The Majoon or hemp confection, is a compound of sugar, butter, flour, milk, and bang. The mass is divided into small lozenge-shaped pieces; one dram will intoxicate a beginner, three drams one experienced in its use. The taste is sweet and odour agreeable. Most carnivorous animals will eat it greedily, and very soon become ludicrously drunk, but seldom suffering any worse consequences.
The confection called el mogen in use amongst the Moors appears to be similar to, if not identical with, the majoon of India.
The ancient Saracens and modern Arabs in some parts of Turkey and generally throughout Syria, use preparations of hemp still known by the name of haschisch or Hashash. M. Adolph Stuze, the court apothecary at Bucharest, thus describes the haschisch, by which general name all intoxicating drugs whose chief constituent is hemp, are well known all over the East. The tops and all the tender part of the hemp plant are collected after flowering, dried and kept for use. There are several methods of using it.
I. Boiled in fat, butter, or oil, with a little water; the filtered product is employed in all kinds of pastry.
II. Powdered for smoking. Five or ten grains of the powder are smoked from a common pipe with ordinary tobacco, probably the leaf of a species of Lobelia (Tombuki) possessing strong narcotic properties.
III. Formed with tragacanth mucilage into pastiles, which are placed upon a pipe and smoked in similar doses.
IV. Made into an electuary with dates or figs and honey. This preparation is of a dark brown or almost black colour.
V. Another electuary is prepared of the same ingredients, with the addition of spices, cloves, cinnamon, pepper, amber, and musk. This preparation is used as an aphrodisiac.
The confection most in use among the Arabs is called Dawamese. This is mingled with other stimulating substances, so as to administer to the sensual gratifications, which appear to be the summum bonum of oriental existence.
The haschisch extract is about the consistence of syrup, and is of a dark greenish colour, with a narcotic odour, and a bitter, unpleasant taste.