Talk:Bhang shops
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The page covers the retail shops that Indian states license to sell bhang: the licensed vend of hemp drugs in British India from which they descend, the national and state law under which they trade, how licences are let and the leaf supplied, what the shops sell, the trade at Holi and Maha Shivaratri, and the conditions and audits that govern them. The leaf itself, its preparation and the court cases on its legal status are covered on Bhang.
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Discussion
Sources
- The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (vol. I, ch. XV) describes the retail systems of each province in 1893–94, largely from the memoranda of the provincial excise officers; the remark that a large revenue was "very easily and cheaply collected" is the North-Western Provinces Excise Commissioner's.
- Chattopadhyaya (2026) is a history of cannabis administration in British India; the dating of retail auctions to after 1876 and the account of control since 1985 are his.
- The rules for Uttar Pradesh are the Uttar Pradesh Excise (Settlement of Licenses for Retail Sale of Bhang) Rules as amended to 2025, and the state's excise policy for 2025–26, both on India Code. The policy is an English rendering of the Hindi gazette.
- The Rajasthan figures come from the Comptroller and Auditor General's revenue audit for the year ended 31 March 2017 (Report No. 6 of 2017), which tested the records of seven districts for 2013–14 to 2015–16 and held a joint inspection of six shops in Alwar district in December 2017.
- The Madhya Pradesh notice of 30 March 2021 is in Hindi.
- The descriptions of individual shops in Noida, Indore and Jaisalmer are from two VICE reports of March 2022, and the figures for each shop (its age, fee and customers) are what its owner told the reporter.
Bhang goli and majum bukani
- The audit lists majum bukani as one of the goods a Rajasthan retail licence covers and, in its account of the Alwar shops, gives "Bhang Goli (Majum bukani)" as a pellet made from the leaf. Whether the two names mean the same product everywhere in the state is not established by the report.
Dates of the Uttar Pradesh e-lottery
- The state's excise policy for 2025–26 says that bhang shops were settled by auction or tender in 2018–19 and renewed each year to 2024–25, and that 2025–26 was the first year they were allotted by e-lottery. A Varanasi district notice of 14 February 2019 lists bhang shops among those released for e-lottery. Which method Varanasi used in 2019 is not decided by these two documents.