Papers Relating to the Consumption of Ganja and Other Drugs in India (1893)

The title page, headed East India (Consumption of Ganja), with the number 97 at its foot.

The title page, headed East India (Consumption of Ganja), with the number 97 at its foot.

Papers Relating to the Consumption of Ganja and Other Drugs in India

Publication

Author	India Office
Language	English
Composed	Papers dated 1871–1892; returned by the India Office on 2 March 1893
Published	3 March 1893
Publisher	Her Majesty's Stationery Office (printed by Eyre and Spottiswoode)
Place	London
Volumes	1
Total pages	174

Cannabis Content

Volume	(entire return)
Pages	pp. 1–174
Chapter	Five papers: a despatch of 1891 (p. 3); the Government of India's letter of 1892 with the papers of its 1871–1873 inquiry (pp. 4–92); a despatch of 1892 (pp. 92–93); Hem Chunder Kerr's report of 1877 (pp. 94–154); George Watt's article on hemp (pp. 155–174)
Plates	none
Regions documented	Bengal (the licensed tract in Rajshahi and Bogra; the Garhjat of Orissa), Assam, Central Provinces, Berar, Bombay and Sind, Madras, Punjab, North-Western Provinces, Oudh, Mysore and Coorg, Burma
Varieties described	Rajshahi ganja set against the Garhjat ganja of Orissa and the ganja of other provinces; wild hemp
Preparations	Ganja (flat, round and chur); bhang, sidhi or sabzi; charas; majum
Uses documented	Smoking; drinking and eating; medicinal; religious; labour; licensed cultivation and excise; asylum and police returns
Taxonomic significance	Prints the Madras Inspector-General of Hospitals' statement of 1872 that Cannabis indica is identical with the Cannabis sativa cultivated in Europe, and Watt's account (1889) of the reduction of C. indica to C. sativa. Two of its Bengal papers of 1871–1872 call ganja the male plant, which Kerr's report, printed in the same return, corrects.

Access

Digital facsimile	View the Gokhale Institute scan
Original held at	Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune (the digitised copy); Wellcome Collection, London (shelfmark WA730 1893G78r)

Papers Relating to the Consumption of Ganja and Other Drugs in India is a return to the British House of Commons, printed in March 1893 under the heading East India (Consumption of Ganja). It prints five papers that the India Office returned to the House on 2 March 1893. The first is a despatch of 1891 from the Secretary of State for India asking the Government of India for its views on ganja. The second is that government's reply of 1892 with the papers of an inquiry it had held in 1871–1873. The third, a despatch of 1892, closes the exchange. The last two are Hem Chunder Kerr's report of 1877 on ganja in Bengal and George Watt's article on hemp from A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India.^: 1–3 The member of parliament William Sproston Caine moved for the papers on 21 February 1893. They were ordered to be printed on 3 March, the day after Caine asked in the House for a commission of inquiry into hemp drugs.^: 1 The Government of India appointed the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission at the Secretary of State's request.

The papers call the preparations of the plant hemp and hemp drugs. They spell places, peoples and offices as their writers did in the 1870s and 1890s. This article uses cannabis as the general term and current spellings in its own voice, keeping the original forms in quotation and in the names of documents.

Most of the return is the work of colonial officials writing to one another about intoxicants, insanity, crime and excise revenue. It shows what district officers, police officers, asylum superintendents and surgeons across British India believed about cannabis and its users in 1871–1872 and the terms in which they described them. The return is evidence of how that administration reasoned as much as it is a record of cannabis. It is read here in that double light.

Origins

On 16 July 1891 Mark Stewart asked the Under Secretary of State for India in the House of Commons whether he had seen a statement in the Allahabad Pioneer of 10 May that ganja, "which is grown, sold, and excised under much the same conditions as opium", was far more harmful than opium and that "the lunatic asylums of India are filled with ganja smokers". He asked further whether the Under Secretary knew that possession and sale had long been prohibited in Lower Burma, where the province's excise report for 1881–82 had called the exclusion "of immense benefit to the people". His last question was whether the Government of India would be asked to extend the prohibition to other provinces. The reply was that the price of duty-paid ganja had been greatly increased in Bengal, "the province where ganja is principally consumed". The Secretary of State would inquire whether the Government of India proposed further steps.^: 3

Cross, the Secretary of State for India, forwarded the question and answer to the Governor General in Council on 6 August 1891. He asked for the government's views "as to the effects of this drug on the consumers thereof, and also whether you propose to take any further steps for restricting the consumption".^: 3 The Government of India answered a year later in a letter of 9 August 1892 from its Finance and Commerce Department, signed by Lansdowne as Governor General and by six members of his council. It enclosed the correspondence of an inquiry it had made of the provincial governments in 1871–1873.^{: 4, 7} The despatch of 20 October 1892 that acknowledged the letter is signed by Kimberley as Secretary of State.^: 92–93

Caine, the member for Bradford East, moved on 21 February 1893 for an address for copies of these three papers, of Kerr's report and of Watt's article. The India Office's return is dated 2 March 1893 and signed by Arthur Godley, Under Secretary of State for India. The House ordered it to be printed on 3 March.^: 1 On 2 March Caine asked whether the Government of India would be instructed to create a commission of experts. It was to inquire into the cultivation of and trade in hemp drugs in Bengal, the effect of their consumption "upon the social and moral condition of the people" and the desirability of prohibiting their growth and sale, and it was to be partly composed of "non-official natives of India". George Russell answered for the India Office that the Secretary of State proposed to ask the Viceroy to appoint one.

The document

The return is a single paper of 174 printed pages. Its title page carries the heading "East India (Consumption of Ganja)", the order to print and the imprint of Eyre and Spottiswoode as printers for Her Majesty's Stationery Office, with the number 97 at the foot. The running heads across each opening read "Papers relating to the consumption of ganja and other drugs in India".^{: 1, 4–5} A table on p. 2 lists the five numbered papers, with Kerr's report beginning at p. 94 and Watt's article at p. 155.^: 2

The first three papers make up the correspondence. Cross's despatch takes p. 3, with the Commons question and answer as its enclosure. The Government of India's letter runs from p. 4 to p. 7 and ends with a "Schedule of Papers" listing its fourteen enclosures, which fill pp. 7–92.^: 3–7 The enclosures open with the circular of 10 October 1871 that began the inquiry and close with the Government of India's Financial Department Resolution No. 3773 of 17 December 1873. Between them come the replies sent in 1872 and early 1873 by the Central Provinces, Mysore, the Punjab, the North-Western Provinces, the Resident at Hyderabad, British Burma, Oudh, Bombay, Bengal and Madras. Most of the provincial replies forward enclosures of their own from commissioners, district officers, police officers, asylum superintendents, civil surgeons and medical subordinates.^: 7–92 Kimberley's despatch takes pp. 92–93.^: 92–93

Kerr's report fills pp. 94–154. It ends with a statement, year by year from 1854 to 1876, of the number of people engaged in growing ganja, the area cultivated and the quantity produced.^: 94–154 Watt's article fills pp. 155–174 and is headed as extracted from the Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, vol. II, pp. 103–126.^: 155

The inquiry of 1871–1873

The circular that opened the inquiry was sent on 10 October 1871 by A. O. Hume, Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Agriculture, Revenue and Commerce. It began by saying that it had "frequently been alleged that the abuse of ganja produces insanity and other dangerous effects". It called the information behind the allegations "avowedly imperfect" and asked each local government for an investigation of the effects of the several preparations of hemp. The inquiry was not to be "simply medical" but was to include "the alleged influence of ganja and bhang in exciting to violent crime". The circular also asked for advice on raising duty or on limiting or prohibiting cultivation.^: 7–8 The copy sent to Bengal added two requests. One was for an inquiry into whether the ganja grown in Rajshahi "differs from, and may be more deleterious than, the ganja produced in other parts of India"; the other was for a search of the records for any inquiry made when Regulation VII of 1824 was passed.^: 8–9 The 1873 Resolution dates the start of the matter to September 1871, when the deleterious effects alleged of ganja were brought to the attention of the Governor General in Council.^: 88

Several of the reports and opinions printed are those of Indian officers and practitioners. They include Taj-ud-din Hussain, assistant to the Deputy Commissioner of Buldana in Berar, whose report appears in translation; Babu Deno Nath Doss, sub-assistant surgeon at Akyab; and Mahomed Buksh, a native doctor in the Unao district of Oudh, whose thirty years' experience the Oudh abstract cites. The Madras Inspector-General of Hospitals summarises at length the report of the Madras surgeon Moodeen Sheriff.^{: 23, 25–26, 36–37, 51, 80–82}

Insanity and the asylum returns

Many replies sent in figures from lunatic asylums. At Nagpur the superintendent counted 61 of 317 patients received since 1864 in whom insanity had been put down to ganja. Of these, 10 had died, 28 had been discharged cured and 23 remained uncured. At Jabalpur 37 of 120 patients then confined had smoked ganja; the superintendent estimated one lunatic from all causes for every 300 consumers of the drug.^: 10 The Chief Commissioner of Mysore reported that ganja had been assigned as the cause in 82 of 250 admissions to the Bangalore asylum over five years and that 64 of those patients had recovered. The 1873 Resolution, summarising the same letter, gives the total as 280.^{: 12, 88} The Delhi asylum's share of patients put down to hemp rose from 11.92 per cent in 1867 to 20.60 per cent in 1870 and stood at 17.14 per cent in 1871.^: 89 In Bengal, 768 of the 1,520 people who passed through the Dullunda asylum in nine years had ganja traced as a cause. The annual report for 1870 put 316 of the 1,147 patients in the Bengal asylums, or 27.5 per cent, down to ganja or bhang. The Madras asylum had 14 such cases among 302 admissions between 1867 and 1870, eight of them doubtful, a share of 4.6 per cent.^{: 77, 83–84}

Some of the same papers doubted the figures. The Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces held that the returns of the lunatic asylums were "based on hearsay reports, and have no scientific value".^: 18 The superintendent at Dullunda conceded that ganja might not be fairly chargeable in all the cases put down to it. He noted that smokers and drinkers often added the seeds of dhatura to the mixture.^: 77 Deno Nath Doss wrote that he had known several habitual smokers without seeing one become insane. Where a smoker was also insane, he believed the two to be coincidence and not cause.^: 36–37 The Sanitary Commissioner for Oudh concluded that ganja, bhang and charas no more produced insanity than alcohol did.^: 49

Crime

The replies seldom traced violent crime directly to cannabis. The Central Provinces had examined their murder records for 1863–1871 and found no case in which insanity from ganja or bhang was alleged as the cause. Several officers there said that men about to commit a grave offence took ganja to brace themselves.^: 10 The Punjab government judged the crime traceable to hemp "exceedingly small", too small to justify restricting its sale or preparation by law.^: 13 The Inspector-General of Police in Madras repeated the saying that for one crime committed under the influence of ganja, hundreds were committed under the influence of liquor.^: 84 A few officers went further. A medical officer at Kyouk-Phyoo in Arakan and an officer in the Partabgarh district of Oudh each linked hemp to the rising of 1857, writing that mutinous soldiers had taken it.^{: 35, 46} The 1873 Resolution concluded that it did not appear "specifically proved that hemp incites to crime more than other drugs or than spirits".^: 92

Ganja in Bengal

The Board of Revenue's report of 20 July 1871, enclosed in Bengal's reply, describes the system under which Bengal taxed the drug. It distinguishes two kinds of ganja. The superior kind was grown in the Rajshahi and Bogra districts and nowhere else. The other came from the Garhjat of the Tributary Mehals of Orissa and, on a small scale, from garden cultivation in the regulation districts of Orissa, particularly Puri. It was "much inferior in narcotic power" and paid a duty of eight annas a seer. The Rajshahi crop was sown about August and cut in January. It was sold in three forms: flat ganja, the plant dried in its natural shape; round ganja, rolled in drying with the thickest wood removed; and chur, the fragments of the leaves and flowers. The duty rose as the proportion of wood fell, at Rs. 2, Rs. 3 and Rs. 4 a seer.^: 68 The papers date the three rates differently. The Board puts the higher rate on round ganja from 1864; an extract of 1872 from the Bengal government's report on taxation says 1869; the 1873 Resolution says 1859–60; and the Government of India's letter of 1892 says 1864–65.^{: 5, 66, 70, 90}

The Board's report calls ganja "the male plant of the hemp". The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, writing after a tour of the Rajshahi district in August 1872, described a cultivation carried on "with some science, the male plants being preserved and the female ones destroyed".^: 67–68 Kerr's report, printed later in the same return, records that the cultivators, the people around them and "some high officials of Government" thought the narcotic came from the male plant. The botanists he consulted assured him that it came from the female.^: §20

Under rules sanctioned in 1853, growing the plant for use in the green state for medical purposes or for its fibre was unrestricted. Preparing it to be stored, sold and used as a narcotic needed a licence, for which no fee was charged. An establishment under the Excise Deputy Collector of Rajshahi supervised the storing and sale of the drug. Cultivators reported every sale to the supervisor; the drug travelled under passes in sealed bundles; dealers' stocks were kept in registered warehouses under the joint keys of the owner and an excise officer; the retail vendor paid the duty before removing his purchase from the wholesale dealer's warehouse.^: 68–69 The revenue rose from Rs. 3,69,801 in 1853–54 to Rs. 11,06,768 in 1870–71 while production and export fell below the level of some earlier years.^: 70 The 1873 Resolution credited the system with halving consumption in Lower Bengal while doubling the duty levied.^: 92

Rajshahi ganja and Macnamara's analyses

To answer the question put to Bengal, the Board of Revenue had samples of ganja from Bengal, the North-Western Provinces, Madras and Bombay analysed by F. N. Macnamara, Chemical Examiner to Government. Macnamara measured the percentage of resinous extract in each, writing that the resinous extract of Indian hemp, "or cannabin, is the active principle of the plant".^: 73–75 The Lieutenant-Governor reported the results as about 5 per cent for Rajshahi ganja, 1.4 to 6.2 per cent for ganja grown or used in the North-Western Provinces, 1.4 to 14.3 per cent for Madras ganja and an average of about 7.5 per cent for three samples from Bombay. In his judgement Rajshahi ganja was neither much more nor much less deleterious than the ganja of other parts of India but was of "a more equable strength".^: 67 The Board of Revenue read the same analyses as showing Rajshahi ganja "comparatively much milder" than that grown elsewhere, "specially in the Madras Presidency".^: 73 The 1873 Resolution, summarising Bengal's reply, recorded that no satisfactory explanation had been given of why Rajshahi ganja was the more sought after. It gave the Lieutenant-Governor's opinion that it was "a finer and better grown drug than that produced elsewhere".^: 91 Watt's article, printed at the end of the return, lists Macnamara's report among its references.^: 155

The plant, its preparations and its uses

Two papers address whether the Indian plant, Cannabis indica, is distinct from Cannabis sativa. E. G. Balfour, the Madras Inspector-General of Hospitals, wrote in 1872 that "The variety known as Cannabis Indica is identical with Cannabis Sativa cultivated in Europe". In his account the tropical plant yielded resin and little fibre, the European plant fibre and little resin.^: 80 Watt's article of 1889 opens its account of the plant's habitat: "Cannabis indica has been reduced to C. sativa, the Indian plant being viewed as but an Asiatic condition of that species."^: 156

The officers describe three or four preparations under many local names. Ganja was rubbed with water in the palm of the hand, mixed with tobacco and smoked in a chillum or hookah. Bhang, the leaves, was eaten or ground into a drink with water or milk, sugar and spices. Charas, the resin, was smoked. Majum was a sweetmeat made from the plant.^{: 14–15, 24, 80} A police officer at Belgaum gave the names punniah, ghota and subja for bhang taken with water and doodya for bhang taken with milk.^: 56 Outside the licensed tracts the papers describe small plantings. In the Central Provinces "each villager has in the little plot in front of his hut three or four hemp plants". In Berar a few plants could be grown in the enclosure of each hut. In Burma, Shans and Karens grew small quantities.^{: 11, 23, 44} The Commissioner of Assam reported that hemp grew wild there but that "very few of the Assamese use the drug".^: 77

Many replies mention medicinal use. The Superintendent of Coorg wrote that ganja had "valuable medicinal properties, if used in moderation" and was held an excellent febrifuge by the forest communities there.^: 12 Bengal's officers recorded that Indian physicians prescribed it for colic and other spasmodic complaints and for diarrhoea, dysentery and cholera. An officer in Bombay recorded its use by hakims for cholera, dyspepsia, dysentery and impotence. Deno Nath Doss described treating tetanus and neuralgia with it.^{: 37, 56, 77} An officer in Oudh wrote that bhang in the green state was useful for cattle.^: 49 Several reports describe its use by labouring people. The Central Provinces reported a view that palanquin bearers were sustained in their work by ganja. Taj-ud-din Hussain said that the labouring poor of Berar took it to lighten their daily work.^{: 11, 23} The Commissioner of Rajshahi wrote that the use of ganja in moderate quantities "is necessary to the labouring classes as a stimulant, and is beneficial to their health".^: 78

Religious use is recorded in a few reports. Taj-ud-din Hussain wrote that the gosavees and others called bhang Mahadeo's Bootee. Some people, the Marwaris excepted, offered it first to their gods and then took it as their "persad".^: 26 Deno Nath Doss described bhang drinking at Durga Puja: "During the Durga Puja holidays, the day the goddess is thrown into the river, it is customary with all Hindus in Bengal, males and females, to drink bhang".^: 37 The civil surgeon at Satara reported that religious mendicants were said to take hemp for "aid in assuming a state of ecstasy".^: 57

Two officers wrote against restricting the plant. In the translation of his report, Taj-ud-din Hussain wrote: "In my humble opinion, I see no disadvantages from the use of ganja and bhang; but, on the contrary, I see them in the light of producing some good to their user."^: 26 H. S. Thomas, Collector of South Canara, called the preparations of hemp "useful medicines, pleasant drinks, and enjoyable smoking". He held that the government should not check "the culture of a useful plant simply because one of its properties is sometimes abused".^: 85

The Government of India's answer

The 1873 Resolution summarised the replies province by province. It recorded that the local officers were almost unanimous on some points and widely at odds on others: "On the whole, the general opinion seems to be that the evil effects of ganja have been exaggerated."^: 88 Its conclusion was nonetheless that "There can, however, be no doubt that its habitual use does tend to produce insanity". Of the cases of insanity caused by the excessive use of drugs or spirits, it held that by far the largest number had to be put down to hemp. It judged that controlling cultivation elsewhere as Lower Bengal did would probably be impracticable. Local governments were asked to discourage the consumption of ganja and bhang by restricting their cultivation, preparation and sale and by taxing them as heavily as could be done without encouraging illicit trade. In British Burma the cultivation and consumption of ganja were prohibited from the beginning of 1873–74.^: 92

The letter of 1892 quoted the 1873 Resolution and kept to its policy. The Government of India wrote: "We are inclined to believe that ganja is the most noxious of all intoxicants now commonly used in India." It argued that prohibition might drive users to worse drugs, naming dhatura, and that it could not be enforced. The drug was produced in the Native States, the plant grew wild in many places and anyone could grow "a plant or two in the enclosure of his own house".^: 4 The letter held that the case of Burma did not apply to India, where, in the government's words, "the practice of ganja smoking has existed from time immemorial". It cited Bengal's figures: since 1864–65 the duty had more than doubled while consumption had fallen by 27 per cent and the number of shops by 40 per cent. It concluded that nothing more was needed than to persevere in the policy of 1873.^: 5–7 Kimberley's reply agreed that it "would be obviously inexpedient to order a prohibition which could not be enforced". He expressed confidence that the Government of India would press local administrations to discourage the use of the drug.^: 93

Kerr's report and Watt's article

The fourth paper is the report that Hem Chunder Kerr, a deputy collector on special duty, sent to the Board of Revenue of the Lower Provinces with a covering letter dated Calcutta, 2 April 1877.^: 96 It describes the cultivation, manufacture and sale of ganja in the Rajshahi tract in the first season in which cultivators had to take out licences under Act II (B.C.) of 1876.^: §57 The return reprints it in full, with its appendix of cultivators, area and produce from 1854 to 1876.^: 94–154

The fifth paper is Watt's article on Cannabis sativa, taken from the second volume of his Dictionary. After the plant's names in many languages and its habitat, it treats the history of hemp, the fibre and the resin or narcotic. Under the narcotic it describes the manufacture of ganja in Bengal, in Bombay and in the Central Provinces, with the Indian preparations made from hemp. It closes with the foreign trade in hemp, oil, medicine, food and domestic uses. Its list of references includes Kerr's report.^: 155–174

Reception and historiography

Russell's answer of 2 March 1893 committed the Secretary of State to asking for a commission. The Government of India's later account of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission records that it was appointed at the request of the Secretary of State. In answer to a question in the House of Commons, he had agreed to an inquiry into the cultivation of the plant in Bengal, the preparation of and trade in its drugs, the effects of their consumption and the desirability of prohibition.

The historian James H. Mills reads the 1871 replies as showing that British administrators in India did not agree about cannabis. He reads the 1873 Resolution as a decision that "dismissed dissenting voices and opted for a policy which betrayed a distrust of cannabis preparations".^: 48 He argues that the statistics produced in the asylums were often central to the replies of non-medical officers and that the Resolution reproduced them in reaching its conclusion on insanity.^: 58–59 Mills summarises the associations colonial officials had made with cannabis use by 1871–1873 as "infanticide, immorality, suicide, the murder of Christians, and even the revolt against British authority of 1857".^: 47 Peter Hynd describes the inquiry as a response to "a spreading belief that cannabis consumption led to insanity". He holds that the Government of India concluded "on the basis of rather spurious evidence" that the link was real.^: 41–42 In his account the immediate result was an official condemnation of unregulated cultivation "that did not immediately translate to practical action on the part of the provincial governments". A system of restricted cultivation comparable to Bengal's reached the Central Provinces only in 1881.^: 44 Utathya Chattopadhyaya describes the inquiry as producing "a stream of contrasting responses". In his account the Financial Department then put much greater weight on reducing consumption through the local management of excise duties and prices.^: 107

Editions and availability

In the bound sessional papers of the House of Commons the return is in volume 66 for the session of 1893–94.^: 195 The Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Pune holds a copy, catalogued as Papers relating to the Consumption of Ganja and other drugs in India. It publishes a scan of that copy in its digital repository. The Wellcome Collection in London holds a copy at shelfmark WA730 1893G78r. The original printing of Kerr's report and the volume of Watt's Dictionary are available separately.

See also

• Bengal Presidency cannabis trade
• Cannabis in West Bengal
• Ganja Mahal
• Government of India Resolution No. 1369 Ex. (1895)
• Indian Hemp Drugs Commission
• Report on the Cultivation and Use of Gánjá (1893)
• Report on the Cultivation of, and Trade in, Ganjá in Bengal (1877)
• Supplement to the Pharmacopoeia of India (1869)

References

Bengal Presidency Rajshahi Orissa Assam Central Provinces Berar Province Bombay Presidency Sind Madras Punjab North-Western Provinces Oudh Mysore Coorg Burma Ganja Bhang Charas Flat ganja Round ganja Chur ganja Bhang Charas Majum Smoking Oral preparations Medicinal Religious Veterinary Licensed cultivation Excise Government report Parliamentary paper