Bhang shops
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Bhang shops are retail shops licensed by the excise departments of Indian states to sell bhang, the dried leaf of the cannabis plant and the drinks, pellets and sweets made from it. India's national narcotics law leaves the leaves outside its definition of cannabis. Many state governments permit the sale of bhang under their own excise laws.[1] Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Delhi license retail shops. Each licence is a monopoly of retail sale over one shop or a group of shops, let for a year by auction, tender or lottery. The licensee buys the leaf from a licensed wholesaler or a government warehouse and sells it loose or ground into pellets or, in some states, as drinks and sweets.[2][3] Sales rise before Holi and Maha Shivaratri.[4]
The shops descend from the licensed retail vend of hemp drugs in British India, under which the right to sell ganja, charas and bhang in a district was sold at auction for a term.[5] Since the national narcotics law of 1985 brought ganja and charas under prohibition, the central and state governments have kept the circulation of the leaf inside state-licensed retail shops.[6]: 228
The licensed vend in British India
The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1893–94 described the retail systems of each province. In Bengal separate licences were issued for the retail vend of ganja, charas and bhang. The Collector fixed the number of shops by the demand for each drug. The licences were sold by public auction for one year. Over the previous 20 years the number of ganja shops had been cut from 4,398 to 2,672, while the number of bhang shops "has been more stationary". Customers were allowed to consume the drugs on the premises and sales were not restricted to any class of buyer. Local opinion was not ordinarily consulted on where a shop should stand.[5] Chattopadhyaya dates the annual auction of retail licences in Bengal to the years after 1876, when the government used it to raise revenue and to lift the price of ganja and bhang out of reach of poorer buyers.[6]: 107
In the North-Western Provinces the right of sale was farmed to contractors, whose contracts were sold by auction for one to three years. The Collector fixed the number and places of the retail shops. The contractor kept the best shops in the large towns under his own management and sub-let the rest or worked them through servants. The province's Excise Commissioner wrote that under this system "a large revenue is very easily and cheaply collected" and that the contractor had every reason to detect smuggling himself.[7] In the Punjab the excise income from intoxicating drugs, hemp drugs among them, came solely from the monopoly of sale within each tahsil, its fee fixed by auction for the year.[8] In the Central Provinces the retail monopoly was usually auctioned shop by shop and every wholesale vendor of ganja received a licence for the retail vend of bhang free of charge. A clause in the retail licences there forbade consumption on the premises.[9]
The commission found bhang the hardest of the three drugs to bring under control, because so much of it grew wild; it recommended that bhang be taxed "where possible".[10][11]
Legal basis
The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 defines ganja as the flowering or fruiting tops of the plant, "excluding the seeds and leaves when not accompanied by the tops".[12] The national policy on narcotic drugs states that the production and sale of bhang "is permitted by many State Governments" and that licensees may make it only from the leaves of wild cannabis. Mixing in flowering tops or resin is an offence under the Act.[1] High courts have granted bail to, or acquitted, people held with bhang on the ground that the Act does not cover it.[13][14]
The shops are licensed under state excise acts. Uttar Pradesh's retail bhang rules, first notified in 2019, are made under section 41 of the United Provinces Excise Act, 1910 and treat a licence as the "exclusive privilege of retail sale of bhang" granted under section 24 of that act.[2] Rajasthan forbids the cultivation of the plant under section 16 of the Rajasthan Excise Act, 1950 but allows bhang to be bought, sold and consumed. In 2017 it had framed no separate rules regulating the consumption of bhang. Its excise commissioner issued the retail licences.[3] Punjab's rules of 1956 provide a retail licence "for the retail vend of bhang or any preparation or admixture thereof", its fee fixed by auction.[15] For 2021–22 Madhya Pradesh settled its shops for the retail sale of bhang, bhang ghota and bhang sweets (bhang mithai) by renewing the existing licences through the district collectors.[16] Delhi issues a single licence for the retail vend of bhang.[17] Assam instead passed an act in 1959 to restrict bhang "with a view to effect its ultimate prohibition".[18]
Licensing and supply
Uttar Pradesh
In Uttar Pradesh the district collector is the licensing authority. A district committee that includes the senior police officer of the district oversees the selection of licensees. Only individuals may hold a licence: an applicant must be an Indian citizen of at least 21 with no criminal record. Firms and partnerships are excluded and a wholesale supplier of bhang may not hold a retail shop. No one may be allotted more than two excise shops of any kind in the state. Each shop is geo-tagged. The licence runs for the excise year from April to March. The licensee guarantees to take a minimum quantity of bhang each year and pays a consideration fee on it in monthly instalments. To stock the shop the licensee pays the wholesale supplier and the fee and then draws the bhang from the district's bonded warehouse. Unsold stock is returned to the warehouse when the licence expires and destroyed on video by a committee of excise officers and the local magistrate.[2]
The state settled its bhang shops by auction or tender in 2018–19 and renewed the licences each year until 2024–25. For 2025–26 they were allotted by e-lottery with online applications, shop by shop, alongside the country liquor and model shops. The excise commissioner chooses the wholesale suppliers and approves their prices. Bhang sent out of the state pays an export fee of 30 rupees a kilogram.[19][20] A licensee in Noida told VICE in 2022 that he had paid a one-time fee of 2 million rupees and that his raw material came only from government warehouses. Each shop, he said, was given a fixed monthly quota.[21]
Rajasthan
Rajasthan grows no bhang of its own. Its licensees take out a wholesale licence and import the leaf from licensed wholesalers in the producing states, then move it to their retail shops under permits from the district excise officers. Retail licences are let by district group through open tender against a reserve price. At the end of 2015–16 there were 29 licensee groups with 812 retail bhang shops. The state levies no duty on bhang. Its revenue comes from licence and permit fees, which brought in 240.9 million rupees in 2015–16, 0.36 per cent of the state's excise revenue.[3]
What the shops sell
Uttar Pradesh allows its shops to sell bhang "in loose or in form of grounded pellets", no more than 120 grams to one buyer, for consumption off the premises. Licensees may carry on no other business in the shop.[2] Rajasthan's retail licences cover bhang leaves, bhang ghota, majum bukani and gulkand.[3] At six licensed shops in the Alwar district that auditors inspected in December 2017, the licensee paid 250 rupees a kilogram for bhang bought within the state and sold the leaf for 1,000 to 2,000 rupees a kilogram. Five of the shops also sold bhang goli, pellets made from the leaf, at 10 to 15 rupees each; the salesmen said that a kilogram of leaf made 100 to 125 of them.[3]
Some shops grind and mix the leaf themselves. The Jai Shree Mahakal shop in the Sarafa bazaar of Indore, which its owner told VICE had been trading for 80 years, sells bhang in several forms, the most popular being thandai, boiled with milk, sugar, spices and nuts; the shop had replaced its grinding stone with a machine.[21] A shop outside the fort at Jaisalmer with "government authorised bhang shop" painted at its entrance sold bhang in milkshakes, fruit juices, lassis, cookies and brownies in 2022; its third-generation owner said that the shop had been open for 49 years and that local customers kept it going.[22] In 2022 the High Court of Karnataka described bhang as a traditional drink, drunk in north India "especially near the Shiva temples" and available in lassi shops.[13]
Festivals
Trade at the shops rises at Holi and Maha Shivaratri. Ahead of Maha Shivaratri in 2007, United News of India reported, the excise department of Uttar Pradesh released nearly 5,000 kilograms of bhang in one month to the 49 licensed shops of Varanasi, against a usual 2,400 kilograms. The agency's report called Maha Shivaratri and Holi "the two festivals which all thandhai sellers wait for".[4] VICE reported in 2022 that Holi brings the shops their highest demand, for bhang goli and thandai alike and that shopkeepers in Noida and Indore stock up in the slack months because the government quota is the same every month.[21] The owner of the Jaisalmer shop named Holi and Maha Shivaratri as his busiest days.[22]
Uttar Pradesh's rules let the licensing authority close the shops on up to three days a year besides four national holidays and on grounds of law and order.[2] For Holi on 25 March 2024 the district magistrate of Lucknow used section 59 of the state's excise act to close every liquor and bhang licence in the district for the day.[23]
Regulation and enforcement
Licensed shops in Uttar Pradesh open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. A signboard at the entrance must carry the licensee's name and hours and two warnings: that consuming bhang near the shop or in public places is punishable and that driving after it "can be fatal". The licensee may not sell to anyone under 21 or to "any official in uniform", nor employ as a salesman anyone under 21, anyone with a criminal record or "a woman". Inducing customers with dancing or gambling is forbidden. The collector may suspend or cancel a licence if any intoxicant other than bhang, or bhang adulterated with another substance, is found in the shop, or if the licensee is convicted under the excise act or the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. Lesser breaches, such as trading outside the hours or on a closure day, are settled by compounding fees that rise with each repeat.[2] The state's excise policy for 2025–26 barred the police and other agencies from closing or sealing a licensed bhang shop without the licensing authority's permission.[24]
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India audited the Rajasthan trade for 2013–14 to 2015–16 in seven districts. Licensees in only three of the seven districts kept the sale registers their licences required and none sent the monthly returns. No inspection registers existed to show that excise officers had visited the shops. The bhang received from other states fell 29,225 kilograms short of the quantities in the permits issued. One licensee in Udaipur, permitted in 2014 to bring 4,000 kilograms from Haridwar, imported 4,610 kilograms without the district office noticing. The auditors concluded that the department had "restricted its role merely to granting of bhang licences and did not focus on controlling the operations of licensees". In five district groups, Jaisalmer among them, licence fees had risen by 58 to 176 per cent over the three years while recorded sales fell by 20 to 56 per cent. The state government replied that it had ordered registers and inspections and would set up a committee to rationalise the reserve prices.[3]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Government of India, Department of Revenue. National Policy on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (PDF) (Report). paragraphs 20–21. Retrieved 2026-08-11.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Excise Commissioner, Uttar Pradesh (29 January 2019). The Uttar Pradesh Excise (Settlement of Licenses for Retail Sale of Bhang) Rules (Report). rules 2, 3, 8–10, 13–21 and form H.M.-1. Notification No. 26743/X-Licence 185/2018-2019, as amended – via India Code.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Comptroller and Auditor General of India. "Chapter VI: State Excise". Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Revenue Sector for the year ended 31 March 2017, Government of Rajasthan (PDF) (Report). para. 6.4, "Procurement and sale of Hemp (Bhang)", pp. 83–89. Report No. 6 of 2017. Retrieved 13 November 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "'Bhang' consumption doubles on Maha Shivratri". Oneindia. United News of India. 16 February 2007. Retrieved 13 November 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. XV, "Existing systems described", paras. 592–601, pp. 291–296 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chattopadhyaya, Utathya (June 2026). Ganja Matters: Empire and the Pursuits of Cannabis in British India. Oakland: University of California Press. doi:10.1525/luminos.276. ISBN 9780520425699.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. XV, "Existing systems described", paras. 605–611, pp. 297–299 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. XV, "Existing systems described", paras. 612–615, pp. 299–301 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. XV, "Existing systems described", paras. 616–621, pp. 301–303 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. XVI, "Provincial systems examined", paras. 676–677, pp. 329–330 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Government of India (21 March 1895). Resolution No. 1369 Ex. [on the Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission] (Report). Calcutta: Finance and Commerce Department, Separate Revenue (Excise). VIII. Control and taxation, paras. 46–67, pp. 14–22 – via National Library of Scotland.
- ↑ The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985(Act No. 61 of 1985), 1985, section 2(iii).India.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Roshan Kumar Mishra v. State of Karnataka. High Court of Karnataka (26 August 2022). Criminal Petition No. 6611 of 2022.
- ↑ Sunil Kumar Singh v. State of Jharkhand. High Court of Jharkhand (30 June 2026). Criminal Appeal (S.J.) No. 726 of 2009; 2026:JHHC:19082.
- ↑ Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Punjab (1962). Punjab Supply and Sale of Bhang Rules, 1956 (Report). rules 1, 3, 4, 8. Notification No. 130-OSD(R) of 6 September 1955, republished as G.S.R. 44/P.A.I./14/Section 59/62 of 3 April 1962 – via India Code.
- ↑ Excise Commissioner, Madhya Pradesh (30 March 2021). Bhang Shops Disposal policy (Report) (in हिन्दी). Theka/Bhang/2021-22/115 – via India Code.
- ↑ Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (4 October 2010). The Delhi Excise Rules, 2010 (Report). rules 2(4), 102, 112. Notification No. F. 10(8)/Fin(Rev.-1)/2010-11/SSF/104, as amended 2015 – via India Code.
- ↑ The Assam Ganja and Bhang Prohibition Act(Assam Act No. XXI of 1959), 1959, long title, section 2(4).Assam.
- ↑ Government of Uttar Pradesh (28 March 2025). Excise Policy for the Year 2025-26 (Report). Excise Section-2. para. 5.11. Notification No. 484 E-2/Thirteen-2025-1909102 – via India Code.
- ↑ Government of Uttar Pradesh (28 March 2025). Excise Policy for the Year 2025-26 (Report). Excise Section-2. paras. 5.8.1–5.8.3. Notification No. 484 E-2/Thirteen-2025-1909102 – via India Code.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Khan, Arman (17 March 2022). "Where do Indian Bhang Shops Get Their Legal Cannabis From?". VICE. Retrieved 13 November 2026.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 Chaturvedi, Avantika (17 March 2022). "Dr Bhang's Cannabis Cookies Had Me (Legally) Flying High in the Middle of a Desert". VICE. Retrieved 13 November 2026.
- ↑ Jaiswal, Arushi, ed. (24 March 2024). "Lucknow bans liquor sale on Holi, all alcohol and cannabis shops to remain closed". India TV. Retrieved 13 November 2026.
- ↑ Government of Uttar Pradesh (28 March 2025). Excise Policy for the Year 2025-26 (Report). Excise Section-2. para. 5.16(9), p. 54. Notification No. 484 E-2/Thirteen-2025-1909102 – via India Code.