West Punjab punishes consuming ganja or charas in breach of excise law

The West Punjab excise amendment published on 14 August 1949 let the province prohibit the possession or consumption of ganja or charas for any person or class of persons, and it added consuming either drug in breach of the excise law to the offence that already covered unlawful possession.^[1]

Licensed hemp, then a provincial amendment

The Punjab Excise Act of 1914 already treated bhang, siddhi, ganja and charas as intoxicating drugs and required a licence to make, sell or possess them. Charas is the resin of the Indian hemp plant. After partition the province was West Punjab. Its Excise (Amendment) Act, 1949, Act XX of 1949, was published in the West Punjab Gazette Extraordinary on 14 August 1949.^[1] The compilation that prints the amended Act does not give a separate day for the amendment to take effect.

A power to prohibit possession or consumption

The amendment substituted a new subsection. Notwithstanding the Act or any other law, the provincial government may by notification prohibit the possession or consumption of any intoxicant for any person, or any class of persons, or restrict that possession or consumption on conditions it prescribes.^[1] An intoxicant is any liquor or intoxicating drug. The drug definition, carried forward from the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1930, covers the leaves, small stalks and flowering or fruiting tops of the Indian hemp plant, including bhang, siddhi and ganja, and charas, and a mixture or drink made from them.^[1]

The same amendment let the government make rules to enforce such a prohibition, or to restrict possession or consumption, for any person or class.^[1] No notification under that power was in the compilation.

The penalty for consuming

Consuming an intoxicant was inserted into the offence of importing, exporting, transporting, manufacturing, collecting or possessing an intoxicant in breach of the Act, a rule, a notification, an order, or a licence, permit or pass.^[1] That offence carries imprisonment for up to two years, or a fine of up to 2,000 rupees, or both. Those maxima were already the ones printed for the rest of the clause. Cultivating the hemp plant in breach of the Act stayed in the next subsection, with its own maximum of one year or a fine of up to 2,000 rupees, or both.^[1]

Shops stayed open

The amendment is a West Punjab act. It leaves licensed dealing in place unless a notification withdraws it. Licensed sale of charas and bhang continued until 1979, when the prohibition order closed the shops. Medicinal hemp rules of 1959 later covered druggists in the wider West Pakistan. The current account is on the country profile.