Cannabis
Is the consumption of alcohol wrong? Evidence promotes benefits of alcohol as well as revealing its dangers. You have addiction on one hand and bonds of friendship on the other. Yet we either promote the benefits or decry the evils of drinking. We have seen carnage caused by driving while intoxicated yet celebrated momentous occasions with the tip of a glass.
So is it wrong? For me the answer is simple because I’m different. I have made a covenant to abstain from alcohol use. Yet, even if my church lifted the ban on alcohol use, I would still abstain. My family history includes problems with alcohol abuse and I recognize personal tendencies that correspond with addiction. I abstain, because I don’t dare risk what I might become if I go there.
Today, my community is grappling with a choice regarding a proposed law to allow medical marijuana. Some oppose this law because they see it as something that will introduce something inherently bad into the community under the guise of promoting comfort to those who are ill. Some see it as the beginning of a slippery slope toward legalization. My church has weighed in against the law. In me they do not find a sympathetic ear.
Like alcohol, I wonder whether cannabis is inherently bad. Personally I will not use marijuana, legal or not, because of how I live my covenants and promises. But I cannot reconcile my belief that others need to make their own choices and to do so they need to be free to make those choices. I cannot justify using the power of the state on those who believe differently.
Not that long ago no laws existed in what is known as the United States that prohibited a person from ingesting any substance. The first of those laws was imposed in San Francisco and outlawed the use of opium. Scholars have persuasively argued that racial fears of Chinese immigrants motivated that first law. Of course once opium was illegal it stood to reason that it’s use would be confined. Sadly, with dollar signs as the motivator, the United States suffered its worst opioid epidemic because of drug companies who peddled “medical opium” to an unsuspecting population.
The history of drug legislation in this country is filled with racial motivations. Opium and the Chinese, Cocaine and the Blacks, Cannibas (marijuana) with Latinos. Sadly, I have seen too much discrimination in the name of doing good. Rather than criminalize the consumption of any of these items, we will be better served by criminalizing the behavior that comes from excessive or inappropriate use. We can also criminalize the distribution that leads to excessive or inappropriate use; as we should have done with drug companies all along.
I haven’t decided how I’ll vote because I’m not sure whether the legislation moves us toward decriminalization or simply more misguided regulation. But I can assure you that my measuring stick will be based on how I perceive the greater chance for choice.
So is it wrong? For me the answer is simple because I’m different. I have made a covenant to abstain from alcohol use. Yet, even if my church lifted the ban on alcohol use, I would still abstain. My family history includes problems with alcohol abuse and I recognize personal tendencies that correspond with addiction. I abstain, because I don’t dare risk what I might become if I go there.
Today, my community is grappling with a choice regarding a proposed law to allow medical marijuana. Some oppose this law because they see it as something that will introduce something inherently bad into the community under the guise of promoting comfort to those who are ill. Some see it as the beginning of a slippery slope toward legalization. My church has weighed in against the law. In me they do not find a sympathetic ear.
Like alcohol, I wonder whether cannabis is inherently bad. Personally I will not use marijuana, legal or not, because of how I live my covenants and promises. But I cannot reconcile my belief that others need to make their own choices and to do so they need to be free to make those choices. I cannot justify using the power of the state on those who believe differently.
Not that long ago no laws existed in what is known as the United States that prohibited a person from ingesting any substance. The first of those laws was imposed in San Francisco and outlawed the use of opium. Scholars have persuasively argued that racial fears of Chinese immigrants motivated that first law. Of course once opium was illegal it stood to reason that it’s use would be confined. Sadly, with dollar signs as the motivator, the United States suffered its worst opioid epidemic because of drug companies who peddled “medical opium” to an unsuspecting population.
The history of drug legislation in this country is filled with racial motivations. Opium and the Chinese, Cocaine and the Blacks, Cannibas (marijuana) with Latinos. Sadly, I have seen too much discrimination in the name of doing good. Rather than criminalize the consumption of any of these items, we will be better served by criminalizing the behavior that comes from excessive or inappropriate use. We can also criminalize the distribution that leads to excessive or inappropriate use; as we should have done with drug companies all along.
I haven’t decided how I’ll vote because I’m not sure whether the legislation moves us toward decriminalization or simply more misguided regulation. But I can assure you that my measuring stick will be based on how I perceive the greater chance for choice.
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