Even though cigarettes and beer are legal, I have never smoked, and I rarely drink alcoholic drinks. I just don't see the attraction -especially knowing the harmful effects to one's health, of smoking cigarettes.
If you are brought up in a good home, with parents that instruct and discipline you when you need it, then it helps you to make good decisions in life, and to practice self-control.
Even if marijuana were legal, I would not use it, because I can see the effects that it has on some people. I don't know what kind of effect it would have on me. It might just make me feel really relaxed and calm. Or, it might make me say or do things I may later regret. It is the thought of not being in full control of my faculties that restrains me from partaking of this plant- not because I think marijuana is evil.
The Scriptures teach us that we are to have self-control, be disciplined, and sober minded. Anything that interferes with our ability to do these things, is not something I want to try.
My view: legalize it .... regulate it ... tax it ...
On a separate but unfortunately often confused issue: hemp cultivation should be legalized.
I believe that marijuana should be legal, but controlled. As with many other substances, like alcohol and prescription meds, anything can be abused. I have to show ID when I buy spray paint or canned compressed air. :/ I don't buy bath salts, but some stores have removed them, or you have to show ID to purchase. Now you can't buy certain kinds of cold meds OTC without showing ID and signing a form, because people who are into better-living-through-chemistry figured out how to make meth in their kitchens.
We don't have to criminalize the use of various substances, but we can criminalize the abuse of them, as well as operating motor vehicles under the influence of fill-in-the-blank.
As with many other substances that we control, marijuana has medicinal properties. Why shouldn't it be legal? On the other hand, we have never outlawed cigarettes, which do absolutely nothing but cause addiction, disease, and death... and flip our lids over marijuana, which doesn't make sense to me.
We don't have to criminalize the use of various substances, but we can criminalize the abuse of them,
Chip,
The ab- or mis-use of guns is already illegal. I don't think its the exact same argument.
I first smoked a cigarette when I was 9 years old. By the time I was 13yrs I was smoking marijuana. By 14yrs I was smoking dope and tried LSD for the first time and later progressed to cocaine as a stimulant. I used LSD and other hallucinogenic drug combinations because I could find an escape for 8 hours at a time.
By the time I was 23 years I was off drugs and on the favorite drug of all, alcohol.
I remained alcohol dependent until July 17th 1999 at 10:30am when at the age of 43 my sins were forgiven and my addiction was lifted. In the 2 years prior to my salvation I was not sober for a moment.
The word addiction means to be adjudged. The person who is adjudged has no power over the judgment and remains under the judgment until they are set free by salvation or if the end of the judgment is destruction, they are put to death. They might go to rehab, but they will always battle against the demon.
We often hear of people who are trying to ‘’get clean’’ have you ever wondered what this actually means? The opposite of clean is foul or filthy and this is the curse, ‘’ and he which is filthy (fouleth), let him be filthy (foul).
I never, ever tried to give up smoking, because I knew I couldn’t. It was as if the Almighty was telling me that to turn away His judgment was not in my power.
When I was granted repentance in regard to smoking the desire was taken away.
The world knows nothing of judgment and thinks it can make a nice, pleasant society, but they are mistaken. There is no peace unto the wicked and the lives of the wicked are despicable, through the evil of judgment. I know this to be so, as I've been there.
Deliverance from the wrath of judgment is the most incredibly amazing experience.
amen
When we hear the word "pot," many of us think of our stomachs. Others of a kettle. But what about marijuana? I would assume most Christians are against using it, but what is the best legal approach to take toward this weed? One brother I respect suggested anything that grows as a plant should not be regulated.
I say, "No, some people -- esp. some teens -- will avoid it precisely because it is illegal. I can hear a friend tempting his peer, 'well, it's legal, so it can't be that bad.'"
I do think law enforcement, however, needs to be directed elsewhere.
Where do you stand and why?
"The Midrash Detective"