CHAPTER VIII.

EXTENT OF USE AND THE MANNER AND FORMS IN WHICH THE HEMP
                                            DRUGS ARE CONSUMED.

Bengal.
Quality of statistics.

335. In endeavouring to measure the extent to which the hemp drugs are
used, it will be best to deal with them in their simplest
forms of ganja, bhang, and charas. The excise
administration of the hemp drugs in Bengal is so systematic that the statistics
of registered sale to retail vendors may be accepted as correct; and with regard
to ganja and charas, they will be found to afford a very good indication of the
actual consumption. With bhang the case is different, for most of this drug
which is consumed outside the big cities escapes excise altogether. And the
cities in which it can with any approach to truth be said that unexcised bhang
is not consumed are very few.

Ganja is the most important of the three drugs; it contributes nearly the
whole of the hemp drug revenue, and is consumed in all parts of the province.
In the case of Bengal it is possible to form with the help of the statistics a fairly
accurate idea of the extent to which the use of it prevails in the various divisions
and districts. On this subject a statement appears in the Excise Report for
1892-93: "Its consumption is largest in Calcutta, and next in Mymensingh and
Dacca; it is also considerable in the 24-Parganas, Rangpur, Pabna, Tippera,
Cuttack, Puri, and the districts of Behar"; and the qualification is added that the
large apparent consumption in Behar is to be explained to some extent by
export to the North-Western Provinces.

Consumption compared
with population of ganja.

336. If the quantity sold in each division and district be compared with their
population, it will be found that the divisions rank as fol-
lows (the figures of 1892-93 are taken)—

and that the districts in which one maund does not suffice, or barely suffices, for
10,000 of the population are:—