Sadhu with glasses. A sadhu with glasses, saffron color clothes, long white hair and beard is preparing for himself a mixture of charas and tobacco in the riverfront steps of the sacred river Ganga in Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh, India).

Sadhus usually smoke that potent hashish concentrate, made from the resin of the cannabis plant, mixed with tobacco and using a conical pipe chillum, as a part of their worship.

Shiva is the god most commonly linked to cannabis, and this is th reason because charas-smokers consider that the spirit of Shiva enter their bodies when they inhale it.

Shadus are the only ones in India who are exempt from legal prosecution for possession of this drug.