Bengal drops the order to destroy wild hemp

In June 1893 the Bengal government cancelled an order to destroy the hemp that grew wild, five months after the Excise Commissioner had issued it. Collecting the leaves for bhang stayed outside the licence, and the attempt was called impracticable.^[1]

The order and the cancellation

In January 1893 the Excise Commissioner ordered the spontaneous growth extirpated, so that bhang could be brought under closer excise control. The Bengal government cancelled the order the following June. The ground given was that the attempt was impracticable and likely to have no result except petty oppression.^[1]

Why the plant was hard to tax

The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission found no licensed cultivation of hemp for bhang in Bengal. Bhang was imported from the North-Western Provinces or gathered from plants that grew on their own in Bhagalpur and in districts north of the Ganges, especially Monghyr and Purnea. The 1878 excise Act did not define manufacture, and gathering the leaves did not appear to need a licence. Legal possession, except by licensed people, stopped at a quarter of a ser, so any large transaction still needed a licence. Passes were required to buy bhang for export to another district or for sale. A small duty was taken when bhang left the warehouse for the retail shop.^[1]

The Commission recorded the Excise Commissioner’s statement that the use of untaxed bhang was general. The amount brought to record did not represent all the bhang consumed. The wide growth of the plant made control of the transactions difficult.^[1]

Ganja stayed in the licensed tract

The cancellation covered the wild growth. Ganja for the excise trade was a different crop. The Commission found that ganja, except of a very inferior sort, could not be made from the wild plants, and that cultivation for ganja was allowed only in about 64 square miles under the Collector of Rajshahi, in Rajshahi, Dinajpur and Bogra. Every cultivator there took a licence, for which no fee was charged. Illicit cultivation cases were few, and often a few plants, or a single plant, grown in a courtyard for the leaves rather than for ganja.^[1]

Charas was not made in Bengal. The retail shops for ganja, charas and bhang went on, and consumption on the premises was not prohibited. The later account of the Naogaon crop is on the 1906 entry, and the present law is on the country profile.