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! There is great diversity of opinion as to whether hemp is gravely harmful to its consumers, or whether it is merely an undesirable form of indulgence without any evil permanent effects. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, which examined the whole question in detail, was of opinion that it was harmless if indulged in moderately, but that the gravest results must follow upon intemperance in its use. As regards its being a fruitful cause of insanity, the evidence of alienists was taken, and the statistics of all the large asylums for the insane in India were examined; but “only 7·3 per cent. of lunatics admitted to asylums were those in which hemp could reasonably be regarded as having been a factor of importance. Moreover, the form of insanity produced yields readily to treatment,” and as hemp has not got the same hold that opium has upon individuals, its discontinuance is easily effected and immediate restoration of the mental faculties comes about. The moderate use of _ganja_ increases the appetite, and produces a condition of cheerfulness. In excess, hallucinations, and a sort of delirium is excited, and it is in this aggravated state that a man may “run amok.” This is the outstanding evil of the drug: to temporarily madden a man. But, for the fatal consequences which often ensue from running amok, people are apt to put the whole blame on the drug. May it not, however, be that a man whose desire it is to become reckless purposely resorts to the drug to hearten himself? I think it is very likely. It is often discovered, after a man has run amok, that he has for some time been broody or sulky, and suffering under some real or imagined wrong. That he should get desperate, and take in excess what he well knows to be is an excitant infinitely more powerful than alcohol, in order to carry through what he has been longing for some time to do, is not altogether unreasonable.