Volume 1

Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893-1894.

  • India. Hemp Drugs Commission.
Date:
2010
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893-1894. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a een, on the feet if the operation consisted in treading the plants. The solitary piece of definite information supplied about preparation in the plains is given by Mr. Kirthi Singh (14): “Sometimes a cultivator may want a little charas for private use, in which case he beats the flowering twigs over a piece of cloth laid on the ground, and then collects the greyish white powder which falls. This requires only tobe dried a little in the sun, and it is ready for use.” 244. In the “ Punjab Products” the manufacture of this sort of charas called Chares in. Panjab Products.” garda is described. The finest quality is when the dust is of a reddish colour. This is called surkha. When it is green, it is called bhangra. The most inferior is that which adheres to the cloth after shaking, and has to be scraped off or shaken off with more violence. This is called khaki. In each case the dust has to he kneaded with a small quantity of water into a cake, and then forms charas. It is stated that this drug is muchin use. The specimens which formed the basis of the article were none of them from the plain districts of the Punjab, except possibly one from Dera Ghazi Khan. They came from Lahoul, Spiti, Bokhara, Yarkand, Dera Ghazi Khan, and Kashmir. 245. It will be of interest to quote other descriptions of foreign manufacture. Beata abinerad ia Varennd Witness (86) has been in the habit of visiting Ladakh for purposes of trade, and has there learnt the following details from Ladakh merchants: ‘‘In Yarkand bhang is cultivated in the month of Baisakh in waste lands and round the fields of other crops for the manufacture of charas. It remains standing for seven months, and is then reaped in the month of Katik, when the blossom is ripe, and then stored on the roofs of houses. It remains there for one month and gets dried in the mean- time. The zamindars then thrash the plants after separating the larger leaves by night within their houses. The smaller petals and flowers then fall on the ground and are reduced to powder. It isthen sifted thrice, put in bags, and sold to the traders. The merchants go on storing it up until the month of Jeth comes, when they place it in the sun, and a kind of oleaginous substance oozes out of the powder. It is then kneaded like tobacco and put in bags made of cloth. The following three or four kinds of charas are prepared from it—mu- shak, bahara, pat, and kuppi. They are then closed up in leather.” Mr. Dalgleish is quoted by Dr. Watt as giving a description of the preparation similar to the above. The Deputy Commissioner of Bannu says that honey is mixed in the powder of the flowering tops, after which the stuffis packed in leather bags and kept for a year im the sun. Hari Chand, Assistant to the Commissioner of Excise, report- ed in 1890 of the Yarkand manufacture that “ the leaves are ground in Decem- ber. The flower is kept in bags of five sérs each till June. The bags are then put in the sun, and the flower rubbed with hands and feet till it gives oil. It is then put in leather bags and hammered till it becomes one block. The blocks are of 54 sérs each.” There is a certain similarity in all these methods, and they probably give with fair accuracy the general outline of the important manu- facture of Yarkand. Garda, as described in the “ Punjab Products,” would appear to be the Kashmir preparation. The word seems to mean merely dust. in its ‘common use. f. 246. The memorandum on the province contains Seb at all available information regarding the Punjab States.