows the attendance of the members of the Commission during the period
occupied in inquiry (3rd August 1893 to April 1894):
Period of Attendance
with the commission Number of meetings
(a) During the (b) during the for examination of
Name first tour second tour witnesses attended
President 83 days 183 days 86
Mr. Ommaney Ditto Ditto 85
Mr. Fraser Ditto Ditto 85
Dr. Warden Ditto Ditto 86
Raja Soshi From 3rd August From 30th October 44
Sikhareswar to 15th September to 24th January,
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Roy 44 days from 14th to 16th February,
from 22nd to 24th February,
and from 7th to 25th March,
112 days
Kanwar Hamam Singh 83 days From 13th November 48
to 5th January, 22nd
February to 2nd April,
and from 12th to 25th April,
78 days
Lala Nihal Chand 3rd August to From 30th October to 18th 5
20th September, November and from 17th to
49 days 25th April
29 days
The attendance of Raja Soshi Sikhareswar Roy was broken by occasional absence caused by
ill-health and other reasons.
The absence of Kanwar Hamam Singh during two short periods was due to ill-health. The prolonged
absence of Lala Nihal Chand was due to the fact that he suffered from continued ill-health, and was
able to be with the Commission only at Calcutta at the first; then for some part of their preliminary
tour, and at a few meetings for the examination of witnesses during the second tour. All the members
were present at Simla during the preparation of the report.
Witnesses whose evidence was received by the Commission were divided into three categories:
(1) Official witnesses able to give information regarding hemp drugs, based on their official and local
experience.
(2) Non-official witnesses of all ranks able to give information regarding the drugs generally or in
connection with certain classes of the people.
(3) Other persons or associations having facts or holding opinions which they desired to
communicated to the Commission.
Civil Officers 467
Medical Officers 214
Private Practitioners (European methods) 34
Private Practitioners (Native methods) 87
Cultivators 144
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Professional men 55
Missionaries 34
Associations 24
Persons Engaged in Trade 75
Others 59
1,455
228* Native states
189* Native states
* Supplementary Volume - 1895
To facilitate collection of information, seventy questions framed by the Commission were given to
witnesses. The written answers to these questions constituted the bulk of the evidence before the
Commission. Where appropriate, witnesses were examined orally for further clarification or
explanation. In addition, witnesses who had not submitted written statements were examined orally. It
was duly noted in the record which forms of testimony had been provided by the individual
witnesses.
The following excerpts discusses evidence received in testimony and from other sources. Philosophic
premises concerning roles and responsibilities of the individual are outlined as a prelude to discussing
the practical issues of taxation, political policy, public safety and health. In applying the principles of
English Common Law to peoples in a subcontinent whose beliefs and customs varied greatly from
those of Great Britain, the issues of feasibility and the common good were of prime concern. If
schemes of regulation of intoxicants followed this rationalistic model today, the mistakes made then
might not require repeating in each generation. Current technologic advances do not produce
progress in the area of human behavior; they only help to magnify defects and frailties.
ti
Centennial Thoughts
Tod H. Mikuriya, M.D.
This monumental study exposes the overriding and pervasive powers of contemporary collective
denial and moral failure underpinning policies of cannabis prohibition. Motivated by convenient
moralism, questions are repeatedly disingenuously raised concerning the harm of hemp drugs,
cannabis, or marijuana. The engine of agitprop bureaucratic ire fires up. Hearings are scheduled,
witnesses heard, proceedings transcribed, summarized, presented to the requesting organization,
discussed, filed, and forgotten. The prohibition policies go on. Enforcement, corrections systems
strain under the demands of majoritarian magical beliefs in coercive powers of Government;
promoted by continuing self-serving Government misinformation and censorship. From the Indian
Hemp Drugs Commission's policy perspective, today's drug polices would be unthinkable.
In the century since the resolution passed the British House of Commons setting up the Indian Hemp
Drugs Commission that resulted in this massive inquiry documented in a nine volume report there
have been drastic changes in public policy in the United States and Great Britain.
The Indian hemp drug regulation policies were explicitly predicated upon optimal and minimal
government intervention.
The subsequent century in the United States, Great Britain, and Europe has seen pandemic spread of
prohibitionist authoritarian Government interference- the American Disease- social experiment run
amok.
Income taxes, mass conscription, and two world wars have seen regression from utilitarian
governance of enlightened non-interference to intrusive majoritarian autocracy. Authoritative
Government has become authoritarian. Less and less Government justification and demonstrated
necessity are needed. The principle of non-interference is virtually inoperative. The space of human
existence where a person reigns uncontrolled contracts even further. The large departments of
individualistic human life are contracted or eliminated by laws, public and corporate policy.
The second intervention by Government; giving advice and promulgating information has seen a
parallel degradation. From legitimate and trustworthy dissemination of factual information through the
institutions of science and medicine to censorship, giving bad advice, dissimulation and deception in
the service of coercion and manipulation. The ensuing chaos of ignorance, partial truths, and outright
lies has produced a cacophonous toxic confusion surrounding the use of hemp drugs. The font of
contemporary knowledge is now a stinking swamp, hopelessly poisoned by the ignorant fantasies,
fears, and untruths resulting from prohibitionists' drug propaganda efforts.
Fifty years after the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report in America the New York Mayor's
Committee on Marihuana reported on use of the drug after a five year study, seven years after
national marijuana prohibition. The perspective was based on the premise that departments of human
life and individual circle with uncontrolled reign did not include the right to use marihuana. The
authoritative Government intervention of Prohibition is now accepted; the non-interference principle
of the Millsean Indian Hemp Drugs Administration policy; dead- a luxury enjoyed, ironically, by
people of India subjugated by the British imperium.
Descriptions of marihuana use were now from the perspective of studying the characteristics of the
users of this illicit drug: to what extent, method of distribution, attitude of smoker toward society and
use of the drug, relationship with eroticism, crime, and juvenile delinquency. Discussions of legitimacy
of Government intervention are by implication discussing the relative dangerousness of marihuana.
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The legitimacy of Prohibition as a social policy was neither justified nor discussed. Religious use or
freedom is not mentioned.
"I am glad that the sociological, psychological, and medical ills commonly attributed to marihuana
have been found to be exaggerated insofar as the City of New York is concerned. I hasten to point
out, however, that the findings are to be interpreted only as a reassuring report of progress and not as
encouragement to indulgence, for I shall continue to enforce the laws prohibiting the use of marihuana
until and if complete findings may justify an amendment to existing laws."
In the 1970 revision in Government marihuana prohibition policy generated another report in 1972:
Marihuana: a Signal of Misunderstanding- First Report of the National Commission on Marihuana
and Drug Abuse.
Individual rights are at least discussed in order to be heavily discounted:
"So, while we agree with the basic philosophical precept that society may interfere with individual
conduct only in the public interest, using coercive measures only when less restrictive measures would
not suffice, this principle merely initiates inquiry into a rational social policy but does not identify it.
We must take a careful look at this complicated question of the social impact of private behavior.
And we must recognize at the outset the inherent difficulty in predicting effects on the public health
and welfare, and the strong conflicting notions of what constitutes the public interest."
"Religious freedom" as currently delineated by the Government places the burden on the individual to
pass certain "tests" to prove that hemp drugs used for sacramental purposes:
"Cases dealing with religious freedom in other contexts have isolated three distinct foci of inquiry
when a law is challenged as violative of the "free exercise" clause: (1) Is the claimant's belief and
practice really a "religion" within the meaning of the First Amendment? (2) If so, is the practice
prohibited by the challenged statute essential to the practice of the "religion?" (3) Even if the answers
to (1) and (2) are yes, is there nevertheless a sufficiently compelling state interest to warrant
overriding the practice? Only when the proscribed activity is essential to a qualified "religion" and the
state's interest is not overwhelming will the courts invoke the First Amendment to invalidate an
otherwise permissible legislative proscription."
In the 1989 Carl Olsen, a white Rastafarian and director of Iowa NORML unsuccessfully attempted
a religious freedom defense for charges of marijuana selling and importation for distribution to other
members of the Ethiopian Coptic Zion Church.
"If the 'compelling interest' test is to be applied...it must be applied across the board, to all actions
thought to be religiously commanded... Any society adopting such a system would be courting
anarchy.... The rule respondents favor would open the prospect of constitutionally required religious
exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind- ranging from compulsory military
service....to the payment of taxes drug laws."
Dutifully crafted by Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, now on the supreme court, no question of how
authoritative interference of Government is accepted to be appropriate public policy. Religious
freedom is now restricted to activity that must be asserted and proven rather than assumed. Proving
compelling interest has switched from the Government to the individual.
Departments of human life were seen not to be imperiously guarded for the individual but regarded
with mistrust and source of opportunities for dissent against public policy. At the height of the
Vietnam war marijuana use was strongly identified with the growing student antiwar resistance.
The non-intervention principle is at least recognized but the departments of individuality and circle
around the individual were routinely stepped over by Government with justification in this case for
national security. Militarism preempted any considerations of individual rights of privacy.
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Departments of human life were small and confined to cosmetic obligatory institutional ritual displays
in the context of growing public resistance to the American military industrial behemoth run amok in
southeast Asia.
Notwithstanding the cautious conclusion of the Commission to critically examine the policies of
marijuana prohibition, the report was conspicuously rejected sight unseen by then president Richard
M. Nixon to demonstrate his being "tough on crime" in a presidency struggling to end the Vietnam
war.
Twenty-two years later on the centennial of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report finds the
principle of Government non-interference is an all but forgotten faded idealistic icon, given hollow
obeisance at state ceremonies, a quaint philosophical curiosity of the past. The circle around the
individual is reduced to a pale, flaccid, tattered, transparent, and permeable membrane. Intrusion is
limited only by available funding to Government interference. The worsening of the balance of power
between the individual and state has increased by an order of magnitude, facilitated by advances in
technology.
Toqueville in his prophetic Democracy in America warns of dangerous forms of despotism in
democratic, egalitarian America:
"A great many persons of the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between
administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for
the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at
large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of
extorted obedience."
"Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it
circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The
principle of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them and
often to look upon them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and
fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers
the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which
the most original minds and most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The
will of the man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act,
but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents
existence, it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till
each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the
government is the shepherd."
Attacked by oaths of "drug free," informers (including children), undercover police, drug-sniffing
dogs, random and warrantless searches, child snatching, drug testing, forfeiture of property,
surveillance of bank, business, electricity, and other records, the departments of human life wither.
The parts of human life considered reserved territory are noticeably smaller- the individual, society
and "civilization" suffer the loss.
Review of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report is important for perspective in assessing the
legitimacy and direction of contemporary Government drug policy in a democratic society. Froude's
theorem of functional governance: "no laws are of any service which are above the working level of
public morality, and evasion." was of importance to feudal England, the Indian Hemp Drugs
Commission in 1894 and a century later a public policy issue of prime magnitude.
THM April 16, 1994
References
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CHAPTER IX
SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS.
Scope of this Chapter.
431. In the instructions issued to the Commission by the Government of India, reference is made to
the use of hemp drugs among fakirs and ascetics who are held in veneration by large classes of the
people, and to the custom, which is believed to obtain to a large extent in Bengal, of offering an
infusion of bhang to every guest and member of the family on the last day of the Durga Puja. The
Commission were instructed to ascertain to what extent these and similar customs prevail in Bengal
and other parts of India, and how far the use of hemp drugs forms a part of social, or possibly
religious, ceremonial or observance. Questions 32 and 33 of the Commission's questions were
intended to elicit information on these points.
Bengal.
432. In Bengal there is a considerable body of evidence dealing with these customs, and more
particularly with the custom of offering an infusion of bhang on the last day of the Durga Puja. Some
few witnesses, it is true, state either that no social or religious custom with which hemp drugs are
connected exists, or that they are unaware of any such custom; but the great majority of the witnesses
either give an account of them more or less full, or allude to them briefly as matters of common
notoriety.
Durga Puja.
433. The custom of offering an infusion of the leaves of the hemp plant to every guest and member of
the family on the Bijoya Dasami, or last day of the Durga Puja, is common in Bengal, and may almost
be said to be universal. It is alluded to by many of the witnesses who refer to its use on this occasion
as well as on other days of the Durga Puja festival. But, while there can be no doubt as to the
existence of the custom, there is considerable divergence of opinion as to the true nature of it. The
custom itself is a simple one. On the last day of this great festival the male members of the family go
forth to consign the image to the waters and on their return the whole family with their guests
exchange greetings and embrace one another. During this rejoicing a cup containing an infusion of the
leaves of the hemp plant is handed round, and all are expected to partake thereof, or at least to place
it to the lips in token of acceptance. Sweetmeats containing hemp are also distributed. Opinion is
almost equally divided as to whether the custom is a mere social observance, or whether it is an
essential part of the religious ceremonial of the festival. There is difference whether there is any
injunction in theof opinion among the witnesses as to Shastras rendering obligatory the consumption
of hemp; but Tantric religious works sanction the use, and the custom whatever be its origin may now
be said from immemorial usage to be regarded by many people as part of their religious observances.
From the evidence of the witnesses it would appear that there is no specific direction in the Shastras
of the manner in which the drug should be used but from the references quoted it would appear that
the use alluded to is authority that of bhang in the form of an infusion. Witnesses who can speak
Mahamahon hopadhya Mahesa Chandra Nyayaratna, C.I on the subject, such as Principal of
the Government Sanskrit College, Calcutta, testify to religious sanction for the use
of bhang or siddhi, while many witnesses of high social position, well acquainted
with the habits of the people, as, for example, Maharaja Sir Jotindra Mohain
Tagore, K.C.S.I., Maharaja Durga Charan Law, Raja Piari Mohan Mukharji,
C.S.I., Rai Rajkumar Sarvadhikari Bahadur, Rai Bahadur Kanai Lail . Day, C.I.E.,
and others, speak to the prevalence of the custom, its intimate association with the
religious devotions of the people, and the innocent harmlessness of the practice.
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Other occasions on which bhang is used.
434. The custom described above, and which refers solely to bhang as distinguished from other
preparations of the hemp plant, is he most important occasion on which bhang is used as a part of
social or religious ceremonies; but there is evidence to show that the drug in this form is used at other
festivals. For example, at the Holi festival, which is observed more generally in Behar than in other
parts of the Lower Provinces, bhang is commonly consumed; and, according to many witnesses, at
such festivals as the Diwali, Chait Sankranti, Pous Sankranti, Sripanchami, Sivachaturdasi,
Ramnavami, and indeed on occasions of weddings and many other family festivities. But, so far as the
evidence shows, the use on those occasions is a matter of social custom observed more generally in
some parts of the province than in others, and, although nodoubt there may be some who consider it
essential to their devotions, partaking but little of the nature of general religious observance. In Orissa
bhang is largely used by the attendants and worshippers at the temple of Jagannath at Puri; and there
appears also to exist a custom, somewhat similar to that of the Durga Puja in Bengal, of offering
siddhi or bhang in the form of sweetmeats to the god Ganesh, which are then eaten by the
worshippers and their friends and relatives. This festival, called the Ganesh Chaturthi, occurs in the
month of Bhadro (August-September).
Connection of ganja with the worship of Siva.
435. It is chiefly in connection with the worship of Siva, the Mahadeo or great god of the Hindu
trinity, that the hemp plant, and more especially perhaps ganja, is associated. The hemp plant is
popularly believed to have been a great favourite of Siva, and there is a great deal of evidence before
the Commission to show that the drug in some form or other is now extensively used in the exercise
of the religious practices connected with this form of worship. Reference to the almost universal use
of hemp drugs by fakirs, jogis, sanyasis, and ascetics of all classes, and more particularly of those
devoted to the worship of Siva, will be found in the paragraphs of this report dealing with the classes
of the people who consume the drugs. These religious ascetics, who are regarded with great
veneration by the people at large, believe that the hemp plant is a special attribute of the god Siva,
and this belief is largely shared by the people. Hence the of many fond epithets ascribing to ganja the
significance of a divine pro-party, and the common practice of invoking the deity in terms of
adoration before placing the chillum or pipe of ganja to the lips. There is evidence to show that on
almost all occasions of the worship of this god, the hemp drugs in some form or other are used by
certain classes of the people it is established by the evidence of Mahamabopadhya Mahesa Chandra
Nyayaratna and of other witnesses that siddhi is offered to the image of Siva at Benares, Baldynath,
Tarakeswar, and elsewhere. At the Shivratri festival, and on almost all occasions before the on which
this worship is practised, there is abundant evidence Commission which shows not only that ganja is
offered to the god and consumed by these classes of the worshippers, but that these customs are so
intimately connected with their worship that they may be considered to form in some sense an integral
part of it.
Trinath.
436. The special form of worship by the followers of Siva, called the Trinath or Tinnath Mela, in
which the use of ganja is considered to be essential, is mentioned by many witnesses, and deserves
more than a passing notice. A full account of this religious practice given by Babu Abhilas Chandra
Mukharji will be found in Vol. Ill Appendices of this Report. The origin of the rite, which it is said
sprang up first in Eastern Bengal, appears to be of recent date, about the year 1867. It appears to be
observed at all times and at all seasons by Hindus and Muhammadans alike, the latter calling it
Tinlakh Pir. When an object of special desire is fulfilled, or when a person recovers from illness, or a
son is bom, or a marriage or other ceremony is performed, the god Trinath, representing in one the
Hindu trinity, is worshipped. Originally one pice worth of ganja, one pice worth of oil, and one pice
worth of betel-nut was offered to the god. But now ganja-it may be in large quantities-is proffered,
and during the incantations and the performance of the ritual it is incumbent on all present to smoke.
This form of worship is shown to have spread extensively throughout Eastern Bengal and the Surma
Valley of Assam, and, according to one witness, it has penetrated, even to Orissa. On the other
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hand, there are a few witnesses who say that the practice is gradually dying out.
Muhamadans
437. The use of hemp drugs is as a rule in no way connected with orthodox Muhammadan
observances, whether social or religious. The Muhammadan religion condemns such practices.
Assam..
438. In Assam, where the use of hemp dmgs is but little practised by the Assamese proper, there
appear to be no indigenous customs connected with the dmgs. But the customs prevailing in Bengal
are also found in Assam. There is evidence as to the use of bhang or siddhi at the Durga Puja, and of
ganja by the worshippers of Siva. In Sylhet the Trinath form of worship appears to prevail to a
considerable extent. With reference to this practice, one witness (Prasanno Kumar Das) observes
that "in the Surma Valley ganja is offered in the name of Pit Muhammadan saint) for the benefit of the
cattle."
North-Western Provinces.
439. In the North-Western Provinces, where the celebration of the Durga Puja is not so generally
observed as in Bengal, a con-siderable number of witnesses (some fifty in all) state that there are no
customs, religious or social, with which these drugs are connected. But, on the other hand, there is
overwhelming evidence to establish the almost universal use by the people of bhang at the Holi
festival, and some evidence as to the common use of ganja by certain classes of the followers of Siva
at their festivals and seasons of worship. Of the witnesses who speak to the use of ganja in
connection with religious observances, 22 state that it is essential and 92 that it is not essential. As to
whether the use of bhang should be regarded as a purely social custom or as essential to religious
observance,, the opinion of witnesses who speak on the point is about equally divided. It is sufficient
to say that the custom is now a general one, and that where the Holi festival is observed, there the
practice of consuming bhang during its observance is common. On other occasions, such as the
Diwali festival, marriages, and family festivities, there is evidence to show that among certain classes
the consumption of bhang is common. Allusion is also frequently made to the habit of using bhang, to
which, for example, the Chaubes of Mathra and Brindaban are notoriously addicted, but how far the
habit is connected with the religious observances at the temples the evidence does not justify the
formation of an opinion. A custom is mentioned by, a Kumaon witness, Dharma Nand Joshi, who
states that a class of people called Kouls, who worship spirits, meat, fish, etc., have the bhang plant
as one of the objects of their worship.
Punnjab
440. In the Punjab there is evidence as to the general use of hemp by some of the followers of Siva,
and especially of bhang, at the Holi, Dasehra, Diwali, and other festivals, and on the occasion o£
marriages and other family festivities. Among the Sikhs the use of bhang as a beverage appears to be
common, and to be associated with their religious practices. The witnesses who refer to this use by
the Sikhs appear to regard it as an essential part of their religious rites having the authority of the
Granth or Sikh scripture. Witness Sodhi Iswar Singh, Extra Assistant Commissioner, says :"As far as
I know, bhang is pounded by the Sikhs on the Dasehra day, and it is ordinarily binding upon every
Sikh to drink it as a sacred draught by mixing water with it. Legend—Gum Gobind Singh, the tenth
gum, the founder of the Sikh religion, was on the gaddi of Baba Nanak in the time of Emperor
Aurangzeb. When the gum was at Anandpur, tahsil Una, Hoshiarpur district, engaged in battle with
the Hill Rajas of the Simla, Kangra, and the Hoshiarpur districts, the Rains sent an elephant, who was
trained in attacking and slaying the forces of the enemy with a sword in his tmnk and in breaking
open the gates of forts, to attack and capture the Lohgarh fort near Anandpur. The gum gave one of
his followers, Bachittar Singh, some bhang and a little of opium to eat, and directed him to face the
said elephant. This brave man obeyed the word of command of his leader and attacked the elephant,
who was intoxicated and had achieved victories in several battles before, with the result that the
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animal was overpowered and the Hill Rajas defeated. The use of bhang, therefore, on the Dasehra
day is necessary as a sacred draught. It is customary among the Sikhs generally to drink bhang, so
that Guru Gobind Singh has himself said the following poems in praise of bhang: "Give me, O Saki
(butler), a cup of green colour (bhang), as it is required by me at the time of battle (vide 'Suraj
Parkash,' the Sikh religious book). "Bhang is also used on the Chandas day, which is a festival of the
god Sheoji Mahadeva. The Sikhs consider it binding to use it on the Dasehra day-The quantity then
taken is too small to prove injurious." As Sikhs are absolutely prohibited by their religion from
smoking, the use of ganja and charas in this form is not practised by them, of old Sikh times, is
annually permitted to collect without interference a boat load of bhang, which is afterwards,
distributed throughout the year to the sadhus and beggars who are supported by the dharamsala.
Central Provinces.
441. The evidence as to social or religious customs in the Central Provinces is somewhat discrepant,
but on the whole points to the existence of customs akin to those existing in the North-Western
Provinces. The use of bhang at the Holi and Diwali festivals and at marriages and such occasions,
and of ganja or bhang in connection with, the worship of Siva, is frequently mentioned by the
witnesses. A few local customs are also mentioned by some witnesses. Regarding a custom of the
Chamar caste, the Rev. Mr. Jacob says: "At Chanda; the Chamars use ganja dust in the preparation
of a beverage called gulabpani, which is drunk at a ceremony called dadhi (the first shaving of the
beard), when no liquor is permitted." Among the Gonds, Cowasjee Nusserwanjee Hattidaru
describes the following custom as existing:." In the funeral ceremony amongst the Gonds of these
provinces, kalli or flat ganja is placed over the chest of the dead body of the Gond, and when the
funeral party returns home, a little of the ganja is burnt in the house of the dead person, the smoke of
which is supposed to reach the spirit of the dead." Another Satpura witness, Hosen Khan, mentions a
custom of offering "a little ganja at the Chitarai Debis, or collections of stones with rags tied to some
tree above. They offer either a cock or a cocoanut or some ganja. It is a custom among travellers.
These Chitarai Debis are in the open, and the travellers have a smoke at the same time." One witness
states that he has heard of the hemp plant being worshipped in the Berars, but this is not
corroborated by any of the witnesses from these districts. Another has heard that the Gonds in their
hill homes are worshippers of the plant
Madras.
442. In the Madras Presidency, where the use of hemp drugs is less common than in most other
provinces, many witnesses assert that there are no customs, social or religious, with which they are
connected, and the evidence as a whole fails to establish the prevalence of any customs so general as
those connected with the Durga Puja and the worship of Siva in Bengal or the Holi festival in the
North-Western Provinces. But there is evidence as to the existence of customs of a less general or
widespread nature. In Ganjam, the witnesses speak to the common use bhang on the Mesha
Sankranti day in honour of Siva and Anjanayya, and also in the worship of Durga. Several also
allude to a custom of offering a confection or draught containing bhang to the image at the temples of
Hanuman. At the festival of Kama, the Indian cupid, bhang is freely made and drunk according to
several witnesses. The Rajputs or Bondilis are particularly referred to in connection with this custom.
On occasions of holidays or gala-days, and at the Mohurram, a number of witnesses say it is usual
for Muhammadans as well as Hindus to take bhang. It is also said that various intoxicants, including
ganja, are sometimes offered to the gods in worship, and then swallowed by those offering them.
Witness M. Sundaram Iyer, Deputy Tahsildar (60), says: "Some of the lower orders make use of
ganja as an offering, like cocoa-nut, plantains, liquor, and such other articles, for certain deities, such
as Mathura—veeran, Muniappan, etc., according to the vow taken by each person. This cannot be
considered as essential, but is only a practice observed in very rare cases. Such practice is not
followed by many people, and it is not injurious. "Others allude to the offering of ganja to
Karuppannam, Kali, Mathuraveeran, Muniappan, Karuannaswami, and Aiyaswami, more
particularly in the south of the Presidency. Mr. Azizuddin, Sahib Bahadur, Deputy Collector, says:
"Neither the Musalman nor the Hindu religion requires the use of these drugs on religious occasions.
On the other hand, it is prohibited. Nevertheless, in the maths of bairagis, such as at Tripati, and of
Ii
Muhammadan saints, such as at Nagore Conjeveram, Arcot, and other places, the manager of the
shrine distributes ganja to all the fakirs who assemble during the festival. In none of these places,
religiously speaking, ganja should be distributed, but, according to custom among the fakirs, its
distribution is essential." The Rev. Mr. Campbell says that ganja is used in connection with the funeral
ceremonies observed by certain classes, but that the use is not essential. Mr. Merriman alludes to a
custom of offering and consuming bhang at the funeral of bhang consumers.
Bombay
443. An interesting note, entitled "The Religion of Hemp," by Mr. J. M. Campbell, C.I.E., will be
found in Vol. Ill Appendices. In the Bombay presidency the use of hemp in connection with the
worship of Siva, Mahadev or Shankar appears to be very common. It is referred to by many
witnesses. The following description of this custom as prevailing in part of Gujarat, Kaira, and
probably Ahmedabad has been furnished to the Excise Commissioner by Mr. B. E. Modi, Deputy
Collector: "On the Shivratri day (the last day but one of the month of Magh), sacred to the god
Mahadev or Shankar, bhang water is freely poured over the lingam. Mahadev is an ascetic, and is
fond of bhang, and on this day it is considered a religious duty to offer him his favourite drink. From
this day to the 11th day of Ashad, on which day gods go to sleep, water is kept constantly dripping
upon the lingam of Mahadev from an earthen pot kept above it. "Somewhat similar accounts varying
in detail are given by many witnesses coming from different parts of the province, of whom some also
refer to the habit which ganja smokers have of invoking the deity before placing the pipe, to their lips.
Others also refer to hemp as required in the worship of Baldeo and to its use at the Shimga or Holi
festival. The Marwaris and some other classes appear to use bhang at marriages and other festivities.
Mr. Charles, Collector of Belgaum, says that among Musalmans and Marathas the ganja plant is
offered to dead relatives who used it in their lifetime at the time of the anniversary ceremonies of their
death. There appears to be no special custom of worshipping the hemp plant itself. R. K. Kothavale,
of Satara district, says the hemp plant is worshipped, by one sect only, namely, by people from
Northern India and Nepal, while Mr. Lamb, Collector of Alibag, remarks that some of the Kunbis
who make Offerings to the local divinities of their fields at the harvest season include a. small quantity
of ganja in the offerings.
Sind.
444. In Sind the customs, both religious and' social, appear to be much the same as in Bombay. In
Karachi and some other places bhang is generally offered to all comers on occasions of marriages,
panchayats, and other gatherings; and the custom of freely distributing bhang as a charity to all who
dare to partake is common both at temples and at other places of resort.
Berar.
445. In Berar there is evidence as to the use both of ganja and bhang at the Shivratri and Holi
festivals and at social gatherings. The hemp plant itself is not worshipped, but, according to One
witness, when a consumer dies, the plant is kept near his corpse during the funeral ceremony.
Ajmere-Merwara.
446. At the Holi and the Shivratri and at family festivities the drugs, especially bhang, are used.
Baluchistan.
447. Major Gaisford, Deputy Commissioner, states that among the Hindu sect called Barn Bargis the
consumption of bhang is regarded as essential.
Native States.
448. From Native States there is but little information regarding customs, either social or religious,
11
with which these drugs are connected. No purely local or indigenous customs have been brought to
the notice of the Commission, but there is sufficient information to show that practices similar to those
existing in British provinces at the Holi and Shrivratri festivals and on occasions of family rejoicings
are observed by certain classes of the people in many Native States.
Worship of the hemp plant
449. The custom of worshipping the hemp plant, although not so prevalent as that of offering hemp to
Siva and other deities of the Hindus, would nevertheless appear from the statements of the witnesses
to exist to some extent in some provinces of India. The reason why this fact is not generally known
may perhaps be gathered from such statements as that of Pandit Dharma Nand Joshi, who says that
such worship is performed in secret. There may be another cause of the denial on the part of the
large majority of Hindu witnesses of any knowledge of the existence of a custom of worshipping the
hemp plant in that the educated Hindu will not admit that he worships the material object of his
adoration, but the deity as represented by it. The custom of worshipping the hemp plant, though not
confined to the Himalayan districts or the northern portions of India alone, where the use of the
products of the hemp plant is more general among the people, is less known as we go south. Still
even far south, in some of the hilly districts of the Madras Presidency and among the rural population,
the hemp plant is looked upon with some sort of veneration. Mr. J. H. Merriman (witness No. 28,
Madras) says: "I know of no custom of worshipping the hemp plant, but believe it is held in a certain
sort of veneration by some classes." Mr. J. Sturrock, the Collector of Coimbatore (witness No. 2,
Madras), says: "In some few localities there is a tradition of sanctity attached to the plant, but no
regular worship. "The Chairman of the Conjeveram Municipal Board, Mr. E. Subramana Iyer
(witness No. 143, Madras) says: "There is no plant to be worshipped here, but it is generally used as
sacrifices to some of the minor Hindu deities. "There is a passage quoted from Rudrayanmal
Danakand and Karmakaud in the report on the use of hemp drugs in the Baroda State, which also
shows that the worship of the bhang plant is enjoined in the Shastras. It is thus stated: "The god
Shiva says to Parvati— 'Oh, goddess Parvati, hear the benefits derived from bhang. The worship of
bhang raises one to my position. In Bhabishya Puran it is stated that "on the 13th moon of Chaifra
(March and April) one who wishes to see the number of his sons and grandsons increased must
worship Kama (Cupid) in the hemp plant, etc.".
General conclusions
1 .In summing up their conclusions on this chapter, the Commission would first remark that
charas, which is a comparatively new article of consumption, has not been shown to be in any
way connected with religious observance. As regards Northern India, the Commission are of
opinion that the use of bhang is more or less common everywhere in connection with the social
and religious customs of the people As regards ganja they find that there are certain classes in
all parts, except the Punjab, who use the drug in connection with their social and religious
observances. The Commission are also of opinion in regard to bhang that its use is considered
essential in some religious observances by a large section of the community, and in regard to
ganja that those who consider it essential are comparatively very few. The Commission have
little doubt that interference with the use of hemp in connection with the customs and
observances above referred to would be regarded by the consumers as an interference with
long established usage and as an encroachment upon their religious liberty. And this feeling
would, especially in the case of bhang, undoubtedly be shared to some extent by the people at
large. Regarding Southern India, the same remarks apply with this reservation, that, the
difference between ganja and bhang as materials for smoking and drinking respectively is much
less marked there, and the distinction between the two forms of the drug is much less clearly
recognised, although by the term "bhang" is generally meant the drug as used for drinking, and
by "ganja" the drug as used for smoking.
i1
CHAPTER XIV.
THE POLICY OF HEMP DRUG ADMINISTRATION
General principles regarding sumptuary laws and their application to India.
553. The question of prohibiting the growth of the hemp plant and the sale of ganja and allied drugs is
one which stands in the to forefront Of the present inquiry. It has been remarked by a well known
historian that "no laws are of any service which are above the working level of public morality, and
the deeper they are carried down into life, the larger become the opportunities of evasion. If these
words are true as applied to England under a feudal system, they are much more true in the present
day as applied to British India. The Government of this country has not grown out of the forces
contained within it, but has been superimposed upon them, and the paternal system of government
which may have been suitable in England during the sixteenth century, and in, the initial development
of some Indian provinces during the period immediately following their annexation, becomes purely
visionary when public opinion is in process of formation and the needs of the people are year by year
finding more ready expression. Occasionally, no doubt, the Legislature in India has anticipated a
standard of morality not universally accepted by the people, as in the case of laws relating to
infanticide or the burning of Hindu widows; but these measures were passed under an overwhelming
sense of the necessity of correcting popular notions of morality in matters coming well within the
sphere of Government, and in the assurance that in the course of time they could not fail to secure the
assent of all intelligent members of the community. In the chapter of Mill's Political Economy which
treats of the non-interference principle, a distinction is made between two kinds of intervention by the
Government— the one authoritative interference, and the other giving advice or promulgating
information. And the following remarks are made regarding the former:
"It is evident, even at first sight, that the authoritative form of Government intervention has a much
more limited sphere of legitimate action than the other. It requires a much stronger necessity to justify
it in any case, while there are large departments of human life from which it must be unreservedly and
imperiously excluded. Whatever theory we adopt respecting the foundation of the social union, and
under whatever political institutions we live, there is a circle around every individual human being
which no Government, be it that of one, or of few, or of the many, ought to be permitted to overstep
there is a part of the life of every person who has come to years of discretion within which the
individuality of that person ought to reign uncontrolled either by any other individual or by the public
collectively. That there is, or ought to be, some space in human existence thus entrenched around no
one who professes the smallest regard to human freedom or dignity will call in question: the point to
be determined is where the limit should be placed; how large a province of human life this reserved
territory should include. I apprehend that it ought to include all that part which concerns only the life,
whether inward or outward of the individual, and does not affect, the interests of Others, or affect,
them only through the moral influence of example. With respect to the domain of the inward
consciousness, the thoughts and feelings, and as much of external conduct as is personal only,
involving no consequences, none at least of a painful or injurious kind, to other people, I hold that it is
allowable in all, and in the more thoughtful and cultivated often a duty, to assert and promulgate with
all the force they are capable of their opinion of what is good or bad, admirable or contemptible, but
not to compel others to conform to that opinion, whether the force used is that of extra legal
coercion, or exerts itself by means of the law. Even in those portions of conduct which do affect the
interests of others, the onus of making out a case always lies on the defenders of legal prohibitions. It
is not merely a constructive or presumptive injury to others which will justify the interference of law
with individual freedom. To be prevented from what one is inclined to, or from acting contrary to
one's own judgment of what is desirable, is not only always irksome, but always tends, pro tanto, to
starve the development of some portion of the bodily or mental faculties, either sensitive or active;
and, unless the conscience of the individual goes freely with the legal restraint, it partakes, either in a
great or in a small degree, of the degradation of slavery. Scarcely any degree of utility short of
11
absolute necessity will justify a prohibitory regulation, unless it can also be made to recommend itself
to the general conscience; unless persons of ordinary good intentions either believe already, or can be
induced to believe, that the thing prohibited is a thing which they ought not to wish to do."
These remarks have been given at length, because the Commission believe that they contain a clear
exposition of the principles which should guide them in deciding whether the prohibition of the hemp
drugs should be authoritatively enforced by Government.
The question of entirely suppressing all intoxicants.
554- Now, a certain number of .persons (among whom may in all probability,- be reckoned the
mover of the question in the, House of Commons which led to the appointment of the-Indian Hemp
Drugs Commission) deem it to be the duty of the British Government to suppress the trade in all
intoxicants in all the countries under its sway; and there are no doubt special circumstances in India
which render it less, impossible than in some other countries to consider even so drastic a policy.
These are notably the general sobriety of its races and the feeling, popular as well as religious, which
prevails against their use among a large section of the community. Even then no appeal in support of
such a measure can be made to the public morality or practice of civilised
nations at large, nor, so far as the Commission are aware,
to any marked success attending the experiment in particular
instances. In the exceptional cases in which the experiment
has been attended with partial success (as in some of the
American States), the reformation of the habit has become an
object of desire to the majority of the people, and the
enactment for promoting Such reformation has presented
itself less as a restrictive force than as an auxiliary
agency
Not laid before the commission
555. But the Commission are not called upon to pronounce on so wide an issue. It was not upon the
basis of this general principle that the Secretary of State for India accepted the proposal made in the
House of Commons, nor do the instructions issued to the Commission by the Government of India
cover so wide a field. The question of prohibiting the production and sale of the hemp drugs in India
has to be considered by the Commission apart from the general question, and such prohibition must
be justified, if at all, on some more special ground than the mere fact that they are intoxicants.
The past history of the case how far to be relied upon.
556. Again, there are a certain number of persons whose' evidence before the Commission points to
the assumption that the case for prohibition of the hemp drugs has already been established in the
records of the Government, and that further enquiry implies a willful blindness to what has been
abundantly proved by such records. A reference to Chapter XII of this Report will show how
untrustworthy these records are in regard to the production of insanity by the use of the drugs— an
aspect of the question which is of the utmost importance, and has formed the basis of nearly all the
official opinion heretofore recorded, against such use. And, after availing themselves fully of every
opportunity of consulting the official literature on the subject, the Commission have arrived at the
conclusion that it shows little originality, and that a very limited amount of personal observation has
been made to do duty as the basis of large conclusions. The want of reliable data has been
compensated by annual reiteration until the stamp of antiquity has secured for the opinions so
expressed a large amount of acquiescence among officials who had neither the time nor the
opportunity to examine the matter for themselves So far, therefore, as the effects of the hemp drugs
are concerned, the Commission have had to approach the subject as almost a tabula rasa, and,
while availing themselves of the imperfect data previously collected, have endeavoured to avoid
accepting any conclusions without a substantial foundation of well ascertained facts. The attitude,
however, of the Government in regard to the question may be briefly described. So far back as 1798
11
an inquiry was made in Bengal regarding the quality of ten intoxicating articles- "opium, madak
ganja, subzi, bhang, majum, banker, charas, tobacco, and toddy—" with a view to determining
whether it might not be advisable to prohibit altogether the sale of any of them. The conclusion
arrived at, which was stated in a letter of the Board to the Governor-General in Council, No. 22,
dated 29th May 1798, was to the following effect. "It appears that the original productions are as
follows: Tobacco, opium, ganja, subzi or bhang, banker, and toddy, and that the three remaining
articles are for the most part compositions of those here recited, as above mentioned. With respect
to the drugs specified m the foregoing schedule, they are not for the most part represented as
producing any very violent or dangerous effects of intoxication except when taken to excess; and,
although the operation of them-may be more powerful in their compound state, we apprehend it
would be difficult to sanction the sale of the original productions, and to prohibit with effect the use of
compositions of which they are susceptible; to which may be added that most of these articles, both
as original productions and as artificial combinations appear to be useful either in medicine or
otherwise; for these reasons we do not deem it necessary to recommend that the sale of any of them
be altogether prohibited, but shall proceed to state what appear to us the. best means of restraining
the use of them, and improving the revenue by the imposition of such taxes as are best adapted to the
nature of the case." A complete inquiry was made in 1871 from all provinces as to the effects of
several preparations of hemp; and if the result should call for any action in the direction of restricting
them by enhancement of the duty or of limiting, or even prohibiting, the cultivation of the. plant, the
advice of the Local Governments was invited as to the expediency and practicability of such
measures. The result is contained in the Resolution of the Government of. India, Finance Department,
No. 3773, dated 17th December 1873. The following passage shows the conclusion arrived at:
"Upon a consideration of all the opinions thus collected, it does not appear to the Governor-General
in Council to be specially proved that hemp incites to crime more than other drugs or than spirits.
And there is some evidence to show that on rare occasions this drug, usually so noxious, may be
usefully taken. There can, however, be no doubt that its habitual use does produce insanity. The total
number of cases of insanity is small in proportion to the population, and not large even in proportion
to the number of ganja smokers; but of the cases of insanity produced by the excessive use of dings
or spirits, by far the largest number must be attributed to the abuse of hemp. Lower Bengal the
circumstances have admitted of a system under which the consumption of ganja has been reduced
one-half, while the amount of duty levied on it has been doubled. It would be very desirable to
control the cultivation and preparation of ganja and bhang elsewhere-in the same way. But it is
believed that this would not be easy; indeed, it would probably be impracticable. Moreover, with the
exception of the Chief Commissioners of British Burma and the Central Provinces, the Local
Governments are not in favour of altering existing arrangements. His Excellency in Council, however,
trusts that the various Local Governments and Administrations will endeavour, wherever it may be
possible, to discourage the consumption of ganja and bhang by placing restrictions on their
cultivation, preparation and retail, and imposing on their use as high a rate of duty as can be levied
without inducing illicit practices. As regards British Burma, the Chief Commissioner has already been
informed that the Governor-General in Council concurs with him in thinking that the cultivation and
consumption of ganja should be absolutely prohibited, and it has been prohibited from the beginning
of the year 1873-74. "
In 1877 the Bengal Government appointed a special officer, Babu Hem Chunder Kerr, to make a full
inquiry into the details of the cultivation of ganja, the sufficiency or otherwise of the present
safeguards, and the reforms which it might be advisable to introduce. Sir Ashley Eden's conclusions
on this officer's report in regard to the effects of ganja and policy to be followed were as follows:
"The Lieutenant-Governor has himself no doubt that the use of ganja in any form is injurious to the
consumer, and that it is the duty of Government to make the tax on this article as high as it can
possibly bear. Unfortunately it is habitually used by large numbers of the lower classes of the
population, who would, if deprived of it altogether, apparently find in the leaves of the wild hemp
plant and in other drugs narcotics and stimulants of equally deleterious character. It does not seem
possible, therefore, to stop the cultivation altogether. The policy of Government must be to limit its
production and sale by a high rate of duty without placing the drug entirely beyond the reach of those
who will insist upon having it." The last important utterance on the subject previous to the
I i
appointment of the Commission is contained in the letter of the Government of India, Finance
Department, to Her Majesty's Secretary of State, No. 212, dated 9th August 1892, in which the
following remarks occur: "We are inclined to believe that ganja is the most noxious of all intoxicants
now commonly used in India. But even if the absolute prohibition of the use of the drug could be
enforced, the result might be to induce the use of still more noxious drugs. India abounds with plants
growing wild from which drugs can be procured which are more deleterious in their effects than
ganja. One such plant is the dhatura (Stramonium), the seeds of which are already used to intensify
the narcotic effects of bhang, a liquid preparation of hemp leaves; and we apprehend that if the use of
ganja were suppressed altogether, dhatura might be largely resorted to by the poorer classes as a
means of satisfying their craving for stimulants. Apart, however, from the objections just mentioned,
we believe, that it would be impossible to enforce in India a prohibition of the use of ganja. That drug
is produced in Native States, and the difficulties in the way of preventing its import from them, if the
supply in British India were cut off, would be immense. It would not, moreover, be possible to
suppress the supply in British India. The hemp plant grows readily in India, in many places wild
without cultivation of any kind, and it would be easy for any one addicted to the use of ganja to grow
a plant or two in the enclosure of his own house and in nooks and comers which would be safe from
observation and from the risk of detection. The question in the House of Commons suggests that as
the possession and sale of ganja has been prohibited for many years in Burma, it is desirable that the
same prohibition should be extended to other provinces of British India. The analogy of Burma does
not, however, apply to India. When the prohibition was enforced in Burma, the drug was very little
used by the Native Burmese, its consumption being almost entirely confined to coolies and other
immigrants from India; and the cultivation of the plant in Burma, which had never been extensive, had
virtually ceased, the consumers being dependent on importations for their supplies. In India, on the
other hand, the practice of ganja smoking has existed from time immemorial, and among certain sects
of Hindus, ascetics, and religious mendicants hemp intoxication is habitually indulged in; and, as
explained in the preceding paragraph, it would be impossible to suppress the growth of the plant.
But, although we consider it impracticable to enforce the absolute prohibition of the use of ganja, we
fully recognise it as our duty to restrict its consumption as far as practicable, and we have distinctly
laid down the policy to be pursued in respect of this drug in our Resolution of the 17th December
1873 already quoted. The annual reports of Excise Administration show that the subject has since
been continually before Local Governments, who are making every possible endeavour to minimise
the evils and discourage the use of the drug wherever it is a source of danger to consumers." Thus
"restraining the use and improving, the revenue by the imposition of suitable taxation," "discouraging
the consumption by placing restrictions on the cultivation, preparation, and retail, and imposing on
their use as high a rate of duty as can be levied without inducing illicit practices," "limiting the
production and sale by a high rate of duty without placing the drug entirely beyond the reach of those
who will insist upon having it," "restricting consumption as far as practicable, minimising the evils, and
discouraging the use of the drug wherever it is a source of danger to consumers" have from time to
time been the watch-words of the Government in the matter of the hemp drugs, a policy only once
definitely abandoned, viz., in the case of Burma, where total prohibition was introduced in 1873.
Prohibition in other countries.
557. Allusion must be made to precedents for the prohibition of the hemp drugs in other countries in
order to complete these general observations. Excepting British Burma (reference to which will be
made further on), the Commission only know of four cases of prohibition, viz., in Turkey, Egypt,
Greece, and Trinidad. For the first three of these, the only information at the disposal of the
Commission is contained in the communications from Her Majesty's representatives addressed to the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1892 in consequence of a requisition made on them by the
Earl of Rosebery at the request of Mr. W S Caine, M.P.
Turkey
558. The ground of the prohibition in Turkey is thus stated in a note addressed by the Grand Vizir to
the Ministry Commerce, Constantinople, on 1st March 1292 (sic):"From the reports furnished by the
Imperial Medical Council, it appeared that the use of hashish in the preparation of medicines was
iI
extremely rare, and that, being a narcotic, its use must of necessity be injurious, and that consequently
the suppression of the cultivation of hashish could not fail to prove highly advantageous." The effect of
the prohibition is thus described in an enclosure to the Ambassador's reply: "The importation and sale
in Turkey of hashish, though contraband, is still, I hear, largely carried on, and is used for smoking, in
the composition of various sweetmeats, and as an opiate in general."
Egypt.
559. In Egypt the cultivation, use, and importation of hashish were first forbidden in 1868, but in
1874 it was allowed to be imported on payment of duty. In November 1877 an order was received
from Constantinople that all hashish brought into Egypt was to be seized and destroyed, and finally, in
March 1879, the importation and cultivation of hashish were prohibited by a Khedivial decree. In
March 1884 it was provided that confiscated hashish should be sold by the Customs (for delivery
abroad) instead of being destroyed as formerly, and the proceeds of the sale divided amongst the
informers and officers who took part in the seizure. "This measure was rendered necessary," says
Mr. Caillard, the Director-General of the Customs, "by the absence of any fund from which rewards
could be distributed; while, on the other hand, the profits of smuggling being very great, large sums
were paid by the smugglers to insure the silence or complicity of the Customs officers,
coastguards-men, and others. A considerable number of persons are employed in the smuggling
trade, many of them having subsistence. Great ingenuity is displayed by the smugglers no other means
of and no sooner has one trick been discovered than another isin this illicit trade, of the
contrainvented. The great obstacle, however, to the complete repression band trade is the refusal of
some of the European Governments to recognize the right of the Egyptian Government to search
suspected shops or warehouses, and to punish the delinquents by fine as well as confiscation. In view
of the impossibility of suppressing the contraband trade in hashish under the suggested to the Minister
of Finance circumstances described above, desirability of removing the prohibition against the
importation of the and I proposed to collect a customs duty of P. T. 100 per kilogramme (9s. 3d.per
lb.), besides it license-tax on the sale of hashish. It has been abundantly proved that the vice of
hashish smoking cannot be suppressed by legislation, whereas by a system of licenses it may be kept
under control to some extent. "Mr. Caillard estimates that the quantity of hashish consumed annually
in Egypt cannot be less than 50,000 okes (about lbs. 140,000) notwithstanding the prohibition. He
states that the hashish appears to be manufactured chiefly in Greece.
Greece.
560. In Greece there is no law regulating or specially alluding to the product as merchandise is
allowed, but a Police order of 1891 prohibits its sale and consumption in the small cafes of Athens
and the Piroeus, in some of which, during the previous ten or fifteen years apparently, the habit of
using this drug had been gradually introduced. The order was based upon a report of the Sanitary
Board at Athens, in which prominent mention is made of the observations made in India by English
doctors, and the statistics of insanity in Bengal lunatic asylums ascribed to the use of the hemp drugs
are put forward as justifying, repressive measures. The effect of the order passed is not mentioned,
sufficient time not having elapsed.
Trinidad..
561. As regards Trinidad, the Commission are not sure that the hemp drugs are prohibited. The fact
has been stated by the Indian Immigrants Commission, Natal, 1885-87, and by Dr. Thomas Ireland,
Government Medical Officer, British Guiana, in a paper published in the Alienist and Neurologist,
St. Louis, in October 1893. But, on the other hand, Surgeon-Major Comins, lately on special duty in
British and Foreign Colonies and the Netherlands, in his Note on Emigration from India to Trinidad,
1893, quotes a statement of the Protector of Immigrants, who says that in the year 1885 an
Ordinance was passed requiring the payment of LI 00 per acre to obtain a license to grow ganja,
which had previously been grown in large quantities. This practically put a stop to the growth and
consumption for several years, but immigrants who had left Trinidad two years previous to the writing
of his report had been growing it in Venezuela, and several seizures had been made by the Customs
iI
officers from persons endeavouring to introduce it into Trinidad. The Protector adds: "With a coast
line such as ours, adjacent to that of the Spanish Main, it will be impossible to prevent its introduction
into this colony if immigrants who go there continue to grow it." Dr. Comins himself says: "I do not
know what are the laws in force here regarding the sale of opium and ganja."
Basis of prohibition and results in these countries.
562. Thus in the case of other countries, where the use of the drugs has been prohibited, the
Commission do not find in the literature available to them many arguments for prohibition. In Turkey
it rests upon the theory accepted by orthodox Muhammadans that hashish "being a narcotic its use
must of necessity be injurious," while in Egypt the prohibition emanated from Turkey. In both these
countries the measure has by no means been attended with complete success. In Greece the
prohibition in the cafes of Athens is based largely upon Indian experience, which the Commission
have had cause in great measure to recast. In Trinidad, if there has been prohibition, it does not seem
of late to have been effectual. It must be added that the Commission have no scientific information
regarding the strength of the article of commerce called hashish, and it may differ to some extent from
the Indian products. From the description of its manufacture even by the Mayor of Orchomenus in
Mantines in Arcadia, whence the Egyptian supply is mainly derived, it appears to resemble more the
charas of Yarkand than the ganja or bhang of India.
Is prohibition in India justifiable, feasible, and advisable?
563. Starting, therefore, from the position that what is known of the hemp drugs in the past is not
sufficient to justify their prohibition in India, and that for such a measure there must be strong
justification based on ascertained facts scientifically and systematically examined, the first question for
the Commission to decide is whether such justification is to be found in the evidence before them,
and the second-whether, if this is so, prohibition is feasible and advisable on other grounds. These
will now be considered.
Prohibition of bhang
564. The effects of the hemp drugs have been treated in Chapters X to XIII of the Report; and as
the first result of these conclusions, the Commission are prepared to state that the suppression of the
use of bhang would be totally unjustifiable. It is established to their satisfaction that this use is very
ancient, and that it has some religious tion among a large body of Hindus; that it enters into thensocial customs; that it is almost without exception harmless in moderation, and perhaps in some cases
beneficial; that the abuse of it is not so harmful as the abuse of alcohol; that its suppression, involving
the extirpation of the wild hemp plant, would in some tracts be a matter of great difficulty; that such a
measure would be extremely unpopular, and would give rise to widespread discontent; and, finally,
that, if successfully accomplished, it would lead to the use of more hurtful stimulants. The Commission
deem it unnecessary to traverse the evidence further than has been done in the preceding chapters of
this report in support of these propositions. It is almost unanimous in regard to them. The utmost that
is necessary in regard to this product is that it should be brought under more effective control, and
this matter will be dealt with further on. But absolute prohibition is, in the opinion of the Commission,
entirely out of the question.
Prohibition of ganja and charas
565. Though it has been shown that as a rule ganja and charas are used in moderation, and that the
moderate use ordinarily, does not cause appreciable injury, yet it has been established that the
excessive use of these forms of hemp drugs has been more injurious than in the case of bhang.
Whether they should be prohibited or merely controlled is a question which might be settled merely
with reference to their ascertained effects. The Commission consider that the effects are not such as
to call for prohibition, and on the general principles discussed in the opening paragraphs of this
chapter, such interference would be unjustifiable. Nevertheless, it. seems advisable to refer to the
other evidence with a view to ascertaining the generally prevailing views on the subject, and
i1
considering the grounds on which prohibition is advocated or opposed.
The evidence regarding prohibition of ganja and charas may be considered together.
566. In reviewing the evidence on these points, it will not be necessary to draw a distinction between
ganja and charas. The effects of these two drugs have been shown to be similar, though charas is
cateris paribus the more potent. They are both ordinarily smoked, though very occasionally used for
eating and drinking usually in the form of admixtures with other condiments stated by Mr. Lyall
(Bengal 1): "Ganja and charas are really one, and in time, if the question be scientifically followed up,
possibly charas will be the only form used." The refuse of ganja is used in some provinces as bhang,
but this substance more nearly resembles bhang than ganja properly so called. The ganja of the
different provinces varies in quality. But these distinctions cannot here be specially observed; it will be
sufficient to bear in mind that the opinions in Bengal, the Central Provinces, Madras, Bombay, and
the smaller Administrations relate to ganja; that those in the Punjab relate to charas; and that those in
the North-Western Provinces and Sind relate to ganja and charass, both of which consumed.
Supply of ganja and charas in its relation to prohibition.
567. A few remarks, however, recapitulating the local conditions of ganja and charas will not be out
of place. Charas is practically a foreign article. Small amounts are imported from Nepal and Gwalior,
but they may be left out of the account. The bulk comes from Yarkand through the Himalayan
passes, or to a much smaller, degree from offer parts of Central Asia through the routes on the
frontier of Afghanistan. It would not be a very difficult matter to stop these imports, though the
co-operation of the Kashmir Darbar would be necessary in regard to Yarkand charas. It may,
therefore, be accepted that the supply of charas might be cut off without much difficulty, though, as
this article forms the principal import from Yarkand, the prohibition of charas would paralyse, if not
extinguish, the trade with this country. In regard to ganja, the problem is more complex. Ganja is
regularly cultivated in Bengal, the Central Provinces, Madras, Bombay, and Berar. In Bengal and the
Central Provinces, the cultivation of the hemp, plant for its production is under complete control. In
Berer cultivation is only permitted under license. In the other tracts of British territory it is not directly
Controlled. Assuming that control is possible in these tracts, it does not follow that it would be
equally possible to prevent cultivation altogether. Moreover, there still remains a considerable amount
of production in many of the Native States all over India. To induce these States to prohibit
cultivation would be a difficult matter, and, even if this were done, the suppression of illicit cultivation
would offer the most serious difficulties. For, though ganja of good quality requires some cultivation
and tending, the evidence before the Commission tends to establish the fact that ganja of an inferior
kind can be manufactured from the spontaneous or casual growth which is found near human
habitations and amidst cultivation of other crops in many parts of India. While, therefore, it cannot be
asserted that the task of preventing the manufacture of ganja is an impossible one, it would certainly
at the present time be attended with considerable difficulty.
Opinions of the witnesses regarding prohibition of ganja and charas.
568. The question addressed to the. witnesses regarding the prohibition of the hemp drugs (No. 35)
was so framed as to elicit in the first place opinions as to the feasibility of such, a measure. The
considerations bearing upon the subject were also set forth in the form of subsidiary questions. The
question whether the witnesses advocated prohibition, was not specifically put, but it is not difficult,
comparing the answers to the questions above mentioned with those relating to other questions, to
decide what the opinion of each witness is on this question. Those who hold decided views have no
doubt generally stated them in some portion of their answers, and at all events ample opportunity of
doing so was afforded them. A larger number of the witnesses have contented themselves with
merely giving an affirmative or negative answer to the questions on .the subject. It is impossible to
attach much importance to such answers. The Commission have abstracted them and considered
them, but they feel bound to give far more weight to the opinions of witnesses whose replies show
that they have formulated an opinion, on the desirability of prohibition. Some account will now be
given of these answers.
11
Opinions regarding prohibition of ganja and charas.
569. Out of the total of 1,193 witnesses, 575 have expressed a decided opinion on the question of
prohibition. Of these only 99 advocate it in their answers. The remainder are against it. The
classification of these witnesses is shown in the following table:
Superior Superior Subordinate
Civil
Officers. Officers.
PRACTITIONERS.
PROVINCE
Bengal
Assam
4 1 ..
North-Western Provinces 10 79
Punjab . 3 3 36
Cemtral Provinces
Madras ] 11111 67
Bombay and Sind 19 7 69
Berar, Ajmere, Coorg, and 112.
Quetta-Pishin.
Total-x6 138 4 3 106 4 2o
Per cent.... 3 97 x7 83 lo 90 36 64 83
Thus, not only is there a very large preponderance of opinion against prohibition, but the
preponderance is specially marked among superior Civil officers. The only witnesses indeed of the
latter class who favour prohibition are three in the Punjab, where charas and not ganja is consumed.
The most important of these opinions on either side will now be specified. The most forcible opinions
in favour of prohibition will be quoted at some length in order that the argument for this view may be
.thoroughly appreciated. The opinions against prohibition are too numerous to be quoted, but the
witnesses will be named under headings setting forth the most prominent views expressed.
Bengal opinions in favour of prohibition of ganja
570. The Bengal witnesses in favour of prohibition of ganja consist of a Sub-Deputy Collector, an
Assistant Surgeon, two Medical Practitioners, an Honorary Magistrate, two zamindars, two
pleaders, a delegate from the Indian Relief Society, Calcutta, the Secretary to the Band of Hope,
Faridpur, the Secretary to the Bogra Medical Society, and two Missionaries. The Commission
cannot find much to quote from these opinions, but the following are the most forcible:
(238) Delegate, Indian Relief Society, Calcutta, Babu Amrita Krishna Mullick, B.A., B.L.: After
quoting official and medical opinions relating to the injuriousness of ganja, the Society, endeavours to
show that the cultivators of the hemp plant lose largely by their occupation, and maintains that it is the
duty of the Government to come to their rescue by abolishing it. The society maintains that the
privation to the consumers would not be serious, and that it is difficult to suggest any drug more
deleterious than ganja to which they could take. The Society contends that the alleged religious
Ii
sanction to the use of the drugs is a fallacy, and refers to the opinions of several pandits in support of
this view. The Society argues that to meet the deficit in the revenue, which would be about lakhs per
annum, the salaries of European officers should be cut down, the duties on cotton goods re-imposed
and the income-tax increased with an enhanced taxable minimum. Savings would be effected by
reduction of establishment and by decreased cost of lunatic asylums.
(286) Secretary, Band of Hope Temperance Society, Faridpur, Babu Puma Chandra Maitra:
"This Society begs to urge upon the Commission to consider the justice and propriety of a just,
benign, and Christian Government to allow cultivation and sale of a drug which has been excluded
from some countries, and in England doubly protected in the poison list." The witness argues that the
drug" has been unreservedly condemned by eminent doctors as one of the most dangerous poisons
known, as the most potent cause of lunacy, and as the most pernicious and deleterious of all excitants
ever in use in any country." He admits that there are a number of yogis, sanyasis, fakirs, and
mendicants addicted to ganja smoking, but states that ganja smoking forms no part of their religion,
and there is not a single Hindu or Muhammadan religious book which sanctions the use of ganja. "No
real disaffection can under the benign rule of the British Government be seriously apprehended, and,
even in the event of there being such apprehension, the fact should not be lost sight of that the
Government in this case will have the support of the bulk of the population." He alleges that ganja
produces crime, and that the taxation, amounting to 22 lakhs, is a drain on the poverty-stricken and
half-famished people of Bengal. He finds it difficult to suggest a substitute for ganja, but liquor may be
one, and a peculiar preparation of strong tobacco may also serve the purpose.
(134) Secretary to Bogra Medical Society (10 members), Pyari SankerDass Gupta, L.M.S.: "the
prohibition will give rise to no political danger. For the ganja smokers have very little influence over
society. The Government has faced questions of a greater religious character, as the Suttee or the
Age of Consent Act, with boldness. This is comparatively a minor question affecting only depraved
men."
(203) Rev. W. B. Phillips, Missionary.: "What with liquor and opium and hemp drugs of various
kinds, all licensed by Government, it does seem as if the population were terribly exposed to
degrading influences. It is not my province to face the difficult task of dealing with these evils; and I
sincerely sympathize with the Government in the heavy duty of solving the grave problems involved.
But I do feel it my duty to set forth as strongly as possible the assurance that very much mischief is
being worked in the country by the various intoxicants so freely and largely sold. I hardly care to
distinguish between opium, alcohol, and ganja. I regard them all as bad. My mind is so impressed
with the evil effects of excessive use that I do not care to consider the moderate use. I would wish
Government to begin with ganja, to proceed with little delay-against opium, and then tackle alcohol. I
prefer this as a matter of policy, as ganja is easiest dealt with I am prepared to prohibit all three
intoxicants on account of the evil which I see done by them.
(81) Kali Das Mukerji, Sub-Deputy Collector: After advocating prohibition of ganja on the
grounds of the evil effects, and stating that there would be no danger from the discontent caused
owing to the small number of the consumers, the witness proceeds: "The reasons usually put forward
in favour of ganja consumption are as follows: (1) that Hindu friars and jogis cannot do without it, for
it helps them in their religious contemplation, and sustains them under severe exertion and exposure;
(2) that it is a safeguard against disease in malarious tracts; and (3) that it serves the labouring classes
as a refreshing stimulant, alleviating fatigue. I do not think that any of these reasons is conclusive,
though plausible. In fact, none of them stands the test of close examination. If any intoxicating drug is
at all necessary for friars and jogis alcohol, opium or siddhi may serve the purpose. Eight kinds of
intoxicating drugs are prescribed in the Tantras for Hindu devotees, and it is optional with them to
take any if they care to do so at all. That ganja is a safeguard against disease in malarious tracts is not
necessarily true Even as a stimulant and remover of fatigue, ganja has very little to recommend it to
the labouring classes A careful observation is sure to establish the fact that any ordinary labourer
whose only stimulant is tobacco is on the whole a better workman than his ganja consuming brother."
Opinions against prohibition of ganja in Bengal.
ii
571. It is impossible to quote the mass of opinion against prohibition of ganja, but the following
analysis of some of the most important opinions will give an idea of the strength of these opinions
(1) Prohibition impossible or unnecessary, or could not be enforced without a large preventive
establishment.
(1) Hon'ble D. R. Lyall, C.S.I., Member, Board of Revenue.
(2) Mr. Westmacott, Commissioner.
(9) Mr. Price, Collector.
(11) Mr. Skrine, Collector.
(21) Mr. Jenkins, Collector.
(17) Mr. Gupta, Commissioner of Excise
(46) Ganendra Nath Pal, Deputy Collector.
(197) Mr. H. M. Weatherall, Manager, Nawab's Estates, Tippera.
(2) Prohibition would be strongly resented by religious mendicants, would be regarded as an
interference with religion, or would be likely to become a political danger.
(1) Hon'ble D. R. Lyall, C.S.I., Member, Board of Revenue.
(3) Mr. Westmacott, Commissioner/19) Mr. Manisty, Collector/18) Mr. Hare, Collector.
(16) Mr. Marindin, Collector.
(32) Mr. Bedford, Deputy Commissioner.
(63) Abhilas Chandra Mukharji, Deputy Collector.
(62) Kanti Bhushan Sen, Deputy Collector of Excise.
(163) Maharaja Bahadur Sir Jotendra Mohan Tagore, K.C.S.I.
(174) Radhika Chum Sen, Zamindar.
(175) Raghonandan Parsad, Zamindar.
.(185) Jogendra Krishna Rat Chaudhri.
(207) Pumendu Narayan Sinha.
(2o8) Mahendra Chandra Mitra, Chairman, Naihati Municipality.
(92) Mr. Ricketts, Manager, Nilgiri State.
(217) Biprodas Banarji, Pleader, Newspaper Editor, and Chairman, Baraset Municipality.
(250) District Board, Monghyr.
11
(228) Jadubans Sahai, Vice-Chairman, Arrah Municipality
(3) Prohibition might lead to the use of dhatura or other intoxicantsworse than ganja.
(21) Mr. Jenkins, Collector.
(46) Ganendra Nath Pal, Deputy Collector.
(62) Kanti Bhushan Sen, Deputy Collector of Excise.
(161) Maharaja Girijnath, Roy Bahadur.(164) Raja Surja Kanta Acharjya, Bahadur.
(167) Radha Balav Chaudhri, Rai Bahadur.
(233) Secretary, Rajshahi Association.
(217) Biprodas Banarji, Pleader, &c.
Assam.Assam.Opinions in favour of prohibition of ganja.
572. The opinions in favour of prohibition of ganja in Assam are those of a Civil Surgeon, the
Secretary to the Tezpur Raiyats Association, the Secretary to the Upper Assam .Association, a
merchant, and a pensioned Overseer, Public Works Department, and member of a Local Board.
There is nothing especially to note in these opinions.
Opinions against..
573. Against prohibition we have the Commissioner of the Assam Valley, the Commissioner of
Excise, the Director of Land Records and Agriculture, an Officiating Deputy Commissioner, a Civil
Surgeon, an Extra Assistant Commissioner, a medical practitioner, four pleaders, and four planters.
Mr. Driberg, Commissioner of Excise, says: "It would be useless to prohibit the use of ganja in a
province like Assam, surrounded as it is by independent hill people, who would cultivate it in their
hills and smuggle it down with little risk of detection. Any prohibition will only lead to the increase of
illicit consumption and to the secret use of the drug, which would be decidedly bad; of course, stop
cultivation in Bengal, and the prohibition of the use of excise ganja could be enforced; but there
would be serious discourse, though in this province it might not amount to a political danger, and the
prohibition would be followed by recourse to opium, and in some cases to alcohol." The evidence of
planters tends generally to show that the use of ganja by the garden coolies, who (except in the
western districts of the Assam Valley and those of the Surma Valley, all of which border on Bengal)
are the principal consumers, produces no serious effects. There is nothing in any of the Assam
evidence to controvert these views.
North-Western Provinces. Op inions in favour of prohibition of ganja and charas.
574. The advocates of prohibition of ganja and charas in the North-Western Provinces are as
follows: 6 subordinate civil officers, 9 subordinate medical officers and private medical practitioners,
and 18 non-officials. Butfew of these witnesses give any reasons for their opinions. And the
Commission are not able to quote any one of them as having any special weight. The only opinion
which it appears worth while to quote is that of a Collector (Mr. Addis (4), who does not, however,
specifically recommend prohibition. He says: "It probably would be feasible to prohibit the use of all
these drugs. Public opinion is against their use, and the people are very obedient to authority. The
prohibition would certainly lead to the increased use of opium and alcohol.
Opinions against prohibition.
Ii
575. On the other hand, the opinions against prohibition are very strong. The following is an analysis
of some of the most important:-
(1) Prohibition impossible or unnecessary, or could not be enforced without a large preventive
establishment.
(1) Hon'ble A. Cadell, Member, Board of Revenue.(5) Mr. Stoker, Commissioner of Excise(12)
Mr. Brownrigg, Officiating Deputy Commissioner.(2o) Mr. Partridge, Officiating Deputy
Commissioner.(9) Mr. Jackson, Collector.(lO) Mr. Tweedy, Collector^ 17) Mr. Spencer, Officiating
Collector.(34) Mr. Cockbum, Assistant Sub-Deputy Opium Agent.(32) Mr. Robarts, Joint
Magistrate.(26) Rama Shankar, Assistant Collector(24) Mr. Rogers, Assistant Commissioner^ 191)
Kanwar Kundan Singh, Zamindar. (12) Mr. Brownrigg, Officiating Deputy Commissioner.(9) Mr.
Jackson, Collector^ 10) Mr. Tweedy, Collector.(34) Mr. Cockbum, Assistant Sub-Deputy Opium
Agent.(21) Mr. Gillan, Assistant Collector, (26) Rama Shankar, Assistant Collector.o(46) Panditi
Bishambar Nath, Deputy Collector.(28)Mr. Bruce, Assistant Collector..(33)Pandit Sri Lulls
Officiating Joint(227) Syad Mahammad Nuh, Zamindar.
(3) Prohibition might lead to use of dhatura or other intoxicants worse than ganja or charas.
(6) Mr. Stoker, Commissioner of Excise.(15) Mr. Ferard, Collector (28) Mr. Bruce, Assistant
Collector.(51) Thakur Tukman Singh, Deputy Collector. Punjab 576. The advocates of the
prohibition of charas Opinions for prohibition of charas. in the Punjab are as follows:— 3 superior
civil officers, 3 subordinate civil officers, 2 subordinate medical officers, and 10 non-officials.lt may
be noted that Mr. Ogilvie, Financial Commissioner in charge of Excise (2), records the following
opinion: "I am inclined to hold the opinion, though I am not quite satisfied on the subject, that the use
of charas is so deleterious that it might be permissible, both on grounds of morality and utility, for its
use to be prohibited or for the price of the drug to be so artificially raised as to confine its
consumption to a very small number indeed. The reason why I say that I am not quite satisfied on the
point is because I have not sufficiently investigated the facts. All that I can, therefore, say with
certainty is that my opinion tends to the direction above indicated I would observe, however, with
regard to the Yarkand trade that the imposition of a duty so high as to be practically prohibitive
would very considerably injure that trade, . because the Yarkand trader in exchange for the chums
takes back the products of the Punjab to his own country or to Kashmir. The extinction or serious
injury of the Yarkand trade would, of course, be a very regrettable circumstance. On the other hand
from my personal knowledge as Deputy Commissioner of the Dera • Ismail Khan District, I would
say no harm would accrue to general trade on the western border from the prohibition of chums."
Mr. Coldstream. Deputy Commissioner (5), though he does not seem to have formed a definite
opinion regarding the moderate use of the drugs, says: "The gradual stoppage of import of ganja and
charas might be tried. It is not as yet a very widely-spread habit, but it might grow. It would cause
gent pain and discontent if the prohibition were sudden and comprehensive, but this would not
amount to political danger. A prohibitory measure regarding ganja and charas would no doubt be
followed at once by a recourse to opium and alcohol. I can quite believe the moderate occasional use
of the drugs may be comparatively harmless, but I am not aware that they are commonly used
occasionally and in moderation. They may, however, be so used for all I know."
Mr. Wilson, Deputy Commissioner (14), says that he should like to see the experiment made in
selected districts of prohibiting trade in charas (and bhang) all together. As regards charas, he thinks
the prohibition would be feasible, as it is imported, and the discontent would be insignificant, knows
of no class, such as labourers, who take the drug in moderation as an ordinary stimulant. Among
fakirs and other excessive consumers, he thinks the use produces great evils, and that there is no
more harmful drug which they are likely to take to. He does not know anything of the use of dhatura
except its administration as a poison. He thinks sudden prohibition would be cruel. He would
therefore begin by taxation and gradually raise it, leaving the question of total prohibition to be
decided by experience. The evidence of Arjan Singh, Extra Assistant Commissioner (19), is much
to the same effect, but he states that the use of dhatura is general among the followers of Siva at the
11
Shivratri in the Dera Ghazi Khan district. He says it is taken in very small quantities, so that its effect
is almost imperceptible. General Millet (69), formerly District Superintendent of Police, would like
to see all intoxicants prohibited which cannot be proved to be actually necessary. He thinks gradual
prohibition of the hemp drugs feasible, and that educated, intelligent native public opinion, which to a
great extent leads that of the lower classes, would support prohibition. Discontent at first among the
degraded classes would be inevitable, but there would be no political danger, though tact and
discretion would be needed and calm-minded European officials at the helm. He fears that recourse
to alcohol would be the result. Shekh Riaz Husain, zamindar (67), thinks that "having regard for the
welfare and good of the people which the British Government has in view, the prohibition of the
hemp drugs (including bhang) is imperatively necessary. Loyal and intelligent subjects and
well-wishers of the country would welcome the prohibition, though the unscrupulous habitual
consumers would indeed dislike it. But as it would be for the good of the people, it is not hoped that
any class of persons would resent it. The enforcement of the prohibition should be effected like other
new laws and regulations, exceptions being made to some extent in the case of the existing old
habitual consumers, because its sudden stoppage would cause them serious privation. The discontent
resulting would not amount to a political danger. If it were possible to make charas as expensive as
alcohol, that would be one way of dealing with the subject."Sardar Sujan Singh, Rai Bahadur,
Contractor (59), considers charas as certainly most injurious, and thinks its use should most
certainly be prohibited. It does no good to anybody. There are not many kahars who take it. Those
who do, go to the bad. He does not know of the use. of dhatura as an intoxicant. The use of madak
and chandu is more injurious than charas, and they also should be prohibited as well as liquor. He
would not recommend immediate prohibition, but would put on such a tax, increasing it gradually, as
to make it impossible for the majority of people to buy them at all.
Dr. H. M. Clark, Missionary (46), would like to see charas prohibited if it were possible, He thinks,
however, that alcohol does more harm than charas. He cannot believe that a moderate use of charas
is possible. Fakirs and devotees are the chief consumers. Devi Dayal, Editor of the Kaitistha
Mitra,* Lahore, circulation 300 copies (S3), says: "If charas be called poison (fatal, killing,
murdering drug), it is not an exaggeration of any kind. It is a great vice to smoke charas. May God
not give this even in the lot of a foe. Only just people as have bad luck get engaged in this vice.
Government will do their subjects a very great obligation by saving them from early death and
whirlpool of destruction and ruin. My present belief is that there is no such thing as moderation in the
use of chards, because, when a charsi visits another, he offers him the chillum, and they smoke in
company. The smoke is thus repeated frequently." Consumers acknowledge that they would have no
complaint; and if Government were to prohibit the use of charas to-morrow, the bad habit would die
out of itself. Ganesh Das, Pleader, and President, Sarin Sabha, Hoshiarpur (77): Charas jogis,
sanyasis, and suthra fakirs, andis consumed by shoemakers, musicians, by some Khatris and
Brahmins. The physical effects are very bad, and most consumers become incapacitated for work
and lead a miserable life. The subcommittee of the Sarin Sabha appointed to consider the subject
recommend prohibition. Enquiry was not made from medical experts. Consumers would not take to
other intoxicants, because the intoxication of chards is not like that of opium or other intoxicants. The
greatest loss would be that of the traders of Hoshiarpur and Amritsar, who take merchandise to
Ladakh and Yarkand and bring back charas.
Opinions against prohibition of charas.
577. The following is an analysis of some of the most important evidence against prohibition
(1) Prohibition impossible or unnecessary, or could not be enforced without a large preventive
establishment.
(1) Mr. Rivaz, First Financial Commissioner.(3) Mr. Thorbum, Commissioner. (6) Mr. Ibbetson,
Deputy Commissioner.(8) Mr. Maconachie, Deputy Commissioner. (13) Mr. Drummond, Deputy
Commissioner. (66) Kazi Syad Ahmad, retired Government servant.
(2) Prohibition would be strongly, resented by religious mendicants, or would be regarded as
I
I h
an interference with religion, or would be likely to became a political danger.
(3) Mr. Thorbum, Commissioner. (6) Mr. Ibbetson, Deputy Commissioner.
(10) Mr. A. Anderson, Deputy Commissioner.
(8) Mr. Maconachie, Deputy Commissioner.
(13)Mr. Drummond, Deputy Commissioner.
(29)Mr. Brown, Officiating Deputy Inspector-General of Police This paper has ceded to
(39) Thakur Das, Rai Bahadur, Assistant Surgeon. (36) Bhagwan Dass, Assistant Surgeon.
(25) Muhammad Ikramulla Khan, Khan Bahadur, Honorary Extra Assistant Commissioner. (27)
Muhammad Barkat Ali Khan, Khan Bahadur, retired Extra Assistant Commissioner
(86) Bahram Khan, Honorary Magistrate.(93) Gujar Ma!, Trader.(94) Jawala Bhagat, Trader.(3)
Prohibition might lead to use of dhatura or other intoxicants worse than charas. (76) Babu P.
C. Chatterji Judge, Chief Court.(lO) Mr. A. Anderson, Deputy Commissioner.(18) Rai Bahadur
Bhagwan Dass, Extra Assistant Commissioner.(39) Thakur Das, Rai Bahadur, Assistant
Surgeon.(27) Muhammad Barkat All Khan, Khan Bahadur, retired Extra Assistant
Commissioner.(85) Lachman Dass, Merchant.
Opinions.in favour of the prohibition of ganja.
578. There are only two witnesses in the Central Provinces who advocate the prohibition of
ganja.Honorary Surgeon-Major Harrison (38) on the retired CentralProvinces.list, employed in the
Kalahandi State,. Advocates gradual prohibition, "which would cause discontent, but not any serious
danger. The prohibition would no doubt be followed by recourse to alcohol and other stimulants."
The other is a pensioned hospital assistant, who also advocates gradual prohibition.
Opinions against prohibition of ganja.
5 79. The following is an analysis of some of the most important evidence against prohibition:-
(1) Prohibition impossible or unnecessary, or could not be enforced without a large preventive
establishment.
(1) .Mr. Neill, Judicial Commissioner.(4) Mr. Laurie, Officiating Secretary to Chief
Commissioner.(2) Colonel Bowie, Commissioner. (9) Mr. Drake-Brockman, Officiating Excise
Commissioner.(39) Dr. Prentie, Civil Surgeon.(.66) Rev. Israel Jacob, Missionary.
a) Prohibition would be strongly resented by religious mendicants, or would be regarded as an
interference with religion, or would be likely to become a political danger.
(1) Mr. Neill, Judicial Commissioner.(4) Mr. Laurie, Officiating Secretary'to Chief
Commissioner.(2) Colonel Bowie, Commissioner.(3) Mr. Anderdson, Officiating
CommissiOner.(6) Mr. Duff, Deputy Commissioner.(27} Mr. Lowrie, Officiating
Deputy Conservator of Forests(17)Batuk Bharthy (65) Rev. Israel Jacob,
Missionary.(68)Rev. Oscar Lohr, Missionary.(22)Vinayak Balkrishna Khare, Excise
Daroga.(59) (47)Mir Iradad Ali Honorary Magistrate.
(2) Prohibition might lead to use of dhatura or other intoxicants worse than ganja.
(1) Mr. Neill, judicial Commissioner.(9) Mr. Drake-Brockman, Officiating Excise Commissioner.
11
(39) Dr. Prentie, Civil Surgeon. (64) Rao Sahib Balwantrao Govindrao Bhuskute, Jagirdar.
Madrass Opinions in favour of the prohibition of ganja
580. The Madras witnesses in favour of prohibition are a Civil Surgeon, a subordinate civil officer, a
medical practitioner, a Hindu priest, and six missionaries. Dr. King, (85) says- "The restriction of the
sale of ganja under conditions similar to those required for poisonous drugs in Great Britain would be
an unqualified blessing to the country, thus contrasting with the action taken against agitation which I
believe to be unnecessary and mischievous. I consider special measures should be taken to restrain
the use of ganja by sepoys, and especially to prevent the young sepoy from acquiring the habit" In
oral examination however, Dr. King, stated as follows- "My opinion of the effect of the moderate use
in impairing the moral sense and inducing laziness, etc., is a general impression and not based on
actual observation. My impression is based on the fact that persons alleged to have been ganja
smokers have presented these characteristics. They were pointed out as notorious ganja smokers. I
did not discriminate in these cases between the moderate and excessive use."
Synd Mahmud(I22) says: "It is an unquestionable fact that ganja, bhang, and charas are poisons, and
this fact is admitted by all. In my opinion their suppression would be an act of virtue deserving of
future reward, but it is not advisable to suppress their use at once. Its suppression should be
regulated under certain rules without any loss to the State. To the best of my knowledge and
researches, alcohol cannot be safely used as a substitute for ganja, charas, and bhang."
Rev. Mr. Laflamme (153) speaking on behalf of the Baptist Missionary Conferences of the
Presidency, advocates prohibition in these terms: "Owing to the scarcity of shops in these parts
practical prohibition exists. Much that is consumed is consumed illicitly. The introduction of the
license system Seems to have had no appreciable effect on the use of the drugs. The ganja is nearly
all grown by the consumers in their own yards." "The drugs should all be so safeguarded as to
prevent or minimize any possible harm resulting from their abuse." "The general sense of the people is
opposed to the use of the drugs." So far as the witness can gather, the members of the Mission are.
united in the belief that in these parts hemp drugs are far less injurious than opium and alcohol; thus
far that the latter are not only much more extensively used, but much more baleful in, their effects.
Two other missionaries, though neutral in opinion, are worth quoting Rev. Mr. Pittendrigh
Missionary (160) says that he would have ultimate prohibition in view if possible, but there is not
much ground for special interference in anything that he has seen. Another Missionary, the Rev. Mr.
Goffm. (145), cannot undertake to criticise the present or any system of exise administration. His
impression is that Government would be wise to adopt strictly "let-alone" policy, leaving it to the
spread of education and enlightenment among the people to prevent and lessen all its effects. The
province government should be carefully to watch such effects, and wherever and whenever
necessary interfere with prohibitive legislation. Such necessity, however, in his opinion would not
often occur.
Opinions against prohibition
581. Among those who are opposed to prohibition, the evidence of the following witnesses may be
quoted
(1) Prohibition impossible or unnecessary, or could not be enforced without a large preventive
establishment.
(1) Hon'ble C. S. Crole, Member, Board, of Revenue.(8) Mr. Willock, Collector.(14) Mr. Bradley,
Collector.(19) Raja K. C. Manevedan, Collector. (23) Mr. Campbell, Sub-Collector.(3o) Mr.
Levy, Acting Deputy Collector, Salt and Abkari.
(2) Prohibition would be strongly resented by religious mendicants, or would be a political
danger.
1
(8) Mr. Willock, Collector.(lO) Mr. Stokes, Collector.(6) Mr. Sewell, Collector. (30) Mr. Levy,
Acting Deputy Collector; Salt and Abkari.(94) Dr. Walker, Civil Surgeon. (95) Dr. Sarkies, Civil
Surgeon. (38) Buddhavarapu Narayana Murthi Pantalugaru, Assistant Collector.(23) Mr. Campbell,
Sub-Collector.(121) H.S.A.M..Manju Miyyah Sahib, Medical Practitioner.
(3). Prohibition might lead to use of dhatura or other intoxicants worse than ganja.
(23) Mr. Campbell, Sub-Collector,
Bombay. Opinions in favour of prohibition of ganja.
582. For the prohibition of ganja or charas in Bombay and Sind, we have the following advocates: in
Bombay two mamlatdars, a hospital assistant, and a medical practitioner; and in Sind a health officer,
two hospital assistants, and a. banker. There is not much that need be quoted from the evidence of
these witnesses. It may be noted that the Hon'ble T. D. Mackenzie, Commissioner of Abkari, etc.
(1), holds that the policy of Government in relation to the hemp drugs should be one of restriction, as
far as restriction, 'is possible, and that, if absolute prohibition were possible, he thinks it would be a
good thing. Owing, however, to the fact that the territories of the Bombay Presidency interlace so
extensively with foreign territory, and to the feeling which would be aroused among the consumers
and those who sympathize with them, it would in his opinion be impossible or undesirable. The
Secretary to the Arya Samaj in Bombay (109) states that while fully sympathising with the objects of
the Commission, which are apparently understood to be the restriction or prohibition of the drugs, the
Arya Samaj "is of opinion that any Governmental action in the direction of further restricting the
preparation and sale of the drug will be productive of very little good. The ' * Samaj believes that
education of the masses is the only proper and effective . remedy for correcting such baneful habits,
and fears that any compulsion in this matter is likely to drive the consumers of these comparatively
innoccuous drugs to the use. of more injurious intoxicants that are plentifully supplied to the people
like the various preparations containing alcohol." The Samaj.prays that the Government will devise
measures for the restriction of the sale of European liquor in India, and leave the hemp drugs to
themselves. The only thorough advocate of prohibition whose opinion is worth specifying is Rao
SahibShesho Krisna Madkavi (41), who considers-such prohibition very necessary and holds that,
although there would be temporary discontent among the consumers such discontent would not
amount to a political danger "the people in this part of the country being loyal and of mild nature, and
the proportion of the persons using bhang and ganja to the general population being too small to be
taken into consideration."
Opinions against prohibition
583. On the other hand, the opinions against prohibition are weighty. The following may be specially
quoted:
(1) Prohibition impossible or unnecessary, or could not be enforced without a large preventive
establishment. Bombay
(1) Hon'ble T. D. Mackenzie, Commissioner of Abkari, etc (3) Mr. Vidal, Chief Secretary to
Government. (10) Mr. Monteath, Collector. (12) Mr. Cumine, Acting Collector. (53) Mr. Vincent,
C.I.E., officiating commissioner of Police. (110) Rai Bahadur Vishvanath Keshava Joglekar,
Merchant. (108) Daji Abaji Khare, Honorary Secretary, East Indian Association.
Sind
(1) Mr. James, Commissioner in Sind. (26) Seth Vishindas Nihalchand, Zamindar and Merchant.
(2) Prohibition would be strongly resented by religious mendicants, or would be regarded as
an interference with religion, or would be likely to become a political danger.
u
Bombay.
(1) Hon'ble T. D. Mackenzie, Commissioner of Abkari, etc. (2) Mr. Reid, Commissioner ganja.
Apart from all this, there is another consideration which has been urged in some quarters with a
manifestation of strong feeling, and to which the Commission are disposed to attach some
importance, viz., that to repress the drugs in India and to leave alcohol alone would be
misunderstood by a large number of persons who believe, and apparently not without reason, that
more harm is done in this country by the latter than by the former. The conclusion of the Commission
regarding bhang has been given in paragraph 564; under all the circumstances they now unhesitatingly
give their verdict against such a violent measure as total prohibition in respect of any of the hemp
drugs.
II. The policy advocated is one of control and restriction aimed at suppressing the
excessive use and restraining the moderate use within due limits (Chapter XIV, paragraph
586)
Policy in regard to hemp drugs.
586 Failing prohibition, the question arises, what should be the policy of the Policy in regard to hemp
drugs. Government in regard to the hemp drugs? On this point some important evidence has been
recorded, and the Commission deem it to be within the scope of their duty to state in general terms
their own conclusions. In the first place, then, they are of opinion that in view of the harmful effects
produced by the excessive use, and in exceptional cases even by the moderate use, of the drugs, the
action of the Government should be directed towards restraining the former and avoiding all
encouragement to the latter. The object should be to prevent the consumers, as far as may be
possible, from doing harm to themselves and to lessen the inducements to the formation of the habit
which might lead to such harm In aiming at this object, however, other considerations need to be
kept in view. There is in the first place the question of illicit consumption. If the restriction, imposed
by Government is counterbalanced by a corresponding increase in smuggling no advantage is gained
but, on the contrary, a moral wrong is done to the community apart from the annoyance necessitated
by such restrictions. Than, if there is a legitimate use of the drugs, restrictions should not be such as to
make the exercise of this use impossible. The Commission have formed the opinion that there is a
legitimate use of the hemp drugs, and that it exists generally among the poorest of the population.
Again, if the restrictions lead to the use of more deleterious substances, or even drive the people from
a habit the evil of which is known to another of which the evil maybe greater, they are no longer
justifiable. The policy of Government must be tempered by all these considerations, and the neglect
of any one of them may lead to serious error.
iI
NOTE BY MR. G. A. GRIERSON, C.I.E., MAGISTRATE AND COLLECTOR,
HOWRAH, ON REFERENCES TO THE HEMP PLANT OCCURRING IN SANSKRIT
AND HINDI LITERATURE
I have the honour to state that I have searched through all the Sanskrit and Hindi books accessible to
me, and to forward the accompanying note on the references to the hemp plant occurring in the
literatures of those languages.
I have met the hemp plant in Sanskrit and Hindi literature under various names. The principal are:
(1) Bhanga.
(2) Indracana.
(3) Vijaya or Jaya
The earliest mention of the word ganja which I have noted is dated about the year 1300 A.D.
Whenever the word vijaya is used, it is doubtful whether the hemp plant is meant, or the yellow
myrobolan, as the words means both.
The name Bhanga occurs in the Atharvaveda (say, B.C. 1400). The hemp plant is there mentioned
simply as a sacred grass. Panini (say, B.C. 300) mentions the pollen of the hemp flower (bhanga). In
the commencement of the sixth century we find the first mention of vijaya which I have noted. It is a
sacred grass, and probably means here the hemp plant.
The first mention of bhanga as a medicine which I have noted is in the work of Sucruta (before the
eighth century A.D.), where it is called an antiphlegmatic. During the next four centuries bhanga
(feminine) frequently occurs in native Sanskrit dictionaries in the sense of hemp-plant.
In the tenth century the intoxicating nature of bhang seems to have been known: and the name
Indracana, Indra's food, first appears, so far as I know, in literature. Its intoxicating power was
certainly known in the beginning of the fourteenth century. In a play written in the beginning of the
sixteenth century, it is mentioned as being consumed by jogis (Caiva mendicants). It is there named
"Indra's food."
In later medical works it is frequently mentioned under various names.
I append a more detailed account of the passages in which I have noted the uses of the Indian hemp.
I may add that I have not traced in literature any difference between the uses of the word ganja and
the word bhanga, though modem kavirajas tells me that they are distinct plants.
Cir. B.C. 1400. In the Atharvaveda (cir. 1400 B.C.) the bhang plant is mentioned (11,6, 15) once:
"We tell of the five kingdoms of herbs headed by Soma; may it and kuca grass, and bhanga and
barley, and the herb saha release us from anxiety."
Here reference is evidently made to the offering of these herbs in oblations.
The grammarian Panini (5, 2, 29) mentions bhangukata, the pollen of the hemp flower, as one of his
examples.
Cir. B. C. 300.
i i
The fact that the pollen of this special flower was quoted is worth noting.
Varahamihira in his Brihatsamhita (XLVIII, 39), mentions vijaya as used with other grasses in the
rotes of the Pusya, bathing festival.
A.D.504.
Vijaya is this passage certainly means some plant or other. The word may mean either the Indian
hemp-plant or be a synonym of haritaki (the yellow myrobolan). Dr. Hoemle informs me that in the
oldest medical words the word is explained by commentators in the latter sense. It is doubtful what
meaning we are to adopt here. The word may mean the hemp-plant bhanga. In the passage from the
Atharvaveda, already quoted, amongst the five plants special honoured as oblations, bhanga is
closely connected with the herb saha. So also in the Brihatsamhita, vijaya is mentioned as one of a
long list of plants to be used in the offering, and the very next plant mentioned is saha, which is
apparently the same as saha. This would encourage the theory that the vijaya of the Brihatsamhita
was more probably the same as the bhanga of the Atharvaveda.
In Sucruta (Ut. XI, 3) Bhanga is recommended together with a number of other drugs as an
antiphlegmatic.
Before the eighth century.
Vijaya is mentioned in the same work as a remedy for catarrh accompanied by diarrhea (Ut. XXIV,
20, and Ut. 39, page 415, 20), as an ingredient in a prescription for fever arising from an excess of
bile and phlegm. In these two passages, however, vijaya is probably an equivalent of haritaki, the
yellow myrobolan, and does not mean hemp.
In the various kosas, or dictionaries, bhanga is frequently mentioned as meaning the hemp-plant.
Thus,
(1) Amarakosa, 2, 9, 20.
Cir. A. D. 500. (2) Trikandacesa, 3, 364.
Tenth or eleventh century(3) Hemacandra's Anekarthakosa, 2, 37.
Twelfth century. (4) Hemakandra's Abhidhanacinlamani, 1179.
The Sarasundari (date not known to me), a commentary on the Amarakosa mentioned above,
Twelfth century by Mathureca, and quoted in the Cabdakalpadruma, mentions that the seed of the
bhanga plant is the size of that of millet (kalaya).
Cakrapanidatta is said to have flourished under Nayapala, a prince who reigned
Cir. 1050 A.D. in the eleventh century A.D. In his Cabdacandrika, a medical vocabulary, he gives
the following Sanskrit names for bhang:
(1) Vijaya (victorious), (2) Trailokyavijaya (victorious in the three worlds), (3) bhanga, (4)
Indracana (Indra's food), (5) Jaya (victorious).
These names seem to show that its use as an intoxicant was then known.
The Rajanighantu of Narahari Pandita adds the following names to those given by
11
A.D. 1300. Cakrapanidatta in the Cabdacandrika above mentioned:
(6) Virapattra (hero-leaved or the leaf of heroes),
(7) Ganja,
(8) Capala (the light-hearted),
(9) Ajaya (the unconquered),
(10) Ananda (the joyful),
(11) Harsini (the rejoicer)
and adds that the plant possesses the following qualities:
(1) Katulva (acridity); (2) kasayatra (astringency); (3) Usnatva (heat); (4) tiktatva (pungency);
(5) vatakaphapahatva (removing wind and phlegm); (6) samgrahitva (astringency); (7)
vakpradatva (speech-giving); (8)balyatva (strength-giving); (9) medhakaritva (inspiring of mental
power); (10) cresthadipanatva (the property of a most excellent excitant).
The Carngadhrasamhita, a medical work by Carngadhara, the date of which is unknown,
Say A.D. 1500. but which must have been compiled during the Muhammadan
period of Indian History, specially mentions (1,4, 19) bhanga as an excitant (vyavayin). In the
same passage it mentions opium.
The Dhurtasamagama, or "Rogues' Congress," is the name of an amusing if coarsely
A.D. 1550. written farce of about the year 1500 A.D., the author of
which was one Jyotirica. In the second act two Caiva mendicants came before an unjust judge, and
demand a decision on a quarrel which they have about a nymph of the bazar. The judge demands
payment of a deposit before he will give any opinion. One of the litigants says:
"Here is my ganja bag; let it be accepted as a deposit."
The Judge (taking it pompously, and then smelling it greedily): "Let me try what it is like (takes a
pinch). Ah! I have just now got by the merest chance some ganja which is soporific and corrects
derangements of the humours, which produces a healthy appetite, sharpens the wits, and acts as an
aphrodisiac."
The word used for ganja in the above is Indracana (Indra's food).
The Bhavaprakaca, another medical work written by Bhavadevamicra (cir. A.D. 1600), has as
follows:
Cir. A. D. 1600.
Bhanga ganja matulani madini vijaya jaya
Bhanga kaphahari tikta grahini pacani laghuh
Tiksosna pittala moha -mada vag vahni vardhini
ii
"Bhanga is also called ganja, matulani, madini (the intoxicating), vijaya (the victorious), and jaya
(the victorious). It is antiphlegmatic, pungent, astringent, digestive, easy of digestion, acid,
bile-affecting; and increases infatuation, intoxication, the power of the voice, and the digestive
faculty."
"The Rajavallabha, a materia medica, by Narayanadasa kaviraja, the date of which I
17th century, do not know, but which is quoted in the Cabdakalpadruma, and is believed to be
ancient, has the following:
Cakra-canam tu tiksno-snam moha-krit kustha-nacanam
Bala-medha-gni-krit-clesma -dosa-hari rasayanam
Jata mandara-manthanaj jala-nidhau piyusa-rupa pura
Trailokye vijaya-prade 'ti vijaya cri-devaraja-priya
Lokanam hita-kamyaya ksiti-tale prapta naraih kamada
Sarva-" tanka-vinaca-harsa-janani yaih sevita sarvada.
"Indra's food (i.e. ganja) is acid, produces infatuation,-and destroys leprosy. It creates vital energy,
the mental powers, and internal heat, corrects irregularities of the phlegmatic humour, and is an elixir
vitae. It was originally produced, like nectar, from the ocean by the churning with Mount Mandara,
and inasmuch as it gives victory in the three worlds, it, the delight of the king of the gods, is called
vijaya, the victorious. This desire-fulfilling drug was obtained by men on the earth, through desire for
the welfare of all people. To those who regularly use it it begets joy and destroys every anxiety."
The Rasapradhipa, a work, the date of which is unknown to me, and which is quoted in
? Date, the Cabdakalpadruma mentions jaya as a remedy for indigestion:
Ksaratrayam sutagandhou pancakolam idam cubham
Sarvais tulya jaya bhrista tad-ardha cigruja jata
Natron, saltpetre and borax, mercury and sulphur, and the prosperous five spices (long pepper, its
root, piper chaba, another pepper, and dry ginger). To these add an equal amount of parched jaya
and half of that amount of horse-radish (moringa) and jata.
It is not certain whether jaya here means bhang or Haritaki (yellow myrobolan). The word has both
significations. The latter, perhaps, suits the formula best.
In the Rasaratna-samuccaya, a work written in the south of India, jaya is classified as a
semi-poison,
Langoli visamustic ca karaviro jaya tatha
? Date
Tilakah kanako rkac ca vargo hy upavisatmakah.
Langali (Vanguiera spinosa), the root of the Nerium odorum, jaya (Symplocos racemosa) kanaka
and ak (a kind of Euphorbia), are semi-poisonous.
11
Bhang is frequently mentioned by vernacular poets. The oldest instance with which I
1400 A.D. am acquainted is the well-known hymn by Vidyapati
Tbakur (1400 A.D.), in which he calls Civa "Digambara bhanga," in reference to his habit of
consuming that drug. According to an old Hindu poem, on which I cannot now lay my hands, Civa
himself brought down the bhang plant from the Himalayas and gave it to mankind. Jogis are
well-known consumers of bhang and ganja, and they are worshippers of Civa.
In folk-songs, ganja or bhang (with or without opium) is the invariable drink of heroes before
performing any great feat. At the village of Bauri in Gaya there is a huge hollow stone, which is said
to be the bowl in which the famous hero Lorik mixed his ganja. Lorik was a very valiant general, and
is the hero of numerous folk-songs. The epic poem of Alha and Rudal, or uncertain date, but
undoubtedly based on very old materials (the heroes lived in the twelfth century A.D.), contains
numerous references to ganja as a drink of warriors. For instance, the commencement of the canto
dealing with Alha's marriage, describes the pestle and mortar with which the ganja was prepared, the
amount of the intoxicating drink prepared from it (it is called sabzi) and the amount of opium (an
absurdly exaggerated quantity) given to each warrior in his court.
That the consumption of bhang is not considered disreputable among Rajputs may be gathered from
the fact that Ajabes, who was court poet to the well-known Maharaja Bishwanath Singh of Riwa,
wrote a poem praising bhang and comparing siddhi to the "success" which attends the worshipper of
"Hari." Here there is an elaborate series of puns. The word siddhi means literally 'success,' and hari
means not only the god Hari, but also bhang.
NOTE BY BABU ABHILAS CHANDRA MUKERJI, SECOND INSPECTOR OF EXCISE,
BENGAL, ON THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF TRINATH WORSHIP IN EASTERN
BENGAL.
Date of origin. In 1867 Babu Ananda Chandra Kali or Kailai, of Dhamrai, a village in thana Sabhar
of the Dacca district, first started the worship at the house of his father-in-law at Fattehpur in the Atia
pargana of the Mymensingh district (sub-division Tangail).
Antecedents of the originator._Dhamrai is an important village in the Dacca district noted for its car
festival, which is annually held in honor of a local idol named Madhab Thakur, and which is
witnessed by a large gathering of people.
Ananda Chandra received education at the Dacca Normal School. After leaving school he served for
some time as a pundit (schoolmaster), and then entered the Police Department, but was there only a
short time. He is a Barendra Brahman and belongs to a respectable family. He leamt to smoke ganja
when he was only a boy. His present age is 60 years. He has the reputation of being a versifier. He
smokes two pice worth of ganja every day.
He married at Fattehpur in the Mymensingh district. There he introduced Trinath worship 27 years
ago. A panchali (poem) reciting the praises and exploits of Trinath was first published at Dacca in
1871 and the first edition (1,000 copies) was sold in a few months.
The circumstances under which the worship was first started. Ananda Chandra Kali was at the
time living in the house of his father-in-law. He was thinking of introducing the worship of a common
god, who might be worshipped by all classes, rich and poor, Brahman and Chandal, and by all
creeds, Saktas, Baishnavas, and Shaivas, and the idea occurred to him of having the present worship
at which ordinary and inexpensive things, such as ganja, oil, and betel-leaf, were alone to be used.
Trinath (from Sanskrit Tri, three, and Nath, lord) is represented to be Brahma, Bishnu and Shiva, the
Hindu Trinity in one.
II
Bhang is frequently mentioned by vernacular poets. The oldest instance with which I
1400 A.D. am acquainted is the well-known hymn by Vidyapati
Tbakur (1400 A.D.), in which he calls Civa "Digambara bhanga," in reference to his habit of
consuming that drug. According to an old Hindu poem, on which I cannot now lay my hands, Civa
himself brought down the bhang plant from the Himalayas and gave it to mankind. Jogis are
well-known consumers of bhang and ganja, and they are worshippers of Civa.
In folk-songs, ganja or bhang (with or without opium) is the invariable drink of heroes before
performing any great feat. At the village of Bauri in Gaya there is a huge hollow stone, which is said
to be the bowl in which the famous hero Lorik mixed his ganja. Lorik was a very valiant general, and
is the hero of numerous folk-songs. The epic poem of Alha and Rudal, or uncertain date, but
undoubtedly based on very old materials (the heroes lived in the twelfth century A.D.), contains
numerous references to ganja as a drink of warriors. For instance, the commencement of the canto
dealing with Alha's marriage, describes the pestle and mortar with which the ganja was prepared, the
amount of the intoxicating drink prepared from it (it is called sabzi) and the amount of opium (an
absurdly exaggerated quantity) given to each warrior in his court.
That the consumption of bhang is not considered disreputable among Rajputs may be gathered from
the fact that Ajabes, who was court poet to the well-known Maharaja Bishwanath Singh of Riwa,
wrote a poem praising bhang and comparing siddhi to the "success" which attends the worshipper of
"Hari." Here there is an elaborate series of puns. The word siddhi means literally 'success,' and hari
means not only the god Hari, but also bhang.
NOTE BY BABU ABHILAS CHANDRA MUKERJI, SECOND INSPECTOR OF EXCISE,
BENGAL, ON THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF TRINATH WORSHIP IN EASTERN
BENGAL.
Date of origin. In 1867 Babu Ananda Chandra Kali or Kailai, of Dhamrai, a village in thana Sabhar
of the Dacca district, first started the worship at the house of his father-in-law at Fattehpur in the Atia
pargana of the Mymensingh district (sub-division Tangail).
Antecedents of the originator. Dhamrai is an important village in the Dacca district noted for its car
festival, which is annually held in honor of a local idol named Madhab Thakur, and which is
witnessed by a large gathering of people.
Ananda Chandra received education at the Dacca Normal School. After leaving school he served for
some time as a pundit (schoolmaster), and then entered the Police Department, but was there only a
short time. He is a Barendra Brahman and belongs to a respectable family. He learnt to smoke ganja
when he was only a boy. His present age is 60 years. He has the reputation of being a versifier. He
smokes two pice worth of ganja every day.
He married at Fattehpur in the Mymensingh district. There he introduced Trinath worship 27 years
ago. A panchali (poem) reciting the praises and exploits of Trinath was first published at Dacca in
1871 and the first edition (1,000 copies) was sold in a few months.
The circumstances under which the worship was first started. Ananda Chandra Kali was at the
time living in the house of his father-in-law. He was thinking of introducing the worship of a common
god, who might be worshipped by all classes, rich and poor, Brahman and Chandal, and by all
creeds, Saktas, Baishnavas, and Shaivas, and the idea occurred to him of having the present worship
at which ordinary and inexpensive things, such as ganja, oil, and betel-leaf, were alone to be used.
Trinath (from Sanskrit Tri, three, and Nath, lord) is represented to be Brahma, Bishnu and Shiva, the
Hindu Trinity in one.
I i
Being a ganja-smoker himself, Ananda Kali may have also thought that by introducing the worship he
would be able to save the ganja-smokers from disrepute, as then ganja could be consumed in the
name of a god and under colour of doing a religious or pious act.
Religious aspect of the worship. The following translation of the Introduction to the Trinath Mela
Panchali gives some idea of the subject:
"The universe consists of the earth, the heaven, and the nether world, and Trinath is the lord of these
three worlds.
"There was an incarnation of God in the form of Gour (Chaitanya), who delivered the sinners by
preaching the name of Hari, but the Lord was not satisfied with this, and became concerned for the
created, and soon he became incarnate again. Brahma, Bishnu and Shiva, gods in three forms,
manifested themselves in one form. The one God, the Lord of the universe, seeing the miseries of
mankind, came to their deliverance. Ananda (Ananda Chandra Kali, the originator) declares that the
true and sincere worshippers of Trinath are sure to obtain salvation. Brahma, Bishnu, and Shiva met
together and expressed their desire to come to this world in one form to receive worship.
"He is a truly pious man who worships Trinath, and blessings are showered on the worshipper.
"The worship should be made in a form in which the rich and the poor may equally join and may
perform it easily.
"Only three things, each worth one pice, are required for this puja (form of worship). The things
which please all must be selected. The offering should consist of siddhi (ganja), pan (betel-leaf), and
oil, each worth one pice.
"The votaries should assemble at night and worship with flowers. The ganja should be washed in the
manner in which people wash ganja for smoking. The worshipper must fill three chillums with equal
quantities of ganja, observing due awe and reverence. When all the worshipers are assembled the
lamp should be lit with three wicks, and the praises of Trinath should be sung. As long as the wicks
bum, the god should be worshipped and his praises chanted. The god should be reverentially bowed
to at the close of the puja. When the reading of the Panchali is finished, those that will not show
respect to the Prasad (the offering which has been accepted by the god), i.e. chillum of ganja, shall
be consigned to eternal hell, and the sincere worshippers shall go to heaven."
How the worship spread. Ananda Kali commenced the puja with the aid of some ganja-smokers in
the village of Fattehpur. A large number of people consume ganja in the Dacca.
NOTE BY MR. J.M. CAMPBELL, C.I.E., COLLECTOR OF LAND REVENUE AND
CUSTOMS AND OPIUM, BOMBAY, ON THE RELIGION OF HEMP
To the Hindu the hemp plant is holy. A guardian lives in the bhang leaf. As the wife of Vishnu, the
preserver, lives in the hysteria-curing tulsi, or Holy Basil, and as Shiva dwells in the hysteria-curing
bel, yEgle marmelos, so the properties of the bhang plant, its power to suppress the appetites, its
virtue as a febrifuge, and its thought-bracing qualities show that the bhang leaf is the home of the great
Yogi or brooding aascetics Mahadev.
So holy a plant should have special rearing. Shiva explains to his wife, Parvati, how, in sowing hemp
seed, you should keep repeating the spell 'Bhangri,' 'Bhangi,' apparently that the sound of that
guardian name may scare the evil tare-sowing influences. Again, when the seedlings are planted the
same holy name must be repeated, and also at the watering which, for the space of a year, the young
plants must daily receive. When the flowers appear the flowers and leaves should be stripped from
the plant and kept for a day in warm water. Next day, with one hundred repetitions of the holy name
Bhangri, the leaves and flowers should be washed in a river and dried in an open shed. When they
are dry some of the leaves should be burnt with due repeating of the holy name as a jap or muttered
11
charm. Then, bearing in mind Vagdevata, or the goddess of speech, and offering a prayer, the dried
leaves should be laid in a pure and sanctified place. Bhang so prepared, especially if prayers are said
over it, will gratify the wishes and desires of its owner. Taken in the early morning such bhang
cleanses the user from sin, frees him from the punishment of crores of sins, and entitles him to reap
the fruits of a thousand horse-sacrifices. Such sanctified bhang taken at daybreak or noon destroys
disease. Before the religious user of bhang stand the Ashtadevata or Eight Guardians with clasped
hands ready to obey him and perform his orders. The wish of him who with pure mind pours bhang
with due reverence over the Ling of Mahadev will be fulfilled.
Such holiness and such evil-scaring powers must give bhang a high place among lucky objects. That
a day may be fortunate the careful man should on waking look into liquid bhang. So any nightmares
or evil spirits that may have entered into him during the ghost-haunted hours of night will flee from him
at the sight of the bhang and free him from their blinding influences during the day. So too when a
journey has to be begun or a fresh duty or business undertaken it is well to look at bhang. To meet
some one carrying bhang is a sure omen of success. To see in a dream the leaves, plant, or water of
bhang is lucky; it brings the goodness of wealth into the dreamer's power. To see his parents worship
the bhang-plant and pour bhang over Shiva's Ling will cure the dreamer of fever. A longing for bhang
foretells happiness: to see bhang drunk increases riches. No good thing can come to the man who
treads under foot the holy bhang leaf.
So evil-scaring and therefore luck-bringing a plant must play an important part in the rites required to
clear away evil influences. During the great spirit time of marriage in Bombay among almost all the
higher classes of Gujarat Hindus, of the Jain as well as of the Brahmanic sects, the supplies sent by
the family of the bride to the bridegroom's party during their seven days' sojourn includes a supply of
bhang. The name of the father who neglects to send bhang is held in contempt. Again, after the
wedding, when the bridegroom and his friends are entertained at the house of the bride, richly-spiced
bhang is drunk by the guests. The Gujarat Musalman bride before and after marriage drinks a
preparation of bhang. Among the Pardeshi or North Indian Hindus of Bombay bhang is given not
only at weddings, but the Pardeshi who fails to give his visitor bhang is despised by his caste as mean
and miserly. Another great spirit time during which bhang plays an important part is the time of war.
Before the outbreak of a war and during its progress the Ling of Mahadev should be bathed with
bhang. Its power of driving panic influences from near the god has gained for bhang the name of
Vijaya, the unbeaten. So a drink of bhang drives from the fighting Hindu the haunting spirits of fear
and wariness. So the beleagured Rajput, when nothing is left but to die, after loosing his hair that the
bhang spirit may have free entrance, drinks the sacramental bhang and rushing on the enemy
completes his juhar or self-sacrifice. It is this quality of panic-scaring that makes bhang, the Vijaya
or Victorious, specially dear to Mahadev in his character of Tripur, the slayer of the demon
Tripurasur. As Shiva is fond of bel leaves, as Vishnu is fond of tulsi leaves, so is Tripuresvar fond of
bhang leaves. He who wishes to obtain his desires must constantly offer bhang to Tripuresvar.
Bhang the cooler is a febrifuge. Bhang acts on the fever not directly or physically as an ordinary
medicine, but indirectly or spiritually by soothing the angry influences to whom the heats of fever are
due. According to one account in the Ayurveda, fever is possession by the hot angry breath of the
great gods Brahma, Vishnu, and shiva. According to another passage in the Ayurveda, Shankar or
Shiva, enraged by a slight from his father-in-law Daksha, breathed from his nostrils the eight fevers
that wither mankind. If the fever-stricken performs the Viraya abhishek, or bhang-pouring on the
Ling of Shankar, the god is pleased, his breath cools, and the portion of his breath in the body of the
fever-stricken ceases to inflame. The Kashikhanda Purana tells how at Benares, a Brahman,
sore-smitten with fever, dreamed that be had poured bhang over the self-sprung Ling and was well.
On waking he went to the Ling, worshipped, poured bhang and recovered. The fame of this cure
brings to Benares sufferers from fever which no ordinary medicine can cure. The sufferers are laid in
the temple and pour bhang over the Ling whose virtue has gained it the name Jvareshwar, the
Fever-Lord. In Bombay many people sick of fever vow on recovery to pour bhang over a Ling.
Besides as a cure for fever bhang has many medicinal virtues. It cools the heated blood, soothes the
over-wakeful to sleep, gives beauty, and secures length of days. It cures dysentery and sunstroke,
clears phlegm, quickens digestion, sharpens appetite, makes the tongue of the lisper plain, freshens
I i
the intellect, and gives alertness to the body and gaiety to the mind. Such are the useful and needful
ends for which in his goodness the Almighty made bhang. In this praise of the hemp the Makhzan or
great Greek-Arab work on drugs joins. Ganja in excess causes abscess, even madness. In
moderation bhang is the best of gifts. Bhang is a cordial, a bile absorber, an appetiser, a prolonger of
life. Bhang quickens fancy, deepens thought, and braces judgment.
As on other guardian-possessed objects, the cow, the Vedas, or the leaf of the bel tree, oaths are
taken on the bhang leaf. Even to a truthful witness an oath on the bhang leaf is dreaded. To one who
foreswears himself the bhang oath is death.
So holy a plant must play a leading part in temple rites. Shiva on fire with the poison churned from the
ocean was cooled by bhang. At another time enraged with family worries the god withdrew to the
fields. The cool share of a plant soothed him. He crushed and ate of the leaves, the bhang refreshed
him. For these two benefits bhang is Shankarpriya, the beloved of Mahadev. So the right user of
bhang or of ganja, before beginning to drink or to smoke, offers the drug to Mahadev saying, lena
Shankar, lena Babulnath: be pleased to take it Shankar, take it Babulnath. According to the Shiva
Purana, from the dark fourteenth of Magh (January-February) to the light fourteenth of Asbadh
(July-July), that is, during the three months of the hot weather, bhang should be daily poured over the
Ling of Shiva. If not every day, bhang should be poured at least during the first and last days of this
period. According to the Meru Tantra on any Monday, especially on Shravan (July-August)
Mondays, on all twelfths or pradoshs, and on all dark fourteenths of shivratris, still more on the
Mahashivratri or Shiva's Great Night on the dark fourteenth of Magh (January-February), and at all
eclipses of the sun or moon, persons wistful either for this world or for the world to come should
offer bhang to Shiva and pour it over the Ling. Not every devotee of Shiva makes offerings of bhang.
Such rites in Bombay are seldom performed except in the Bhuleswar and Babulnath temples and
there only on special occasions. The bhang offered to Mahadev is without pepper or other spice. It is
mixed with water, water and milk, or milk and sugar. It is poured over the Ling. According to some
authorities the offerer should not touch the offered bhang. Temple ministrants Atits, Tapodhans,
Bhojaks, Bhopis, Bharadis, Guravas alone should drink it. If there are no ministrants the remains of
the offering should be poured into a well or given to cows to drink. Other authorities encourage the
offerer to sip the bhang, since by sipping the bhang reaches and soothes the Shiva-Shakti or
Shiva-spirit in the sipper. On certain special occasions during failures of rain, during eclipses, and also
in times of war libations of bhang are poured over the Ling.
Vaishnavas as well as Shaivas make offerings of bhang. The form of Vishnu or the Guardian to whom
bhang is a welcome offering is Baladev, Balaram, or Dauji, the elder brother of Krishna. Baladev
was fond of spirits, not of bhang. But Banias, Bhatias, and other high class Hindus, not being able to
offer spirits, instead of spirits present bhang. In Bombay the offering of bhang to Baladev, unlike the
special offerings to Shiva, is a common and every-day rite. Without an offering of bhang no worship
of Baladev is complete. Unlike the plain or milk and sugared bhang spilt over the Ling, Baladev's
bhang is a richly-spiced liquid which all present, including the offerer, join in drinking. Such social and
religious drinking of bhang is common in Bombay in the temple of dauji in Kalyan Kirparam lane near
Bhuleshwar. As in the higher class worship of Baladev the liquor offering has been refined into an
offering of bhang so it is in the worship of Devi, Shiva's early and terrible consort. On any Tuesday or
Friday, the two weeks days sacred to Devi, still more during the Navratra or Nine Nights in Ashwin
or September-October, those whose caste rules forbid liquor make a pleasing spiced bhang. And as
in the worship of Baladev all present, worshipper and ministrant alike, join in drinking. Shitaladevi,
the Cooler, the dread goddess of small-pox, whose nature, like the nature of bhang, is cooling, takes
pleasure in offerings of bhang. During epidemics of small-pox the burning and fever of the disease are
soothed by pouring bhang over the image of Shitaladevi. So for the feverishness caused by the heats
especially to the old no cure equals the drinking of bhang. Unlike spirits the tempter to flesh bhang the
craver for milk is pleasing to the Hindu religion. Even according to the straitest school of the
objectors to stimulants, while to a high caste Hindu the penalty for liquor-drinking is death, no penalty
attached to the use of bhang, and a single day's fast is enough to cleanse from the coarser spirit of
ganja. Even among those who hold stimulants to be devil-possessed penalty and disfavour attach to
the use of hemp drugs only when they are taken with no religious object and without observing the
I i
due religious rites.
At the other extreme of Hindu thought from the foes to stimulants, to the worshippers of the
influences that, raising man out of himself and above mean individual worries, make him one with the
divine force of nature, it is inevitable that temperaments should be found to whom the quickening
spirit of bhang is the spirit of freedom and knowledge. In the ecstasy of bhang the spark of the
Eternal in man turns into light the murkiness of matter or illusion and elf is lost in the central soul-fire.
The Hindu poet of Shiva, the Great Spirit that living in bhang passes into the drinker, sings of bhang
as the clearer of ignorance, the giver of knowledge. No gem or jewel can touch in value bhang taken
truly and reverently. He who drinks bhang drinks Shiva. The soul in whom the spirit of bhang finds a
home glides into the ocean of Being freed from the weary round of matter-blinded self. To the
meaner man, still under the glamour of matter or maya, bhang taken religiously is kindly thwarting the
wiles of his foes and giving the drinker wealth and promptness of mind.
In this devotion to bhang, with reverence, not with the worship, which is due to Allah alone, the
North Indian Mussalman joins hymning the praises of bhang. To the follower of the later religion of
Islam the holy spirit in bhang is not the spirit of the Almighty. It is the spirit of the great prophet Khizr
or Elijah. That bhang should be sacred to Khizr is natural. Khizr is the patron saint of water. Still
more Khizr means green, the revered colour of the cooling water of bhang. So the Urdu poet sings
'When I quaff fresh bhang I liken its colour to the fresh light down of thy youthful beard.' The prophet
Khizr or the Green prophet cries 'May the drink be pleasing to thee.' Nasir, the great North Indian
Urdu poet of the beginning of the present century, is loud in the praises of his beloved Sabzi, the
Green one. 'Compared with bhang spirit are naught. Leave all things thou fool, drink bhang.' From its
quickening the imagination Musalman poets honour bhang with the title Warak al Khiyall, Fancy's
Leaf. And the Makhzan or great Arab-Greek drug book records many other fond names for the
drug. Bhang is the Joy-giver, the Sky-flier, the Heavenly-guide, the Poor Man's Heaven, the Soother
of Grief.
Much of the holiness of bhang is due to its virtue of clearing the head and stimulating the brain to
thought. Among ascetics the sect known as Atits are specially devoted to hemp. No social or
religious gathering of Atits is complete without the use of the hemp plant smoked in ganja or drink in
bhang. To its devotee bhang is no ordinary plant that became holy from its guardian and healing
qualities. According to one account, when nectar was produced from the churning of the ocean,
something was wanted to purify the nectar. The deity supplied the want of a nectar-cleanser by
creating bhang. This bhang Mahadev made from his own body, and so it is called angaj or
body-bom. According to another account some nectar dropped to the ground and from the ground
the bhang plant sprang. It was because they used this child of nectar or of Mahadev in agreement
with religious forms that the seers or Rishis became Siddha or one with the deity. He who, despite
the example of the Rishis, uses no bhang shall lose his happiness in this life and in the life to come. In
the end he shall be cast into hell. The mere sight of bhang cleanses from as much sin as a thousand
horse-sacrifices or a thousand pilgrimages. He who scandalises the user of bhang shall suffer the
torments of hell so long as the sun endures. He who drinks bhang foolishly or for pleasure without
religious rites is as guilty as the sinner of lakhs of sins. He who drinks wisely and according to rule,
be he ever so low, even though his body is smeared with human ordure and urine, is Shiva. No god
or man is as good as the religious drinker of bhang. The students of the scriptures at Benares are
given bhang before they sit to study. At Benares, Ujjain, the other holy places yogis, bairagis and
sanyasis take deep draughts of bhang that they may centre their thoughts on the Eternal. To bring
back to reason an unhinged mind the best and cleanest bhang leaves should be boiled in milk and
turned to clarified butter. Salamisri, saffron, and sugar should be added and the whole eaten. Besides
over the demon of Madness bhang is Vijaya or victorious over the demons of hunger and thirst. By
the help of bhang ascetics pass days without food or drink. The supporting power of bhang has
brought many a Hindu family safe through the miseries of famine. To forbid or even seriously to
restrict the use of so holy and gracious a herb as the hemp would cause widespread suffering and
annoyance and to the large bands of worshipped ascetics deep-seated anger. It would rob the
people of a solace in discomfort, of a cure in sickness, of a guardian whose gracious protection saves
them from the attacks of evil influences, and whose mighty power makes the devotee of the
Victorious, overcoming the demons of hunger and thirst, of panic fear, of the glamour of Maya or
matter, and of madness, able to rest to brook on the Eternal, till the Eternal, possessing him body and
soul, frees him from the haunting of self and receives him into the ocean of Being. These beliefs the
Musalman devotee shares to the full. Like his Hindu brother the Mussalman fakir reveres bhang as
the lengthener of life, the freer from the bonds of self. Bhang brings union with the Divine Spirit. 'We
drank bhang and the mystery I am He grew plain. So grand a result, so tiny a sin.'
ii
REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94.
APPENDIX
NOTE BY MR. J. M. CAMPBELL, C.I.E., COLLECTOR OF LAND REVENUE AND
CUSTOMS AND OPIUM, BOMBAY, ON THE RELIGION OF HEMP.
To the Hindu the hemp plant is holy. A guardian lives in the bhang leaf. As the wife of Vishnu, the
preserver, lives in the hysteria-curing tulsi, or Holy Basil, and as Shiva dwells in the
dysentery-scaring bel, AEgle marmelos, so the properties of the bhang plant, its power to suppress
the appetites, its virtue as a febrifuge, and its thought-bracing qualities show that the bhang leaf is the
home of the great Yogi or brooding ascetic Mahadev.
So holy a plant should have special rearing. Shiva explains to his wife, Parvati, how, in sowing hemp
seed, you should keep repeating the spell 'Bhangi', 'Bhangi', apparently that the sound of that
guardian name may scare the evil tare-sowing influences. Again, when the seedlings are planted the
same holy name must be repeated, and also at the watering which, for the space of a year, the young
plants must daily receive. When the flowers appear the flowers and leaves should be stripped from
the plant and kept for a day in warm water. Next day, with one hundred repetitions of the holy name
Bhangi, the leaves and flowers should be washed in a river and dried in an open shed. When they are
dry some of the leaves should be burnt with due repeating of the holy name as a jap or muttered
charm. Then, bearing in mind Vagdevata, or the goddess of speech, and offering a prayer, the dried
leaves should be laid in a pure and sanctified place. Bhang so prepared, especially If prayers are said
over it, will gratify the wishes and desires of its owner. Taken in the early morning such bhang
cleanses the user from sin, frees him from the punishment of crores of sins, and entitles him to reap
the fruits of a thousand horse-sacrifices. Such sanctified bhang taken at day break or noon destroys
disease. Before the religious user of bhang stand the Ashtadevata or Eight Guardians with clasped
hands ready to obey him and perform his orders. The wish of him who with pure mind pours bhang
with due reverence over the Ling of Mahadev will be fulfilled.
Such holiness and such evil-scaring powers must give bhang a high place among lucky objects. That
a day may be fortunate the careful man should on waking look into liquid bhang. So any nightmares
or evil spirits that may have entered into him during the ghost-haunted hours of night will flee from him
at the sight of the bhang and free him from their blinding influences during the day. So too when a
journey has to be begun or a fresh duty or business undertaken it is well to look at bhang. To meet
some one carrying bhang is a sure omen of success. To see in a dream the leaves, plant, or water of
bhang is lucky; it brings the goddess of wealth into the dreamer's power. To see his parents worship
the bhang-plant and pour bhang over Shiva's Ling will cure the dreamer of fever. A longing for bhang
foretells happiness: to see bhang drunk increases riches. No good thing can come to the man who
treads under foot the holy bhang leaf.
So evil-searing and therefore luck-bringing a plant must play an important part in the rites required to
clear away evil influences. During the great spirit time of marriage in Bombay among almost all the
higher classes of Gujarat Hindus, of the Jain as well as of the Brahmanic sects, the supplies sent by
the family of the bride to the bridegroom's party during their seven days' sojourn includes a supply of
bhang. The name of the father who neglects to send bhang is held in contempt. Again, after the
wedding, when the bride-groom and his friends are entertained at the house of the bride,
richly-spiced bhang is drunk by the guests. The Gujarat .Musalman bride before and after marriage
drinks a preparation of bhang. Among the Pardeshi or North Indian Hindus of Bombay bhang is
given not only at weddings, but the Pardeshi who fails to give his visitor bhang is despised by his
caste as mean and miserly. Another great spirit time during which bhang plays an important part is the
time of war. Before the outbreak of a war and during its progress the Ling of Mahadev should be
bathed with bhang. Its power of driving panic influences from near the god has gained for bhang the
name of Vijaya, the unbeaten. So a drink of bhang drives from the fighting Hindu the haunting spirits
06573
?
i 1
of fear and weariness. So the beleaguered Rajput, when nothing is left but to die, after loosing his hair
that the bhang spirit may have free entrance, drinks the sacramental bhang and rushing on the enemy
completes his juhar or self-sacrifice. It is this quality of panic-scaring that makes bhang, the Vijaya
or Victorious, specially dear to Mahadev in his character of Tripur, .the slayer of the demon
Tripurasur. As Shiva is fond of bel leaves, as Vishnu is fond of tulsi leaves, so is Tripuresvar fond of
bhang leaves. He who wishes to obtain his desires must constantly offer bhang to Tripuresvar.
Bhang the cooler is a febrifuge. Bhang acts on the fever not directly or physically as an ordinary
medicine, but indirectly or spiritually by soothing the angry influences to whom the heats of fever are
due. According to one account in the Ayurveda, fever is possession by the hot angry breath of the
great gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. According to another passage in the Ayurveda, Shankar or
Shiva, enraged by a slight from his father-in-law Daksha, breathed from his nostrils the eight fevers
that wither mankind. If the fever-stncken performs the Vijaya abhishek, or bhang-pouring on the Ling
of Shankar, the god is pleased, his breath cools, and the portion of his breath in the body of the
fever-stricken pleased to inflame. The Kashikhanda Purana tells how at Benares, a Brahman,
sore-smitten with fever, dreamed that he had poured bhang over the self-sprung Ling and was well.
On waking he went to the Ling, worshipped, poured bhang this cure brings to Benares sufferers from
fever which no ordinary medicine can cure. The sufferers are laid in the temple pour bhang ever the
Ling whose virtue has gained it the name Jvareshwar, the Fever-Lord. Bombay many people sick of
fever vow on recovery to pour bhang over a Ling. Besides cure for fever bhang has many medicinal
virtues. It cools the heated blood, soothes the over-wakeful to sleep, gives beauty, and secures
length of days. It cures dysentery and sunstroke, clears phlegm, quickens digestion, sharpens
appetite, makes the tonic of the lisper plain, freshens the intellect, and gives alertness to the body and
gaiety to the mind. Such are the useful and needful ends for which in his goodness the Almighty made
bhang. In this praise of the hemp the Makhzan or great Greek-Arab work on drugs joins... Ganja in
excess uses abscess, even madness. In moderation bhang is the best of gifts. Bhang is a cordial, a
bile absorber, an appetizer, a prolonger of life. Bhang quickens fancy, deepens thought, and
Judgment. As on other guardian-assessed objects, the cow, the Vedas, or the leaf oaths are taken on
the bhang leaf Even to a truthful witness an oath on of the bel tree, dreaded. To one who forswears
himself the bhang oath is death the bhang leaf. So holy a plant must play a leading part in temple
rights. Shiva on fire with the poison churned from the ocean was cooled by bhang. At another time
enraged with family worries the fields. The cool shade .of a plant soothed him. He crushed and of the
leaves, and the bhang refreshed him. For these two benefits bhang is Shankarpri, the Mahadev. So
the right user of bhang or of ganja, before beginning to drinker smoke, offers the drug to Mahadev
saying, lena Shankar, lena Babulnath: be pleased to take Shankar, take it Babulnath. According to
the Shiva Parann, from the dark fourteenth of Magh (January-February) to the light fourteenth of
Asbadh (June-July), that is, during the three months of the hot weather, bhang should be daily poured
over the Ling of Shiva every day, bhang should be poured at least during the first and last days of this
period. According to the Meru Tantra on any Monday, especially on Shravan (July-August)
Mondays, on all twelfths pradoshs, and on all dark fourteenths or shivratris still more on the
Mahashivratri or Shiva's Great Night on dark fourteenth of Magh (January-February.), and at all
eclipses of the sun or moon, persons wistful either for this world or for the world to come should
offer bhang to Shiva and pour it over the Ling. Not every devotee of Shiva makes offerings of bhang.
Such rites in Bombay are seldom performed except in the Bhuleswar and Babulnath temples and
there only on special occasions. The bhang offered to Mahadev is without pepper or other spice. It is
mixed with water, water and milk, or milk and sugar. It is poured over the Ling. According to some
authorities the offerer should not touch the offered bhang. Temple ministrants Atits, Tapodhans,
Bhojaks, Bhopis, Bharadis, Gutaras alone should drink it. If there are no ministrants the remains of
the offering should be poured into a well or given to cows to drink. Other authorities encourage the
offerer to the bhang, since by sipping the bhang reaches and soothes the Shiva-Shakti or Shiva-spirit
in the sipper. On certain social occasions during failures of rain, during eclipses, and also in times of
war libations of bhang are poured ever the Ling.
Vaishnavas as well as Shalvas make offerings of bhang. The form of Vishnu Or, the Guardian to
whom bhang is a welcome offering is Baladev, Bainram, or Dauji, the elder brother Krishna. Baladev
was fond of spirits, not of bhang. But Banins, Bhatias, and other high class Hindus, not being able to
i1
offer spirits instead of spirits the offering of bhang to Baladev, unlike the special offerings to Shiva,
present bhang. In Bombay, without an offering of bhang no worship of Baladev is complete, offerings
to Shiva is a common and everyday rite. Unlike the plain or milk and sugared bhang spilt over the
Ling, Baladev's bhang is a richly-spiced liquid which all present, including the offerer, join in drinking.
Such social and religious ions drinking of bhang is common in Bombay in the temple of Dauji in
Kalyan' Kirparam lane near Bhuleshwar. As in the higher class worship of Baladev the liquor offering
has been refined into an offering of bhang so it is in the worship of Devi, Shiva's early and terrible
consort. On any Tuesday or Friday, the two week-days sacred to Devi, still more during the Navrata
or Nine Nights in Ashwin or September-October, those whose caste rules forbid liquor make a
pleasing spices bhang. And as in, the worship of Baladev all present, worshipper and ,ministrant
alike, join in drinking. Shitaladevi, the Cooler, the dread goddess of small-pox, whose nature, like the
nature of bhang, is cooling, takes pleasure in offerings of bhang. During epidemics of small-pox the
burning and fever of the disease are soothed by pouring bhang over the image of Shitaladevi. So for
the feverishness caused by the heats especially to the old no cure equals the drinking of bhang. Unlike
spirits the tempter to flesh bhang the craver for milk is pleasing to the Hindu religion. Even according
to the staitest school of the objectors to stimulants, while to a high caste Hindu the penalty for
liquor-drinking is death, no penalty attaches to the use of bhang, and a single day's fast is enough to
cleanse from the coarser spirit of ganja. Even among those who hold stimulants to be devil-possessed
penalty and disfavor attach to the use of hemp drugs only when they are taken with no religious
object and without observing the due religious rites.
At the other extreme of Hindu thought from the foes to stimulants, to the worshippers of the
influences that, raising man out of himself and above mean individual worries, make him one with the
divine force of nature, it is inevitable that temperaments should be found to whom the quickening
spirit of bhang is the spirit of freedom and knowledge. In the ecstasy of bhang the spark of the
Eternal in man turns into light the murkiness of matter or illusionand self is lost in the central soul-fire.
The Hindu poet of Shiva, the Great Spirit that living in bhang passes into the drinker, sings of bhang
as the clearer of ignorance, the giver ofknowledge. No gem or jewel can touch in value bhang taken
truly and reverently. He who drinks bhang drinks Shiva. The soul in whom the spirit of bhang finds a
home glides intothe ocean of Being freed from the weary round of matter-blinded self. To the meaner
man, still under the glamour of matter or maya, bhang taken religiously is kindly thwarting the wiles of
his foes and giving the drinker wealth and promptness of mind. In this devotion to bhang, with
reverence, not with the worship, which is due to Allahalone, the North Indian Mussulman joins
hymning the praises of bhang. To the follower of the later religion of Islam the holy spirit in bhang is
not the spirit of the Almighty. Itthe spirit of the great prophet Khizr or Elijah. That bhang should be
sacred to Khizr isnatural. Khizr is the patron saint of water. Still more Khizr means green, the revered
colour of the cooling water of bhang. So the Urdu poet sings 'When I quaff fresh bhang I liken its
colony to the fresh light down of thy youthful beard.' The prophet Khizr or the Green prophet cries '
May the drink be pleasing to thee.' Nasir, the great North Indian Urdupoet of the beginning of the
present century, is loud in the praises of his beloved Sabzi, the Green one. 'Compared with bhang
spirits are naught. Leave all things thou fool, drink bhang.' From its quickening the imagination
Musalman poets honour bhang with the title Warak al Khiyall, Fancy's Leaf. And the Makhzan or
great Arab-Greek drug book records many other fond names for the drug. Bhang is the Joy-giver,
the Sky-flier, the Heavenly-guide, the Poor Man's Heaven, the Soother of Grief.
Much of the holiness of bhang is due to its virtue of clearing the head and stimulating the brain to
thought. Among ascetics the sect known as Atits are specially devoted to hemp. No social or
religious gathering of Atits is complete without the use of the hemp plant.
smoked in ganja or drunk in bhang. To its devotee bhang is no ordinary plant that became , holy from
its guardian and healing qualities. According to one account, when nectar was produced from the
churning of the ocean, something was wanted to purify the nectar. The deity supplied the want of a
nectar-cleanser by creating bhang. This bhang Mahadev made from his own body, and so it is called
angaj or body-bom. According to another accountsome nectar dropped to the ground and from the
ground the bhang plant sprang. It was because they used this child of nectar or of Mahadev in
agreement with religious forms that thee seers or Hishis became Siddha or one with the deity. He
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who, despite the example of the Hishis, uses no bhang shall lose his happiness in this life and in the life
to come. In the end he shall be cast into hell. The mere sight of bhang, cleanses from as much sin as a
thousand horse-sacrifices or a thousand pilgrimages. He who scandalizes the user of bhang shall
suffer the torments of hell so long as the sun endures. He who drinks bhang foolishly or for pleasure
without religious rites is as guilty as the sinner of lakhs of sins. He who drinks wisely and according
to rule, be he ever so low, even though his body is smeared with human ordure and urine, is Shiva.
No god or man is as good as the religious drinker of bhang. The students of the scriptures at Benares
are given bhang before they sit to study. At Benares, Ujjain, and other holy places yogis, bairagis and
sanyasis take deep draughts of bhang that they may Centre their thoughts on the Eternal. To bring
back to reason an unhinged mind the best and cleanest bhang leaves should be boiled in milk and
turned to clarified butter. Salamisri, saffron, and sugar should be added and the whole eaten. Besides
over the demon of Madness bhang is Vijaya or victorious over the demons of hunger and thirst. By
the help of bhang ascetics pass days without food or drink. The supporting power of bhang has
brought many a Hindu family safe through, the miseries of famine. To forbid or even seriously to
restrict the use of so holy and gracious a herb as the hemp would cause widespread suffering and
annoyance and to the large bands of worshipped ascetics deep-seated anger. It would rob the
people of a solace in discomfort, of a cure in sickness, of a guardian whose gracious protection saves
them from the attacks of evil influences, and whose mighty power makes the devotee of the
Victorious, overcoming the demons of hunger and thirst, of panic fear, of the glamour of Maya or
matter, and of madness, able in rest to brood on the Eternal, till the Eternal, possessing him body and
soul, frees him from the having of self and receives him into the ocean of Being. These beliefs the
Musalman devotee shares to the full. Like his Hindu brother the Musalman fakir reveres bhang as the
lengthener of life, the freer from the bonds of self. Bhang brings union with the Divine Spirit. 'We
drank bhang and the mystery I am He grew plain. So grand a result, so tiny a sin."
NOTE BY BABU ABHILAS CHANDRA MUKERJI.
NOTE BY BABU ABHIILAS CHANDRA MUKERJI, SECOND INSPECTOR OF EXCISE,
BENGAL, ON THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF TRINATH WORSHIP IN EASTERN
BENGAL,. '
Date of origin.-In 1867 Babu Annnda Chandra Kali or Kailai, of Dhamrai, a village in thana
Sabhar of the Dacca district, first started the worship at the house of his father-in- law at Fattehpur in
the Atia pargana of the Mymensingh district (sub-division Tangail). Antecedent: of the
originator.-Dhamrai is an important village in the Dacca district for its car festival, which is annually
held in honour of a local idol named Madhab Thakur, and which is witnessed by a large gathering of
people. Ananda Chandra received education at the Dacca Normal School. After leaving school he
served for some time as a pundit (schoolmaster), and then entered the Police Department, but was
there only a short time. He is a Barendra Brahman and belongs to a respectable family. He learnt to
smoke ganja when he was only a boy. His present age Is 60 years. He has the reputation of being a
versifier. He smokes two pice worth of ganja every day.
He married at Fattehpur in the Mymensingh district. There he introduced Trinath worship 27 years
ago. A panchali (poem) reciting the praises and exploits of Trinath was first published at Dacca in
1871 and the first edition (1,000 copies) was sold in a few months.
The circumstances under which the worship was first started.-Ananda Chandra Kali was at the
time living in the house of his father-in-law. He was thinking of introducing the worship of a common
god, who might be worshipped by all classes, rich and poor, Brahman and Chandal, and by all
creeds, Saktas, Baishnavas, and Shaivas, and the idea occurred to him of having the present worship
at which ordinary and inexpensive things, such as ganja, oil, and betel-leaf, were alone to be used. •
Trinath (from Sanskrit Tri, three, and Nath, lord) is represented to be Brahma, Bishnu and Shiva, the
Hindu Trinity in one.
Being a ganja-smoker himself Ananda Kali may have also thought that by introducing the worship he
u
would be able to save the ganja-smokers from disrepute, as then ganja could be consumed in the
name of a god and under colour of doing a religious or pious act.
Religious aspect of the worship.—The following translation of the Introduction to the Trinath Mela
Panchali gives some idea of the subject:
I
I
I
The universe consists of the earth, the heaven, and the nether world, and Trinath is the lord of these
three worlds.
"There was an incarnation of God in the form of Gour (Chaitanya), who delivered- the sinners by
preaching the name of Hari, but the Lord was not satisfied with this, and became concerned for the
created, and soon he became incarnate again. Brahma, Bishnu and Shiva, gods in three forms,
manifested themselves in one form. The one God, the Lord of the. universe, seeing the miseries of
mankind, came to their deliverance. Ananda (Ananda Chandra Kali, the originator)declares that the
true and sincere worshippers of Trinath are sure to obtain salvation. Brahma, Bishnu, and Shiva met
together and expressed their desire,
to come to this world in one form to receive worship. .
"He is a truly pious man who worships Trinath, and blessings are showered on the worshipper.
"The worship should be made in a form in which the rich and the poor may equally join and may
perform it easily.
"Only three things, each worth one pice, are required for this puja (form of worship)..
The things which please all must be selected. The offering should consist of siddhi (ganja),, pan
(betel-leaf), and oil, each worth one pice. .
"The votaries should assemble at night and worship with flowers. The ganja should be washed in the
manner in which people wash ganja for smoking. The worshipper must fill three chillums with equal
quantities of ganja, observing due awe and reverence. When all, the worshippers are assembled the
lamp should be lit with three wicks, and the praises of Tri- should be sung. As long as the wicks
bum, the god should be worshipped and his praises chanted. The god should be reverentially bowed
to at the close of the puja. When the reading of the Panchali is finished, those that will not show
respect to the Prasad (the
offering which has been accepted by the god), i.e., chillum of ganja, shall be consigned to.
eternal hell, and the sincere worshippers shall go to heaven.,
How the worship spread.-Anauda Kali commenced the puja with the aid of some ganja smokers
in the village of Fattehpur. A large number of people consume ganja in the Dacca and Mymensingh
districts, and the worship soon became popular. In fact it spread like wild-fire from one village to
another among the ganja-smokers. Those that were not in the habit of consuming ganja also followed
their example.
The following circumstances assisted the spread of the Worship :
I.-The puja is open to all classes from Brahmans to Chandals and to the rich and the poor. Caste
does not stand in its way, and it may be performed almost every day and in all seasons.
IL—The pup is a Manarik Puja (made in pursuance of a vow on the fulfillment of the object
desired).. People have been led to believe that Trinath possesses the power of .healing the sick and
fulfilling desires, and .that those who. neglect his worship meet with disgrace, while those who
observe it attain success in life. There are several stories m the Panchali narrated in illustration of this
statement. It is also popularly believed that in the house where Trinath is worshipped cold: fever and
11
headache do not appear.
III.—This is a cheap form of worship. The puja can be performed by even the poorest, only three
pies being required.
IV.—People of the lowest class can mix with those above them without distinction of caste or creed
on the occasion of these pujas.
V.—Ganja eau be consumed by all in the name of a god, and the practice cannot be looked down
upon, because it is done under certain forms and religious ceremonies. It is also popularly believed
that those who mock the worshippers of Trinath shall be ruined and shall be the victims of misfortune.
The worship prevails not only among the poor, but also among the well-to-do. The latter often
entertain their friends after the puja.
Women do not take any active part in the worship, but they often listen to the reading, of the
Panchali.
The worship is more or less general in the following districts (1) Dacca, (2) Mymensingh, (3)
Faridpur, (4) Backergunge, (5) Noakhali, (6) Tippers, (7) Chittagong, (8) Bogra, (9) Sylhet, and
(10) Pabna (SerajgaDj side).
The worship is on the decline. It is almost dying out among the educated
]Jut among the masses it Still exists.
. I have ascertained the above facts from Dr. Chandra Sekhar Kali (brother of the originator, Ananda
Chandra Kali) and many other respectable persons, and also from personal inquiries in the Daces,
Chittagong and Rajshahi divisions.
11
INDIAN HEMP AND THE DOPE FIENDS OF OLD ENGLAND
A sociopolitical history of cannabis and the British Empire 1840-1928
Sean Blanchard & Matthew J. Atha MSc
When the report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (IHDC) reached 1890's England it met
official and public apathy. There was no political debate. It went into the 'forget about this' file on
arrival and has stayed there ever since. There was no publicity; The news that "Ganja is not
appreciably harmful" was of no concern to the majority of users, who took cannabis products for
their medical benefits. The non-medical users were mostly artists who didn't mind a little harm.
Prohibitionist sentiment was concentrated on the opium trade between India and China and on
alcohol at home. Cannabis use in England was considered negligible, and the authorities were content
to have no laws at all controlling it for another thirty years.
When laws were later proposed, the Government paid no attention to the evidence in their
possession from the IHDC. In India, the recommendations of the IHDC report for control by taxes
rather than prohibition went into force quietly, standardising laws and tariffs on cannabis in all the
provinces. In March 1895, the Indian Government passed a resolution after reviewing the report. It
said that for the last twenty years their policy had been of "restraining use and improving the revenue
by the imposition of suitable taxation" and "imposing as high a rate of duty as can be levied without
inducing illicit practices" on the grounds that "the best way to restrict the consumption of drugs is to
tax them..." So, "to that policy the Governor-General... has decided steadily to adhere."[1]
There was never any suggestion that the same rules might be applied in the UK; the Empire didn't
work like that. The Governor-General (also known as Viceroy), Lord Landsdowne, was appointed
by the UK Government. When they instructed him to commission a report, he did so, then accepted
or rejected it, passed any regulations needed, and told the UK what he'd done. His job was to 'keep
natives in their place' and help the British get on with de, not to give advice on home affairs.
From Mother's Friend to Opium Wars
Cannabis was virtually irrelevant to 19th century England. The drug of the century was opium, freely
available to the British population and so popular that the government went to war to prevent the
prohibitionist Chinese disrupting the trade. The opium wars still write their history in the 1990s, as
Britain is soon due to hand back Hong Kong, the tenitory it won from China and those territories
leased for 150 years, in 1997.
Thomas De Quincy, in his 'Confessions of and English Opium Eater' gave the first popular account of
the '...marvellous agency of opium, whether for pleasure or pain'. He may have been the first
glamouriser of the psychotropic effects of the drug, but, for most people opium was a friend and
medicine as indispensable as aspirin or Valium in the 20th century. Godfrey's cordial, or chemists'
home-brewed versions of popular patent medicines, were used to quiet children, while no home
would be without laudanum (alcoholic tincture of opium). Opium was first used in the treatment of
cholera in the epidemics of the early 19th century, and continued to be used for the treatment of
diarrhoea and sickness, common complaints in the less than hygienic environment of the day. It was
during the Crimean war that the analgesic effects were fully exploited, and it is certain that the
widespread use of laudanum, Collis Browne's mixture or other opium-based medicines, available to
the poor for a penny a bottle, enabled ordinary people to cope with the harsh realities of life in
Dickensian England. From the government's point of view, it was no doubt preferable to have the
poor in a state of comfortable stupor than rioting on the streets.
India was not the main source of opium for the domestic market. Most of this was grown in Turkey
or Persia (Iran), as this opium was of generally high qualify, and trade flourished in the period
following the end of the Napoleonic wars, particularly after the treaty of Balta Limon (1838) granting
Ii
the Ottoman Empire 'most favoured nation' trading status[2]. Indian opium, however, was
responsible for one of the British Government in India becoming the largest drug-trafficking syndicate
in the world during the latter part of the century.
Opium and tea were the mainstays of the British East India Company, who had a monopoly on the
opium produced in Bengal. In 1772 Warren Hastings, then chief executive of the company, realised
the potential for foreign revenue in exporting Indian opium to China. Opium had been known in China
for centuries, but
imports bad been banned in 1729 by decree of the Emperor. An foreign trade was funneled through
Canton, opium being smuggled with legitimate consignments in British ships, and sold through corrupt
officials to an eager market Other traders smuggled opium to China overland, and the consumption
spread to all levels of society, even to the personal retinue of the Emperor. Exports to China rose
from 10,000 chests ill 1820 to 40,000 chests in 1840. By 1836, a Chinese official in Canton, Hsu
Nal-chi, petitioned the emperor to legalise the trade after witnessing the failure of prohibition... "the
severer the interdicts against (opium) became, the more widely do the evils therefrom spread." He
was summarily dismissed from his post and replaced with a committed "war on drugs"-minded
individual, Lin Tse-hsu.
Lin was determined to wipe out the opium trade by threatening the British merchants with the loss of
the tea trade, and in 1839 forced them to surrender 20,000 chests of the drug. Captain Charles Elliot
the British Chief Superintended, retaliated by ordering all British ships out of the Canton estuary,
transferring the tea trade to American ships who would transport their cargoes to Hong Kong, an
inconvenience, but not an obstacle, to the trade. Instead of using Canton, smugglers would take
opium consignments ashore up and down the coast in sin-all boats, fast enough to evade the Customs
craft. Meanwhile Elliot had ordered an expeditionary force of naval steamships which arrived in 1840
and put direct pressure on Peking. Lin was dismissed and the trade continued uninterrupted following
the Chinese capitulation and the end of the first opium war in 1842. To the domestic audience in the
UK, Palmerston, the Prime Minister, bad portrayed the war as an attempt to force the Chinese to
accept free trade. In reality, the only commodity directly involved was -opium, tax revenue from
which was becoming increasingly important to the Indian Government [3].
In Britain, the Conservative opposition was not satisfied with Palmerston's explanations and they
opposed the opium trade in the 1840 Commons debate. By the time they took power in 1841 their
tune had changed, and the trade continued to expand. The Chinese government was effectively
warned that no British ships should be searched. Although fresh edicts against the drug were issued
by the Chinese, they were powerless to stop the trade following the treaty of Nanking, which ceded
Hong Kong to Britain, allowing a bridgehead for further opium supplies. In 1856, following growing
and-British sentiment, the Chinese gave the British government a further excuse for war by seizing the
Aitow, a British vessel with a crew of Chinese criminals anchored off Canton. The fact that the
Arrow's registration had expired, technically justifying the Chinese action, was overlooked by
Palmerston, once again the Liberal Prime Minister after fighting an election forced by government
defeat on an opposition motion condemning the war, and winning on a wave of patriotic fervour.
Lord Elgin was dispatched with an expeditionary force which burned down the Summer Palace in
Peking to impress upon the Emperor the need to keep agreements. The main consequence of the
Second Opium War was that China was forced to legalise the trade in opium, and were only
permitted to tax the product at a level acceptable to the British. Consumption increased from 60,000
chests in 1860 to 105,000 by 1880. The trade generated taxes to the British Indian Government
equivalent to over half their total revenue, enough to cover the entire civil service and armed forces
budgets. In this climate, financial expediency, as so often is the case, took precedence over the
growing moral arguments against the drug trade.
Following increased public pressure to end the trade, and in response to a Parliamentary motion, the
Government called a Royal Commission on the production and consumption of opium, which was
only to consider prohibition among other options, after full investigation. It was during these
ii
manoevres that the IHDC was also established. The Indian Viceroy, Lord Lansdowne was against
anything that might disrupt business. Prime Minister Gladstone was much more pro trade than he was
anti drug. They packed the opium commission with pragmatists from the Indian Civil Service, with
some of the more economically literate abolitionists, and ensured that it would concentrate a good
deal on money. It first met in September 1893 and saw 2,500 witnesses by February '94.
When the report was published in '95, it said that opium was "generally used in moderation", and "led
to no evident ill-effects". Even some senior anti-opiumists had been convinced. The fact that Chinese
missionaries were overwhelmingly critical of the effects of opium, in contrast to the Indian witnesses
who were predominantly favourable towards the drug, was put down to the fact that in India the drug
is normally taken orally, whereas in China it was generally smoked [3]. There was only one dissent;
Joseph Rowntree, one of the committee members, was later to denounce the Commission's report as
a whitewash. By that time there was another election under way. Prohibition had no chance under the
Conservatives, and there would be no Liberal government until 1905.(4). The government, despite
public opinion, was determined to continue the opium
"The Lunatic asylums are filled with Ganja Smokers."
The question of cannabis occasionally cropped up as an incidental issue in skirmishes during the long
legislative battle against the opium business. As early as 1840 the pro-opium banker William
Bingham Baring MP told the Commons that if the opium trade were suppressed then there would be
a danger of users turning to drugs "infinitely more prejudicial to physical health and energy than
opium". Baring, one of 10 MPs of both parties from the same pro-free trade family, was particularly
concerned about "an exhalation of the Hemp plant, easily collected at certain seasons, which is in
every way more injurious than the use of the poppy." [3] This was another justification for the
lucrative opium trade which flourished in a climate of official and unofficial governmental
encouragement. However, attitudes were slowly changing and in 1875 Mark Steward MP had
proposed that the Indian Governor General be instructed to investigate the opium trade "with a view
to gradual withdrawal," and lost by 37 votes. Similar moves were regularly defeated for the next
twenty years. By April '91, a spokesman for the Society for Suppression of the Opium Trade
(SSOT) had obtained a 30-vote majority for a motion that the Governments' revenue from opium
was "Morally indefensible".
On 16 July 1891 Stewart asked a three part question about ganja [5]:
"i Whether the Secretary of State for India has seen a report in the Allahabad Pioneer of 10 May that
ganja, which is grown sold and excised in much the same way as opium, is far more harmful, and that
"the lunatic asylum of Bengal are filled with ganja smokers."
ii Is he aware that ganja has been made illegal in Lower Burma and that excise reports say this has
been 'of enormous benefit to the people.'
iii Will he call to the attention of the Governor General the desirability of extending theprohibition to
other provinces?"
The answers to which were yes, yes, and that he would "Enquire whether further steps should be
taken to limit consumption..." On 7 August 1892 those enquiries were answered at some length. The
Viceroy's office told London that the whole question had been extensively discussed with provincial
administrations in 1871-73. They sent 174 pages of old dispatches from Indian provincial
governments to the centre, and from there to London. After considering these, "The Governor
General is of the opinion that while ganja may be among the most noxious of all intoxicants commonly
used in India... even if absolute prohibition could be enforced, the result might be to induce the use of
more noxious drugs" (e.g. datura). Apart from which it would be impossible to enforce a prohibition.
It was "Our duty to restrict consumption, but unnecessary to do more than persevere in the policy
established In 1873." These papers languished unread in London, perhaps because there was a
general election going on.
I i
The 1873 dispatches showed the pragmatism of imperial administrators which was to be repeated by
the IHDC, in very similar words. The then Viceroy had said that while the Government should
endeavour to restrict the use of ganja, it would be impossible to enforce general prohibition,
especially because of religious feelings in some groups and because the plants grew freely some
areas. It would be inexpedient to order what could not be enforced... "It does not appear to the
Governor-General to be specifically proved that hump incites to crime more than other drugs or
spirits." There was also some evidence that hump, "usually so noxious", might usefully be taken for
medical reasons. There was no doubt that habitual use tended to cause insanity but not in very many
cases relative to the numbers of the insane.(6]. "General opinion seems to be that the evil effects of
Ganja have been exaggerated."
The dispatches from regional governments were more forthright. The Lt.-Govemor of the Punjab
wrote that considering the practicalities, they should not restrict hemp drug use unless there was
proof of connection with crime. Civil, police and medical officers disagreed on the details but: "His
Honour is of the opinion that if people were prohibited from using preparations of hemp or opium,
they would, in all probability, have recourse to some other stimulant, such as alcohol, the crime
resulting from the use of which would be much greater than that resulting from the abuse of these
drugs .... It seems that the amount of crime, violent or other, incited by ganja, is exceedingly small...
If, therefore, these preparations have no effect on crime and only injure the persons who use them, it
is difficult to see in what manner the law can restrict their use in a country where opium is a monopoly
of the Government, the effects of which are perhaps as injurious when taken in excess as those of
hemp."
The local governments of Mysore, Hyderbad, Oudh, and Burma said that as hump drugs were little
used locally, not necessary. Central Provinces sent plenty of data but no opinions. The Northwest
Provinces (later Pakistan), one of the main cannabis growing areas, said the evidence on crime was
confused, where if the situation was bad as supposed there would surely be a consensus. To stop
production would be almost impossible, so they could not recommend attempts to limit or stop
consumption. Bombay, Madras, and Bengal said that restrictions and taxes already in place should
be preserved. All agreed excessive use to be somehow connected with physical harm and perhaps
insanity, but the numbers harmed were very small. Bengal sent the most information. Asked if a
particularly popular type of local ganja was more deleterious than others, they submitted a long
report on cultivation, uses and profit margins on all hemp products by Dr Watt, State Reporter on
Economic Products. Their local product was popular due to the quality of plants and traditional
production skills, rather than sheer strength. A table of samples analysed for "Resinous extracts or
Cannabin" ranged from 1.4% (NW Province) to 12% (Madras), mostly about 4% [7]. All of the
legal trade was inside India. The state of Bengal had been making an average 1 million rupees per
year through the 1860's in tax on ganja shops and duty at government auctions, about £100,000 tens of millions in today's money.
When these papers were taken from the files, twenty years after they were written, the August 1892
elections were under way. The Conservatives went out and the Liberals came in. Drug control was
not high on their agenda; however, the new Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, and Secretary of
State for India were all known to be anti-opium, and the Prime Minister had spoken out against it in
the past. The prohibitionists knew they might get some sort of opium control agreed if it didn't
oppose the Liberals' central Free Trade policy. Believing their moment had come, they began to
quarrel among themselves.
Criminalise it!
Before the development of the hypodermic syringe by Alexander Wood, the main concern about
opium was not the threat of addiction, but the danger of poisoning. Only after the 1860s did the risk
of dependency start to cause concern among the medical profession. Certainly, people would have
been habituated to the drug, but the stereotype of the drug addict had yet to gain acceptance within
the UK. Even where individuals wrote of their habit, such as a chemists wife who had been using
11
morphia for 30 years, described her experience in a matter of fact way, free from any sense of stigma
her major concern being the perceived tendency of the drug to cause her to put on weight. Although
the dependency syndrome had been described two centuries earlier by Thomas Sydenham, the risk
was not taken seriously by most medical practitioners. Following increasing reports of dependency
symptoms after 1860, culminating in a series of articles in The Practitioner in 1870, the debate on
the wisdom of permitting free access to opium accelerated. In 1878 Edward Levinstein in Germany
started the 'moral' argument about the effect of opium on the character of the user, and was one of
the first to promote abstinence as a cure for the addict [2].
From the 1840s on, there were several anti-opium organisations, all small and mostly broke. Their
memberships overlapped, but the leaders didn't get on well. None of them had ever tried to gain
mass support. The first organisation to come out against the trade were the Birmingham Quakers. In
1869, Lord Shaftesbury urged the Indian government to withdraw from its monopoly position in the
trade. By 1884 the Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety, founded by Sir Norman Kerr, aimed
"to educate the professional and the public mind to the dangers of intemperance". At that time,
alcohol was the main target for the temperance movement, whereas other, more exotic drugs were
not seen as much of a threat to respectable Britons. These drugs were not expected to be a threat to
the well-adjusted British gentleman, and habituation among the Chinese and others was regarded as
the kind of 'filthy foreign habit' that should be stopped for the foreigners' own good. Kerr recognised
the dangers of opium with a crusading zeal, and railed against its use, denying any possibility that
some persons could be able to restrict their use to a moderate level. The Society for Suppression of
the Opium Trade (SSOT), founded in 1874, became the best-known anti-opium organisation, but
had always been elitist, controlled by Quaker businessmen with knighthoods, funded by one family.
Their best argument combined economic and humanitarian interest; other exports to China had been
damaged by the sleaziness of the opium business. Trade with China had been stagnant between
1860-80 while business with Japan had tripled. The SSOT moved for ending the India-China opium
trade, and an enquiry into alternate ways of making up the money. They took too long agreeing a
proposal with other lobbyists, but did manage to force the government to concede the 1893 Royal
Commission on Opium [8].
Meanwhile, in February ’93, William Caine, MP (Bradford East), had the papers on ganja collected
the previous year placed in the House of Commons Library. Ou the 2nd March 1893 he put a public
question to the Under-secretary of State for India. "If he will instruct the Government of India to
create a commission of experts to enquire into and report on the cultivation of and trade in all
preparations of hemp drugs in Bengal, the effects of theft consumption on society, and on the moral
condition of the people, and the desirability of prohibiting its growth and sale." Would he also invite
written reports on the same matters from all other provinces, and include in the commission
non-official natives of India. The Secretary of State would ask the Viceroy to do just that, "and he
will be glad if the result of this inquiry is to show that further restriction can be placed upon the sale
and consumption of these drugs."(7) Since the Government seemed so amenable, a secondary
question by the Right Hon. Sir Charles E. Schwann, Bart, was then dropped.
The members of the commission were named on 3rd July, and held their first meeting on 2nd August
- a mouth before the Opium commission began to meet. They continued until April, seeing over 800
witnesses, assembling over 3000 pages into seven volumes, and a confidential extra volume on hemp
drug use in the Army; then the Finance and Commerce department of the Government of India
considered the report, and another British election crept closer. It is unclear what Caine and
Schwann thought they were up to. Both were Liberals, Temperance campaigners, and probably
anti-opium. Schwann had a safe scat, a comfortable merchants' fortune and radical opinions. Caine
wrote books, including 'Young India', 'Picturesque India' and 'A Trip Around the World.' He had
quit the Liberal Party six years earlier over the Irish question, and been re-admitted in a new scat
after losing as an Independent; he was to lose it again in 1895. The timing, and the request for the
commission to include non-official Indians, suggest that they were part of a faction among the
anti-opiumists, perhaps trying to stir them into holder demands or quicker action. Perhaps they were
simply trying to get in on what looked like a winning side. Neither is recorded as ever mentioning
hemp drugs in public again.
44
The Dope Fiends of Old England
The international drugs trade was quite a different thing from home consumption; for example
although the British Empire produced a great deal of the worlds' opiates, over 80% of the opium
used in the UK was from Turkey and Persia [2]. The economic pressure for international prohibition
came from traders and nations with rival products. In the UK drug control was at first pan of an
increase in medical involvement in social policy. Prescription by professionals had to take over from
self-medication before complete prohibition became possible.
There was not much openly recreational drug use in Victorian England, other than alcohol. A few serf
consciously unconventional young artists and mystics searched for inner experience, rejecting vulgar
materialism, but the majority of drug abusers, then as now, considered themselves to be taking
medicines, to help them work or relax. This was an age which demanded refinement, in every sense
of the term. They took extracts, tinctures, distillations or the 'active ingredients' of traditional
medicinal plants like Indian hemp or poppies, in amounts that would kill modem addicts. This was all
for the good of their health, so morally impeccable. They didn't do dope to get wasted, or didn't
admit to it
Vulgar materialism provided ever more purified forms of relief from the stresses of righteous life, as
opium was dissolved into laudanum, concentrated into morphine, re-concentrated into heroin. Some
condemned booze while chewing opium, just as well-known modem anti-drug campaigners have
been tranquilliser addicts. In this atmosphere Cannabis Indica was just another potentially useful
plant, which could be perhaps refined into some sort of medicine but was quite unsuitable in natural
form. The distinction between drug use and abuse had hardly been invented. Doctors were expensive
and not well trusted, so the poor dosed themselves with whatever remedies they could afford.
Pseudo-medical opiate use was decreasing, but still respectable; Elizabeth Barrett Browning and
Florence Nightingale had used it, and William Wilberforce, saint of the anti-slavery movement, had
eaten twelve grains a day for thirty years. Self-medication bluffed into non-medical use. Boozing was
low class and unfeminine, so respectable ladies took "tonics." Patent medicines were a huge business,
often including alcohol, opium, or cannabis.
Sales of pure morphine, cocaine, and barbiturates were supposedly controlled by the 1868 Poisons
and Pharmacy Act, but quack nostrums and patent medicines were not, and an attempt to extend the
law in 1884 had failed. The Act only affected shops, not users. One especially dangerous popular
remedy was Collis Brownes' Chlorodyne, containing chloroform and morphine, which the British
Medical Association campaigned through the 90's to have banned.
"One of the most valuable medicines we possess"
There had been increasing medical interest in cannabis since William O'Shaughnessy described the
use of Indian hemp as medicine and intoxicant [9], relying on accounts of hashish use from ancient
Persian and Arabic sources, as well as on his own observations in India. He described the use of
hemp in the treatment of rheumatism, hydrophobia, cholera, tetanus and infantile convulsions, as well
as describing the delirium induced by continued use. O'Shaughnessy had written in 1839 that, with a
couple of exceptions, "I have been unable to trace any notice of the employment of this drug in
Europe." However, despite citing western works by Ainslie and von Estebeck he managed to
overlook one classic account.
The noted medieval herbalist, Nicholas Culpepper (1616-1654), listed a variety of medical uses of
the common european hemp (Cannabis sativa), including anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and
antiparasitic activity [10]. Culpepper made no mention of the psychotropic activity, although the
temperate hemp he described would normally be of low drug content and be grown for fibre.
Culpepper's work would have owed much to the folk herbalism used by British witches, or wise
women, who until the Christian persecutions had provided most primary health care to the rural
population, as well as to the monastic healers who replaced them. By the Victorian "age of reason"
i1
most traditional use had been suppressed, as the pioneer pharmacologists began to analyse folk
medicines to refine and extract the active compounds therein. An unsuccessful attempt had been
made in the 1840's to grow hemp for medicine in the London suburb of Mitcham. Experimenters
used it for athsma and other chest problems, sleeplessness especially in cases of opiate or alcohol
withdrawal, and with opium and bromide of potassium in treating insanity.
One reason why cannabis was not as widely used as opium products, or the newer chemical
remedies, was the difficulty found refining an "active ingredient." There were problems getting
supplies of reliable strength, confusion about apparently different products from the same plant, and
uncertainty about its effects in the body. However, it was used to treat many disorders. In 1889, Dr
E.A.Birch described in the Lancet the successful use of cannabis indica in the treatment of chloral
hydrate and opium withdrawal, drawing attention to the abolition of craving and the antiemetic (vomit
suppressing) effects and the stimulation of appetite in patients who would not normally eat, or keep'
down, their food [111. Queen Victoria's personal physician, J.R. Reynolds described it in 1890 as
"One of the most valuable medicines we possess." In another Lancet article published in 1890, he
described the use of cannabis indica for treating insomnia in the senile, alcoholic delirium, neuralgia,
migraine, spastic paralysis, and convulsions [12]..He allegedly prescribed tincture of cannabis to
Queen Victoria herself for the treatment of menstrual cramps. Cannabis tincture and an extract made
from resin were available from Peter Squire of Oxford St in 1864, and wholesale through the Society
of Apothecaries by 1871. Chemists extracted stuff they called cannabene, cannabin tannin,
cannabinnene etc. but had no idea which, if any, was the "active ingredient" until cannabinol was
isolated in 1895.
At the same time some thought of drug-taking as a form of poisoning, and some researchers
proposed that it either caused, or was, a type of insanity. W.W. Ireland compared the mental state of
cannabis users to delirium, with its alteration of time and space and visual illusions. British doctors'
reports from Cairo Asylum in 1894 linked violent insanity with "Hashism"(13,14) Some of the
medical studies would have been recreational use in any other context. Walter Dixon must have tried
it on himself as well as small furry animals when he showed in 1899 that the effects vary according to
type of preparation as well as method of ingestion. He recommended smoking for immediate effect
and wrote in the British Medical Journal, "Hemp taken as an inhalation may be placed in the same
category as coffee, tea and kola. It is not dangerous and its effects are never alarming, and I have
come to regard it in this form as a useful and refreshing stimulant and food accessory, and one whose
use does not lead to a habit which grows upon its votary." He was to be a member of the Rolleston
Committee on Morphine and Heroin Addiction in the 1920's, who opposed criminalising narcotics
policy.
At the end of the century cannabis tincture became popular again as a cure for cramps, migraine,
opium addiction, withdrawal and insomnia, but the fashion faded. In the early 1900's a British
Medical Association campaign against 'Secret Remedies' got most of the opiates, cocaine and
cannabis out of tonics and non-prescription medicines. Doctors became responsible for most drug
distribution as the consumer beverage trade withdrew. As drag dispensing was professionalised,
substances used for self-medication were replaced by more refined, more medically controllable
drags. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission report made no apparent difference to this at all, and it's
quite possible that nobody in the medical establishment read it. It held quite a lot of scientific data but
its purpose had been political rather than medical. The political and economic interests of the British
Medical Association were quite different from those of the Government of India.
The Cosmopolitan Dope Fiends
It is worth noting that most publications from the time refer to "Hashish," the Arabic term, Indian
Hemp, or Cannabis, rather than Charas, Ganja or Bhang, the Hindi names. The French empire in
North Africa had at least as much effect on European cannabis use as the British empire in India. A
certain style of drug use, the Wasted Artist role, as established by the laudanum swigging Coleridge
and De Quincey early in the century, was revived by Dr Jean Moreau in Paris after 1845. The
doctor, who experimented with hashish to treat insanity, founded the Club des Hashishins with the
11
writer Theophile Gautier, for non-medical experiments. Some of the members were quite keen on a
little delirium. Gautier was a hack with brilliant friends, an 'art for arts sake' romantic with a taste for
macabre fantasy who encouraged the Symbolist poets. Rimbaud and Verlaine shared his drugs.
Baudelaire dedicated "Fleur du Mai" to him, and wrote an essay that explained their attitudes: "On
Hashish and Wine as a means of expanding individuality." They created strange, sensuous art, struck
foreign poses based on their beliefs about the romantic East, scandalised bourgeois society [15].
By the 90's the club had imitators in London. If there was no recreational drug use "subculture" in the
1890's, one network came close. This was the circle of poets, psychics, writers and would-be
magicians around the Rhymers Club and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. They didn't define
their connection by shared drug use, but they certainly included drug experiments in their
self-definition. Occult studies, drugs, hypnotism, proto-psychiatry and new styles of arts were all
1890's fashions mingled in overlapping cliques in central London. The Golden Dawn was established
in 1888 by some occultist Freemasons, as a society of "Christian practiced magic. In 1890 Yeats and
two others formed the Rhymers Club as a sort of literary wing, drawing inspiration from the French
Symbolists. None of the Rhymers Club apart from Yeats ever achieved as much recognition as their
French heroes, but they had the style. They were melancholy, self-dramatising, they hoped Byronic.
They had doomed love lives and nervous breakdowns, and mostly died young. Their defiance of
conventional society included such un-English deviance as drinking black coffee and speaking
comprehensible French, as well as attempted magic, sexual permutations not discussed in polite
company, and hefty drug use.
Yeats and his lover Maude Gonne tried using hashish to improve their telepathic powers. Others had
a more relaxed, recreational approach. Arthur Symons was one Rhymer who survived to he
described as "highly strong, over-sensitive" in the 1930's, best known for "Confessions - A study in
Pathology" which described his two years in an Italian lunatic asylum and cure by near-fatal
pneumonia in 1909. He was the author of'The Opium Smoker; "I am engulfed, and drown
deliciously/soft music like a perfume, and sweet light/Golden with audible odours exquisite/ swathe
me in cerements for eternity.../". In a biography of fellow Rhymer Ernest Dowson he described one
afternoon; a couple of ballet dancers and a poet visiting, the host issuing tea, cakes, cigarettes and
then hashish. "That slow intoxication, that elaborate experiment in visionary sensations... he sat
awaiting the magic, half shy in the midst of that bright company of young people." Dowson wrote
poems with Latin titles about doomed love affairs, and consorted with the "most degraded" women
in dockside dives. He experimented with mescal in 1896, with the sexuality researcher Havelock
Ellis. He died of TB in 1900, aged 32. The other poet present at the hash and tea party and the
mescal experiment was John Addington Symonds, a historian who studied the criminal mentality - he
was part blinded after several breakdowns and TB. One of their associates, Count Eric Stenbock,
who wrote The Shadow of Death and Studies of Death, was known for wearing a live snake around
his neck; he died aged 35, of either alcohol or opium.(13)
The Wasted Artists were picturesque and dramatic, and their style became a popular image of drug
abusers. Ethereal and rather unhealthy, possibly creative but definitely pasty-faced. The perception of
a difference between drugs suitable for legitimate use, under medical control, and drugs which can
only be abused, was extended by their example; anything they took was obviously not doing any
good for their health. Still there was no anti-drug panic in the UK. Drugs were still seen as foreign
stuff, only used by those who wanted to act like foreigners. The artists were added to an existing
mythology of the opium addict and the opium den, spread by popular fiction from Wilkie Collins to
Oscar Wilde, the addict over-sensitive, hollow-cheeked with torment, the dens glided in rococo
brothel style, populated by vicious Chinese and degenerate aristocrats.
The Respectable Fear begins
The first demon dope stories came over from the USA in the mid 1890's. There were, apparently,
ever-increasing numbers of Black men with cocaine, Chinese with opium, and Mexicans with both,
plus marijuana. These coloured men were allegedly using their fiendish substances to gain the flesh of
white women, and many of them would go crazy with big knives if frustrated in any way. The British
I i
media only retold a few of these tales at first. The pathological imagination of the US Press kept it up
for the next forty years, changing the drug and the villains' colour now and again. Heroin was refined
in 1898 but for the first few years it was considered a miracle painkiller and cure for morphine
addiction. The subject of the grossest stories was cocaine, also considered a miracle cure a few
years earlier. The medical enthusiasts didn't think it suitable for recreational use. The recreational
users disagreed. The alcohol prohibitionists built a mass following and inflicted a huge social disaster
on the USA. When the alcohol ban was repealed, drug control was not. The myths were retired for a
few years, but similar stories can be found, only slightly less racist, in the mass media today.
Before, during and after Prohibition, the USA lobbied for international drugs laws, mixing economic
self-interest with moralism. The Hague Conference in 1912 agreed to the principle of certain drugs
being strictly for "legitimate medical purposes." It was never effective internationally because of
obstruction by the British opiate and German cocaine businesses. The conference suggested an
investigation of hemp, but it wasn't followed up. The Assam Opium & Ganja Committee of 1913(16)
showed that the IHDC had been forgotten or ignored in that province of India, for instance accepting
that ganja causes insanity without calling any evidence. It did say that when ganja prices rose users
turned to opium, when opium prices rose they turned to alcohol or, alarmingly, morphine. The
number of licensed shops in Assam had fallen from 1116 in 1878 to 347 in 1911, and the committee
thought it couldn't be reduced further without provoking unrest.
Recreational drug use in British literary circles in the '90s spread through the next two decades into a
wider worlds. Cocaine use had spread well into the upper class by the First World War. Officialdom
grew concerned about officers on leave, who often weren't afraid to wreck their health since their
chances of survival were slim. Morale would not be improved, it was felt, by the sight of the upper
ranks behaving like beasts, and it would be worse yet if the common soldiers imitated them. There
was a press scare about the Germans using drugs and prostitutes, collecting blackmail material. This
unlikely tale and other stories of moral degeneracy caught the imagination of the Army Council, who
banned the sale of all intoxicants to troops in mid 1916. In July the first U K law against possession
of drags was sneaked through, section 40B of the Defense of the Realm Act. It covered cocaine and
opiates; cannabis was not included, although it had been considered. Section 40B also banned
"Malththusian appliances" (contraception) and quack medicines. The same Act established legal
closing times for pubs, which caused a lot more fuss.
The post war scandal boom
Immediately after the Great War the British press got their first US-style dope story. Actress Billie
Carelton, age 21, died supposedly from cocaine taken at an alcohol-free Victory Ball. Her supplier
was tried for manslaughter but could not be convicted. It was just as likely the sleeping drug Veronal
that killed her, but that didn’t bother the Daily Express. They included hashish eating in the habits of a
circle of degenerates who, they said, had mined a sweet and innocent girl. In September 1920 a
Dangerous Drugs Act was passed, clarifying the wartime possession law and effectively dividing the
drug trade into medical vs criminal. It was greeted with such apathy by Parliament that it was hard to
make up a quorum in some of the committees. Cannabis was still not banned.
Internationally, the UK government stopped blocking drug controls after several scandals at home
and reports that morphine and cocaine addiction were spreading in the colonies. There were more
sex drugs and foreigner stories to keep up the postwar drug scare. In 1922 the death of dancer
Freda Kempton gained unwanted publicity for Brilliant Chang, Chinese restaurant owner and alleged
dope king since 1917, handling morphine, opium and hashish as well as cocaine. After many raids
and mentions in the press he was sentenced to 14 months - not much for such an alleged villain - then
departed in 1924. Eddie Manning, Jamaican jazz drummer and alleged dope king, was convicted of
dealing opium and cocaine in '23. Both, it was strongly implied, had used their dealing to get close to
English girls. In 1922 three sisters were found half dressed and unconscious in the company of a
dead Chinese man, Yee Sing a.k.a. Johnny Hop, in a sealed room full of opium smoke above a
Cardiff laundry. The girls never told quite what had happened, so the press made it up, including a
Chinese love potion made from hashish used especially to subdue white women, with an antidote
u
made from geraniums.(17) Pulp fiction by the likes of Sax Rohmer helped spread the corrupt
aristocrat and Chinese dope plot themes.
Despite all this advertisement, there was still no working class drug subculture. The upmarket drug
users of the 20's continued to be found where the overlap between high society and the arts copied
what were seen as American fashions for jazz and cocaine. Aleister Crowleys' 1922 novel, Diary of
a Drug Fiend, thinly disguised a real West End scene where cocaine was dealt in the Cafe Royal on
Regent Sweet. Crowley was a former Golden Dawn member who publicised himself as "The
Wickedest Man in the World," and ran a black magic cult largely based on sex. He occasionally
kicked his moiphine habit cold turkey in front of acolytes, to show the power of his will; he did quite
a lot to establish a link in the public mind between heavy drug use and being a dangerous but
pretentious creep. Chloroform and morphine were popular with Lady Diana Cooper and Katherine
Asquith, models for several wild aristos in fiction. Morphine might be risky and maybe immoral, but
boozing was common, which was much worse. Compared to these types cannabis users were
sweethearts. Having previously tried smoking it to no effect, the painter Augustus John tried a hashish
compote or jam after sardines and wine with friends in Hampstead; "...catching the eye of Iris, we
were both simultaneously seized with uncontrollable laughter, about nothing at all..." Despite the
publicity, and penalties increasing in 1922, prosecutions under the Dangerous Drugs Act averaged a
steady 60 a year for cocaine, 65 for opium.
Cannabis lust became illegal in the UK after the country agreed the 1925 Geneva International
Convention on Narcotics Control. It was included in the '25 Convention with the opiates and
cocaine, because Egypt and Turkey proposed it. An Egyptian delegate stirringly denounced "Chronic
Hashism" which he said caused most of the insanity in his country. It also, he said, weakened users,
gave them heart and digestive troubles and made them look wild-eyed and stupid. India opposed
including cannabis in the Convention, as their delegate said it had been used there since time
immemorial, grew wild, and they doubted that a prohibition could enforced. The British delegate
abstained from the vote but signed in the end. There was hardly any parliamentary debate before it
came into law as amendments to the Dangerous Drugs Act on 28Ih September 1928. Despite this
cannabis offences, and 206 for opium. In 1950 for the first time there were more prosecutions for
cannabis than for opium and manufactured drugs together - 86 against 41 opium and 42 others. That
year a series of police raids on jazz clubs produced a new crop of stories about black men with
drugs and white women, this time involving marijuana and benzedrine. Cannabis had finally got into
the shock horror league.
Epilogue
The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission finally had its moment in Parliament in July 1967, after the
Government had established an Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence. J.J.S. Driberg, Chief of
Police and Inspector of Prisons for Assam, had given gave evidence to the IHDC. His son Tom was
a Labour MP. According to his autobiography [18], the poet Alan Ginsberg asked Tom to "look up
for him the report... in the House library I found that my father had given evidence before this
commission, putting forward strongly the view that people living in a damp, cold climate needed the
traditional consolation of ganja... The climate referred to was that of Assam, rather than England; but
I felt it was almost an act of filial piety to sign a full page advertisement in the Times calling for a
liberalisation of the laws on pot..." When it became obvious that there would be no liberalisation, be
attacked the government, his own party, in the parliamentary debate. He said his father had told the
IHDC that when insane people were arrested a form had to be filled saying why they were insane,
and the safest thing to say was ganja as the police knew that no further enquiry would be made.
When the government spokeswoman asked rhetorically "What sort of society will we create if
everyone wants to escape from reality 7" Driberg answered that "They want to escape from this
horrible society we have created." The 1968 Wooton Committee on Cannabis was "in agreement
with the conclusions reached by the IHDC... that the long-term consumption of cannabis in moderate
doses has no harmful effects." Given wide publicity, the government couldn't completely to ignore this
new study; instead they did exactly the opposite of what it recommended, and increased penalties for
all cannabis offences in a new 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. Cannabis use continued to increase
11
dramatically. By 1990 there were 40,194 convictions and cautions for cannabis in the UK, well over
90% of all recorded drugs crimes.
References:
1. Resolution 1369, Finance and Commerce Dept. (Separate Revenue), Government of India,
21/3/1895. 23 pp. 2. T.M. Parssinen, Secret Passions, Secret Remedies - Narcotic Drugs in British
Society, 1820-1930. Manchester University Press 1980
3. B. Inglis (1975) The Forbidden Game London Hodder & Stoughton
4. Report of the Royal Commission on Opium. Parliamentary papers 1895
5. Hansand, Parliamentary Questions,
6. Resolution 3773, Finance and Commerce Dept., Government of India, 17/12/1873.
7. In full IHDC report. India (Ganja) 97 in House of Commons papers 1893-4 LXVI.79.
8. In (2) V. Berridge & J. Griffith Edwards, Opium and the People, Yale 1982.
9 O'Shaughnessy W.B. (1839) On the preparations of Indian Hemp, or Gunjah. Transactions of the
Medical and Physical Society of Bengal 1838-40 pp 421-461
10. Culpepper's Complete Herbal. London, W. Foulsham & Co.
11. Birch E.A. (1889) Indian hemp in the treatment of chronic choral & opium poisoning. Lancet
30-3-89 p625
12. Reynolds Sir J.R. (1890) Therapeutic Uses & Toxic Effects of Cannabis Indica Lancet, 22-3-90
13. V. Berridge, Origins of the English Drug "Scene" 1890-1930, Medical History 32, 1988. Also
14. Walsh J.T. Hemp Drugs and Insanity. Journal of Medical Science 40 1894
15. The Hashish Club, Ed P. Haining, Peter Owen 1975,
16. Assam Opium & Crania Committee 1913.
17 Marek Kohn, Dope Girls, Lawrence & Wishart, London 1992.
18. Tom Driberg, Ruling Passions, Cape 1977
About the Authors.
Sean Blanchard is a freelance journalist and researcher. From 1981 to 1983 he was coordinator of
the Legalise Cannabis Campaign.
Matthew J. Atha B.Sc. MSc, was Legalise Cannabis Campaign Secretary from 1983 to 1989. His
MSc psychology thesis "Quantitative Assessment of Illicit substance use" (Birmingham University
1987) included analyses of surveys of drug use at pop festivals. He divides his time between
advocacy work and performing as a rock musician.
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