Indian Hemp Commission

This finding was predated by the three-volume report of the Indian Hemp Commission from 1898, when Queen Victoria s government concluded that the smoking of cannabis, or hemp, did not impair the work rates of farm labourers in the Indian subcontinent. However, it should be emphasised that these reports were concerned with old-fashioned natural cannabis, whose THC content was around 1-2% this was the type used by hippies in the 1960s. But, during the 1970s selective plant breeding and hydroponic plant cultures led to increased THC values of around... 

Indian Hemp Commission (1898). Report to the British House of Commons. 

Widely used in India and the Middle East, marijuana was viewed as an innocuous social drug by many British and other foreign observers. In 1894, the Indian Hemp Commission issued a voluminous report that concluded ... 

A voluminous report from the Indian Hemp Commission concludes that hemp (marijuana), when used moderately, does not lead to excess and causes no more injury than moderate use of alcohol. 

Early in this century, much concern about use of marijuana was aroused in the Panama Canal area. The Army s investigative body came to the same conclusions as the 1894 Indian Hemp Commission that Cannabis is comparatively innocuous, that it s not addictive, etc. Another commission established soon after in New Orleans produced the same findings. The most famous of all these investigative bodies, the LaGuardia Commission, reported in 1943 on the use of marijuana in New York City with the same results. 

Several influential reports have appeared on the use of marijuana and its effects, including the 1894 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report and the 1944 LaGuardia Commission Report. Such reports have tended to find that marijuana use overall is not particularly harmful to society at large. 

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, which had been summoned in the 1890s to investigate the use of cannabis in India, concluded that the plant was so much an integral part of the culture and religion of that country that to curtail its usage would certainly lead to unhappiness, resentment, and suffering. Their conclusions ... 

The report of the Indian Hemp Drags Commission has been widely praised for its thoroughness and impartiality. "The most complete and systematic study of marijuana undertaken to date," one critic has said. Another has described the report as "by far the most complete collection of information on marijuana in existence."... 

Psychosis. A venerable claim about marihuana is that it causes insanity. During the nineteenth century, Moreau had experimented with marihuana as a "model psychosis." The Indian Hemp Drags Commission and several other reports by physicians serving in India also seriously considered marihuana s potential for mental illness. While many of these reports affirmed the possible link between chronic cannabis use and mental illness, the methods and data of the time would not stand up to modem criteria for such studies. 

Campbell, J. M. On the religion ofhemp. In Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report. Simla, India 1893-1894, vol.2, pp.250-252. 

Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report (7 vols.). Simla, India 1893-1894. 

Kalant, O. J. Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893-1894 A critical review. International Journal of the Addictions, 1972, 7, 77-96. 

Mikuriya, T. H. Physical, mental, and moral effects of marihuana The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission. International Journal of the Addictions, 1968, 3, 253-270. 

Most descriptions of the preparation of Cannabis products are second-hand repeats of nineteenth century accounts—none too accurate to begin with. The accounts generally derive from India and adjacent areas and use the native terms for the products. Since the procedures they describe are the world s oldest for the preparation of Cannabis products, it is appropriate to recount a few of them here. Most are from the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report (1893-1894). 

Chopra and R.N. Chopra, The Use of Cannabis Drugs in India, Bulletin on Narcotics 9 (1957) 4 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report 1893-1894, (7 vols), U.S. Government Printing Office. 

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