Ganja

“ The European breweries at several hill stations pay the same tax as imported beer. Apart from spirits, excise duties are levied upon the sale of a number of intoxicating or stimulant drugs, of which the most important are opium, bhang, ganja and charas. Opium is issued for local consumption in India from the government manufactories at Ghazipur and Patna in the Behar and Benares Agencies, and sold through private retailers at a monopoly price. ”

“ The plant grows wild in many parts of India; but the cultivation of it for ganja is practically confined to a limited area in the Rajshahi district of eastern Bengal, and charas is mainly imported from Central Asia. ”

“ The leaf of the sipit also, a climbing species of fig, having the same quality, is put to the same use. Ganja or hemp (cannabis) is extensively cultivated, not for the purpose of making rope, to which they never apply it, but to make an intoxicating preparation called bang, which they smoke in pipes along with tobacco. In other parts of India a drink is prepared by bruising the blossoms, young leaves, and tender parts of the stalk. Small plantations of tobacco, which the natives call tambaku, are met with in every part of the country. ”

“ Three men, one under the effects of alcohol, one under the effects of opium, and the last under the effects of hemp, arrived one night at the closed gates of a city. “Let us break down the gates,” said the alcohol drinker in a fury of rage, “I can do it with my sword!” “Nay,” said the opium eater, “We can rest here outside in comfort till the morning, when the gates will be opened, and we may enter.” “Why all this foolish talk?” whined the one under the effects of hemp. “Let us creep in through the key-hole. We can make ourselves small enough!” ”

“ Five thousand men and women carried to the grave, yearly, by a poisonous weed, which does no good, and which, for filthiness and disgust, scarcely has its parallel in the whole vegetable kingdom. Is there a Christian,—is there a patriot,—is there a friend of humanity,—is there an individual, that values his own probationary existence,—who can look at the sweeping mortality which tobacco brings upon the nation, and longer indulge his attachment to his quid, his pipe or his snuff-box? ”

“ Cannabis, or Indian hemp, either the same species from which the far-famed haschish of the East is made, or very closely allied to it. They always choose a rich and moist soil on the sunny side of a hill, as the plant requires both heat and moisture to attain perfection. The natives seem to prefer their liamba even to the tobacco; but there are some doubts whether both these plants have not been imported, the tobacco from America and the liamba from Asia, or more likely from north-western Africa. Du Chaillu says that the Ashira and Apingi are the only tribes who cultivate it. ”

“ Every nation, as has been repeatedly pointed out, [89] whether civilized or barbarous, in all ages of the world, has been addicted to the use of some stimulant or narcotic. [90] Of these there are more than fifty kinds in use in different regions of the globe, ranging from alcohol in Europe, to “pombe,” a fermentation from millet, in Africa, and from bhang or hemp in India to coca and [Pg 77] tobacco in America. Samshoo, a fiery distillation from rice, is the intoxicant of Japan, and was that of China before opium took its place. ”

“ Were we able to procure a thoroughly reliable extract of hemp in this country, and did physicians use it as freely, as carelessly, and in as large doses, as they are using opium, morphine and chloral, hashisch takers would be more common.
Known in English-speaking countries as Indian Hemp or Cannabis Indica, it is called Hashisch by the Arabians, Gunjah and Churrus by the inhabitants of India, Bust or Sheera by the Egyptians, Dagga or Dacha by the Hottentots, El Mogen by the Moors. This is the solid extract. Bangue, Bang or Bendji is the spirituous extract. ”

“ Indulgence in hemp in India is as common as betel-chewing and tobacco smoking. It is, in one or other of its forms, either smoked, or eaten. (The sweetmeat Majum, is compounded from bhang, honey, sugar, and spices. Sometimes it is infused in cold water to which butter is added. The butter in time takes up the active principle of the drug, and is eaten.) And it is computed that the votaries of hemp, in one or other of its many forms, number three millions! ”

“ To an individual unacquainted with the fact, it would seem incredible that a weed, possessed of properties so poisonous, should ever have been sought as an article of luxury. Yet it has not only been sought, but even credulity startles at the extent to which it has been used. "Like opium, it calms the agitations of our corporeal frame, and soothes the anxieties and distresses of the mind." ”

“ Kennedy was now looking at them curiously.
“What is to be the method, do you suppose?” I asked.
“By a poison that is among the most powerful, approaching even cyanogen,” he replied confidently, tapping the cigarettes. “Do you smell the odor in this room? What is it like?”
“Stale tobacco,” I replied.
“Exactly—nicotine. Two or three drops on the mouth-end of a cigar or cigarette. The intended victim thinks it is only natural. But it is the purest form of the deadly alkaloid—fatal in a few minutes, too.” ”

“ The narcotic weed was indeed one of those luxuries of the age, which was most abused in the time of Buckingham. Burton anathematizes it--“as it is commonly used by 276most men, who take it as tinkers do ale; ’tis a plague, a mischiefe, a violent purger of goods, lands, healthe, hellish, devilish, damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of bodye and soule.” [231]
But no considerations of this nature could either restrain Bishop Fletcher, or convince the gallants of the day that they were ruining either body or soul in their love of tobacco. ”

“ Bill Nye.
Bill Nye on Tobacco.—A Discourager of Cannibalism.
I am glad to notice a strong effort on the part of the friends of humanity to encourage those who [Pg 79] wish to quit the use of tobacco. To quit the use of this weed is one of the most agreeable methods of relaxation. I have tried it a great many times, and I can safely say that it has afforded me much solid felicity.
To violently reform and cast away the weed and at the end of a week to find a good cigar unexpectedly in the quiet, unostentatious pocket of an old vest, affords the most intense and delirious delight. ”

“ When used to excess, however, it is very dangerous, as it slowly destroys the lining of the stomach and causes lingering pain and agonizing death.
Ginger contains a great deal of alcohol. This fact accounts for the formation of the so-called ginger habit to which the victim becomes a slave as to the whiskey, opium, or tobacco habit. Indulgence in this habit is more dangerous because ginger is supposed to be harmless.
A careful qualitative examination of the character of the extracts at times may reveal the presence of an adulterant, but the chief dependence is examination under the microscope. ”

“ Every individual attends to his or her own washing—if the husband wants a clean shirt, he washes it himself.
Before the introduction of the potato through early white fur-traders, the only plant cultivated by the Alaskan savages was a potent weed which they grew as a substitute for tobacco—the importation of the latter, however, has taken its place entirely to-day, because the Virginian weed is far more pleasant. But the old stone mortars and pestles that are still to be found knocking around the most venerable town-sites, bear evidence to the industry of making native tobacco here ages ago. ”

“ Long before the white man appeared on his shores, the Indian of the 93Andes, unacquainted with the tobacco of his North American brother, was addicted to this habit. The leaves—from which is extracted the cocaine of modern days—are plucked from a shrub not unlike the orange in appearance, that grows down in the edge of the hot lands to the east of the Andean chain. Once dried, they are packed in huge bales, or crude baskets made on the spot, and sold in the marketplaces by old women who weigh out the desired amount in clumsy home-made scales, or in handfuls by eye measure. ”

“ The beaux with their full wigs—they carried combs of ivory or tortoiseshell in their pockets with which they publicly combed their flowing locks—their dandy canes and scented, laced handkerchiefs, were not the men to enjoy the flavour of tobacco in a pipe. They were still tobacco-worshippers; but they did not smoke. The Indian weed retained its empire over the men (and women) of fashion by changing its form. The beaux were the devotees of snuff. ”

“ Hashish is the resinous exudate of the cannabis or hemp plant (Cannabis sativa) .
Heroin is a semisynthetic derivative of morphine.
Mandrax is a synthetic chemical depressant, the same as, or similar to Quaalude.
Marijuana is the dried leaves of the cannabis or hemp plant (Cannabis sativa) .
Narcotics are drugs that relieve pain, often induce sleep, and refer to opium, opium derivatives, and synthetic substitutes. Natural narcotics include opium (paregoric, parepectolin) , morphine (MS-Contin, Roxanol) , codeine (Tylenol with codeine, Empirin with codeine, Robitussan AC) , and thebaine. ”

“ The theme of our present consideration, is doubtless unpopular.—But we should not, we will not, therefore abandon the purpose of exposing the evils of smoking, and chewing, and snuffing, that dirty weed, which is so hostile to animal life, and so offensive to every creature on earth, that no living being but man—and a loathsome worm, called the tobacco-worm—will taste, or touch, or handle it. ”

“ There is nothing in nature more curious and inexplicable than the influence on the circulating fluids, and through these on the brain and its functions, of various narcotic drugs. Among these, opium, and Cannabis Indica, or East Indian hemp, occupy the most prominent place. ”

“ This is indeed the land for women who love the weed. A few smoke cigarettes and pipes, but the majority like partajas, perfectos, Napoleons and other rolls of the weed larger than those usually seen in our own land. They smoke them at home and in the streets, at the table or on the balcony, lying in hammocks, or lolling on their steeds, and only desist when within the sacred walls of the church. The moment mass is over and they emerge into the sunlight the first thing the women do is to light a fresh cigar and then climb into the saddle. ”

“ Cannabis (Cannabis sativa) is the common hemp plant, which provides hallucinogens with some sedative properties, and includes marijuana (pot, Acapulco gold, grass, reefer) , tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, Marinol) , hashish (hash) , and hashish oil (hash oil) . Coca (mostly Erythroxylum coca) is a bush with leaves that contain the stimulant used to make cocaine. Coca is not to be confused with cocoa, which comes from cacao seeds and is used in making chocolate, cocoa, and cocoa butter. Cocaine is a stimulant derived from the leaves of the coca bush. ”

“ Such a thing as a rusty nail being found on a prisoner would excite suspicion, and get him into serious trouble.
It would be taken for granted that he secreted it for the purpose of making his escape upon the first opportunity that presented itself.
We have in an earlier chapter alluded to “tobacco” being conveyed into prisons. This article does find its way into our convict gaols, and this “noxious weed,” as non-smokers term it, is a constant source of annoyance and trouble.
Smoking is altogether out of the question, one puff from a pipe or cigar would be detected in a moment ”

“ But these same excellent men are daily smoking opium in their cigars, quite unconscious of the evils, physical and mental, they are gradually but surely inhaling with every breath they draw through this venomous weed. ”

“ Lucky is he whose plant-bed has escaped the fly, the first enemy of the precious weed. Its attacks are made upon it in the first stage of its existence, and are more fatal, because less easily prevented, than those of the tobacco-worm, that scourge, par excellence, of the tobacco crop. Farmers often lose their entire stock of plants, and are forced to send miles to beg or buy of a more fortunate planter. ”

“ Then, to prevent ‘flyblow’ and its consequences, a preparation of salt and baked tobacco, pulverized, is applied. The nicotine of tobacco, boiled out, is the great remedy used by Australian sheep growers for killing a bad breed of lice, which would otherwise destroy their flocks. Tobacco is certainly a very poisonous, destructive weed, and death to vermin.
“On Sabbath, 9th, Brother Gordon had a teaching and preaching meeting in the chapel at 10 A.M., then I preached a short discourse, and he interpreted into the Kimbundu. ”

“ Hitherto the fundamental point on which the opponents of the weed have dwelt is that as the active principle of tobacco, nicotine, is acknowledged to be in its isolated form a poison, its introduction into the system in any shape or form must be injurious, and that it is difficult to point to any human organ which may not be detrimentally affected by smoking, snuffing, or chewing. ”

“ And when the last man had sunk into insensibility, the Indian filled a small cup with some of the liquor from the skull goblet, and drained it off. Then he charged a pipe with opium, and, coiling himself up on an ottoman, he began to smoke, until he, like the others, yielded to the soporific influences of the drug and the opium and went to sleep. ”

“ The air of the room is thick with smoke, for most of the men are smoking clay or corncob pipes, but the smoke is scarcely recognizable as that of tobacco, so largely is that expensive weed mixed with dried sweet-fern and other herbs, for the sake of economy. ”