The story · written by grok-4.7,
The Bengal Excise Act, 1878, made a Collector’s licence the condition for making ganja, charas or bhang, and for growing the plants they come from. A person outside the licensed trade could keep only a quarter of a ser of ganja or bhang, or five tolas of charas.[1]
What the Act required
The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, reporting on the law then in force, set out the principal provisions of Bengal Act VII of 1878. Section 5 prohibited, without a licence from the Collector, the manufacture of ganja, charas and bhang and of every preparation or admixture of them, and the cultivation of the plants from which they are produced. Section 11 required a licence to sell any of those drugs. The Board of Revenue could fix the fees for retail licences. No fee was charged for the privilege of wholesale sale.[1]
The retail limit was a quarter of a ser of ganja or bhang, or of a preparation or admixture, and five tolas of charas. A wholesale licensee was not to sell by retail, and a retail licensee was not to sell by wholesale, though the same person could hold both licences. The Board could set a larger retail quantity. Possession above the retail quantity was forbidden to anyone who was not a licensed manufacturer or vendor, or a person authorised to supply the licensed vendors. The penalty for that possession did not apply to authorised cultivators.[1]
A cultivator of the plants that produce ganja or bhang could sell the plants, or the ganja or bhang made from them, only to a person authorised by a pass or a licence from the Collector.[1]
What the Act left open
The Commission found no definition of “manufacture” in the Act. Apart from the possession limit, collecting bhang from the hemp plant did not appear to be prohibited. There was also no restriction on using the plant while it was still green. It came under the excise rules when it was prepared to be used, stored or sold as a narcotic or stimulant.[1]
The Board could, with the local government’s sanction, prohibit foreign ganja, charas or bhang in a specified tract, or limit how much a person could keep without a further licence. It had used that power to fix five tolas for Garhjat ganja. That figure is the Board’s declaration.[1]
The tract the Commission found
Licensed growing was already the policy. When the Commission looked, cultivation for ganja was allowed only in about 64 square miles in the Rajshahi division, placed under the Collector of Rajshahi though it lay in Rajshahi, Dinajpur and Bogra. The licence carried no fee. Charas was not made in Bengal. A small amount was imported from Upper India under passes, duty was paid, and licensed vendors sold it.[1]
In June 1893 the government cancelled an order to destroy wild hemp. The licensed shops continued. The current account is on the country profile.
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References
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.