Hashish

Hashish (otherwise anasha), a product rich in a special resin, obtained from the tops of female plants of the tall dioecious annual herb known as Indian hemp—Cannabis indica. This hemp, growing in India, Central Asia, and Persia, contains a large amount of physiologically very active resin only due to the climatic and soil conditions of the subtropical zone. From Indian hemp, besides fiber and seeds, products of the common hemp of the temperate zone, the following products are obtained, partly exported to other countries for the preparation of medicinal or intoxicating and flavoring preparations: 1. Ganja, otherwise gunja (Ganja)—very resin-rich leafy and flowering tops of unfertilized female plants, rolled by hand or foot. To avoid fertilization, male plants are pulled up before flowering: fertilization, in the opinion of the natives, worsens the quality of the resin. This product, due to its toxicity, is forbidden to be produced in northwestern India. 2. Less resin-rich tops of fertilized female inflorescences, so-called bang (Bangh). 3. Charas, or churus (Charas, or Churus)—pure resin of unfertilized female plants. To obtain pure resin, naked workers, with oil-smeared skin, quickly walk between the close rows of hemp plantings; from the stems beating against the body, resin gradually accumulates on the skin, which is removed, rolled into loaves, and used for the preparation of pure hashish. The black-brown cakes obtained from charas, the size of a plate and only 2-3 mm thick, have a strong, characteristic odor and bitter taste. The main active principle of the resin of Indian hemp is cannabinon, a thick syrupy substance that is a phenol-aldehyde; in addition, the resin contains a convulsant poison—tetanocannabin and a glycoside cannabin. The main action is associated with the presence of the first substance. Hashish is chewed, eaten with various sweets and spices, and often smoked. Often hashish is used together with opium. Millions of people in southern and southwestern Asia and North Africa use hashish for intoxication. Among Muslims, the spread of hashish is often associated with the Quran's prohibition on consuming alcohol. When using hashish, on the one hand, the initial motor-psychic, aggressive-type excitation should be particularly emphasized, sometimes to extreme frenzy, with very sharp tension of muscular strength, and on the other hand—the subsequent (less immediate), sometimes as if suddenly occurring, with some preservation of consciousness, transfer of a person in his sensations to a world of bright illusions, often with an erotic character. In a European, the phenomena of poisoning have a more pronounced violent character, with this or that complications, for example, in the form of the above-mentioned initial motor excitation and depressing psychic experiences, including a feeling of fear and painfulness. As the final phase of the action of hashish, which, however, does not always occur and differs in time in different individuals, drowsiness and sleep should be noted. With frequent use of hashish, deep disturbance of higher nervous activity and this or that forms of mental disorders occur: in Cairo, among the mentally ill, about 30% are hashish users. The same is the statistics of India (Bengal). Thus, the use of hashish (like opium) in terms of social consequences can be equated with alcoholism. Hashish is undoubtedly a very significant factor in degeneration. Materials from 1927 indicate the very widespread use of hashish (otherwise, in local jargon—anasha) in the Central Asian republics of the USSR among both the local and the incoming European population. Anasha is used as diversely as in its homeland: it is smoked, drunk, and eaten in various mixtures, sweets, and dishes. Cases of its combined use with opium, even with belladonna and henbane, have also been noted. The clinical picture of poisoning corresponds to the above-mentioned variety of action of hashish: aggressive forms of excitation, intoxication, stupor, often amnesia. As a result of constant use, a decrease in moral feeling, emotional dullness, general instability and low stability of higher nervous activity are observed. Habituation to hashish, as always with acutely acting narcotic substances, occurs faster than to alcohol. Treatment is better conducted in closed medical institutions. Relapses are frequent. Among the measures to combat hashishism: hypnosis, dispensarization with patronage, active family participation, general educational measures. Due to the detrimental effect of hashish on public health, it is necessary to wage an energetic struggle against its spread in the USSR.

V.

Skvortsov. Psychopathology of hashish poisoning. The action of hashish on the psyche has been well studied. At first, slight dizziness appears, accompanied by a pleasant feeling of warmth in the body, lightness, intellectual excitement, and increased strength. To these first sensations, an indefinite feeling of constriction in the chest, gloomy expectation and fear soon join. The most distinctive feature of the psyche of a person intoxicated with hashish, however, is not these sensations, but the very early and extremely rich illusory experiences. Images of the external world seem flooded with light, acquire excessively bright, as if emphasized outlines, colors appear to be extremely saturated, and spatial relations are expanded, to which is joined the illusion of lengthening of time. The described change in perceptions initially arouses the liveliest interest and is colored by a feeling of intense pleasure. The latter, however, with the passage of time is gradually displaced by an increasingly growing affect of fear, connected with the painfully felt compulsive obsessiveness of the appearing images and with the often arising feeling of foreignness of the experienced experiences and even of one's own body. Further, the ability to combine partial perceptions into one finished whole begins to noticeably suffer. Individual images seem as if torn from connection with others and with the stock of memories, while their meaning is increasingly overshadowed by immediate sensory vividness—as a result, a peculiar sensation of unreality arises. Complex perceptions gradually become fragmented, mosaic, caricaturely distorted, and living faces—immobile, mask-like and soulless. Sometimes dynamic illusions arise: floating, tossing up, etc. Thinking loses the ability to follow a single guiding line; at the same time, the initial influx of thoughts is replaced by ever-growing and often intensely, up to the fear of going mad, experienced intellectual confusion. Often the emergence of fragmentary and unstable delusional ideas of relationship and persecution. Emotions become extremely unstable and fluctuate between experiences of childish joy and unbearable horror. In some, significant sexual excitement appears. One of the characteristic features of hashish poisoning is the wave-like change of states of different clarity of consciousness: the intoxicated person as if floats out of his painful experiences, then again plunges deeply into them. The further, the more the state of the intoxicated person becomes more and more tormenting: increased heartbeat develops, headache appears, the whole body is covered with sweat and then becomes cold or seems burning, breathing becomes difficult, and all sensations merge in one feeling of unbearable pain. Finally, with phenomena of increasing weakness and disturbance of coordination of movements, an unconscious state and sleep occur. In habitual consumers of hashish, prolonged mental disorders are also observed, which differ little in character from those that result from chronic poisoning by other narcotic poisons (cocaine, opium, etc.): on the one hand, these are hallucinations with delusions of persecution, and on the other—initial states of imbecility.