20. Evidence of MR. J. KENNEDY, Magistrate and Collector of Murshidabad.

1. I have served for close on 20 years in districts in which ganja is used.

2. Yes.

3. It grows sparsely in this district. It also grows wild on the hills in the Cachar District, and if I remember right Sylhet.

4. I only know it as ganja.

5. It requires a damp climate. I don't know any more of its necessities.

6. Dense.

7. Yes, but I know nothing about it. I have never been in a district where it was cultivated.

12. I know of no such cases.

13. It is restricted to Rajshahi District I believe, but I know nothing about it.

14. Yes, but I can give no details of my own knowledge.

18. Ganja deteriorates if kept over a year and loses its strength. The same rule applies to charas and siddhi.

19. I believe they are used only for smoking.

20. The lower labouring classes, especially fishermen and boatmen, use ganja. When a man of a better class uses ganja, it is generally because he can't afford spirits.    Occasionally well-to-do
people smoke charas mixed with tobacco.

21. Chur seems the favourite.

22. Charas imported from Amritsar  is generally used here.

23. Bhang is never smoked, but always mixed with water and sugar or milk. Up-country people are the main consumers. It is also made into a sweetmeat and this is consumed both by Bengalis and up-country people. The name of this sweetmeat is majun.

25. Among the middle classes, charas is preferred to ganja because any one smoking ganja is supposed to be very poor. A well-to-do man who smokes ganja is liable to be jeered at.

26. They are mostly moderate consumers. The only class among whom I often met excessive consumers was among the coolies on the Cachar tea gardens, and there I did meet several cases of insanity produced by excessive ganja smoking. I have very rarely heard of excessive smokers in this district, and I have not found a single ganja or charas smoker in this district who has gone mad. There may be one or two in the Lunatic Asylum, but the Superintendent can best answer about them.

27. Poverty seems the main reason for people using gan j a.

28. Moderate consumer-
One two-anna weight of ganja costing three pice.
One two-anna weight of charas costing two pice.
One twelve-anna weight of bhang costing three rice.
Excessive consumers double the quantity.

29. (a) Dried tobacco to get more of a smoke.
(6) Dhatura seeds to make it more intoxicating and lasting.
Bhang massala is compound of bhang, black pepper, aniseed, cucumber seeds, milk, sugar, dried rose leaves. Bhang drinkers generally use it.

30. Consumed more in solitude than in company. Mainly confined to the male sex. Children rarely take it.

31. It takes some time to form the habit, but once formed, it is difficult to break it off,

32. A drink of bhang is offered to guests on last day of Durga puja, and ganja and bhang are offered on night of Sivratri to the God Mahadev and the priests and devotees consume it. It is essential as a religious act. It is not likely to lead to formation of a habit, being only offered once a year and therefore can't be said to be injurious.

33. The use of these drugs is supposed to be rather low because it is mainly confined to the poorer classes.
I know of no custom of worshipping the hemp plant.

34. A very serious privation to the labouring Classes, especially fishermen and boatmen, as gaiija is their only stimulant. A rough guess would put the labouring men who use ganja at over two thousand in this district.

35. It would be a physical impossibility to pro- hibit the use of the drug. There would be no political danger actually incurred by the prohibition in this district as the very poor only use ganja, but there would be very keen discontent and probably strikes and riots. Of course the prohibition would lead to concealed cultivation of hemp and the use of any other drugs that could be obtained.

36. Alcohol can't be substituted for these drugs unless it is made very cheap indeed. The present tendency is to make it dearer.

37. Ganja takes effect instantaneously while charas is slaw in its effect. Ganja seems to affect the mental faculties mainly, and charas the physical.

38. All the same effect.

39. Smoking is certainly the least injurious way of taking any preparation of the hemp plant.

40. Bliang is prescribed for indigestion and heat apoplexy among cattle.

41. (a) Yes.
(b) Yes.
(c) Yes.
As a preventive from sunstroke in a hot day. Well-to-do people use it as an accessory to food. Boatmen and fishermen and palki-bearers use it for its staying-power. Many use it occasionally as a febrifuge.

42. 1 consider the moderate use harmless, as out of the great number of ganja smokers I have known, I suppose in all my life I have only seen some twenty men injured by it, a much lower number than those I have seen injured by alcohol.

43. Yes.

44. Habitual moderate consumers. It is refreshing. It does not intoxicate. It allays hunger. It does not create hunger. The effects last for about two hours. No after-effects. Want of subsequent gratification produces uneasiness. Moderate smokers in old age are liable to indigestion.

45. It causes indigestion and the consumer is especially liable to dysentery.
After the effect of a smoke has worn off, lethargy is apt to ensue.
Moderate use of the drug seems to have no other effects.
Among the Cachar tea garden coolies I believe insanity is produced by the immoderate use of ganja, but these men also use other stimulants.

46. Immoderate use affects the digestion and appetite, causes great lethargy and weakens the frame generally. But it is to be noted that the fakirs and religious persons who are the principal excessive consumers here habitually use dhatura as an adjunct to ganja, and I am not prepared to discriminate between the effects of the two drugs.

47. No.

48. I am unable to answer this question precisely.

49. I know nothing of this.

51. Bad characters generally prefer alcohol, and I am unaware of any connection between ganja and crime when the drug is used in moderation.

52. It is only when excessive smoking causes insanity that the consumer is dangerous.

53. I have met with no case of this Lind in this district. My Cachar experiences have now rather fallen into oblivion, but I have an impression there were one or two cases there.

54. No.

55. I have met with no such cases.

56. Moderate consumers generally mix it with tobacco and excessive consumers with dhatura.

58. The price of spirits has been raised far too high, and the recent orders forbidding the private manufacture of madak are most objectionable.

59. I would reduce the retail price of a quart of country spirits to from six to eight annas, adhering to the present central distillery system. The interests of the distillers would ensure the chief liquor being cheap. I would also allow private manufacture of madak.

63. I have no objections to present system.

64. I have no objections as they work smoothly, and I am not aware of any smuggling.

65. I would make no change in the taxation of ganja.

66. I am aware of no reasons for different rates in different localities.

67. No.

68: I have never bad such shops in any district where I have been employed.

69. Local enquiries are made as to the wishes of the feelings. The present official tendency is rather to close old shops to opening new ones.

70. I know of no smuggling.

Oral evidence.

I have been over 19 years in the service. I had seven years' experience in Assam as Assistant Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner in the districts of Cachar and Sylhet. I am not prepared to give a precise opinion about ganja. In my written answers I made as precise statements as I could, based on enquiries specially made here in the M urshidabad district on purpose. I did not like to trust my memory in regard to definite details.

The effects of ganja never came prominently before me, except when I was in charge of the Cachar Jail as Assistant Commissioner. There
I saw its alleged effects in connection with tea garden coolies as producing insanity. They were lunatics sent to the jail for observation. Ganja was the principal cause assigned. I, of course, did not make special enquiries as to the cause. It was not my business to do that. I heard dhatura mentioned there. It was said that coolies and others put in dhatura and other substances to increase the effect of the dose. I have heard the same here. I did not verify this statement. It was a matter of common talk that other drugs were thus used to increasethe effect, that there was admixture of intoxicants for this purpose. I heard this in connection with these insanity cases. The tea garden coolies are also noted hands for liquor. They took anything they could get. We had to take special precautions about their liquor shops. We had constant complaints.

I think that the connection of ganja with insanity was probably much exaggerated. Just as in the ordinary vital statistics the police put down every thing to fever, so they are apt to put down insanity to ganja very freely, and often without sufficient cause. So, when there is an epidemic of cholera, everything like diarrhcea or any allied form of sickness is put down to cholera. I daresay the lunatics, as a rule, did use ganja. It grows wild in Cachar, and that could be used. The excise ganja was generally used by the coolies, and because they used it, it was put down as the cause. Ganja had a bad name. My opinion is that ganja is a more deleterious drug than opium. I am not prepared to say that it is more deleterious than alcohol. I have not found that insanity is so freely attributed to alcohol as to gnu ja. But alcohol is much more widely used than ganja, and, in my opinion, does more harm to the people. Ganja is the poor man's intoxicant. It is cheap. It is much used by coolies, and this explains the readiness of the police to assign it as a cause of insanity. It is because you get the paupers in the asylums that so large a proportion of cases is attributed to ganja. The well-to-do lunatics do not come, as a rule, to the asylums.

The planters sometimes complain that the whole garden work is stopped at one time by liquor. Some planters accordingly take the shops themselves and keep them under their control to prevent drunkenness. This is sometimes an excellent plan. The shops cannot be closed as stimulant is required.