I
have had my first complaint this week about my new website. On the
Welcome Page there are a number of photos that are descriptive of
this ministry and what it's trying to accomplish. One of them was a
picture of a marijuana plant, and the caption read, “legalize,
regulate and tax marijuana”. Since I've been pro-legalization since
the 1970's, and since God made that plant along with all the rest of
them (see Genesis chapter 1 verse 11) it was only natural that I
include it in my website. But someone – I won't say who –
complained about my posting that photo on the Web, so as of today I
have replaced it with another. If anyone else was offended by that
photo, then I will apologize for that, but not for my reasons why I
posted it there. Inspired by this experience, I broke out and updated
this 2012 posting about the drug war, which has become even more
relevant today than it was when I first wrote it. So, read on and
enjoy!
Are
America's Drug Laws in Line With God's Laws?
By
Rev. Paul J. Bern
The
Bible says in the Old Testament “Obey the laws of the land in which
you are living, so that it may go well for you where you abide”.
This is always good advice. Jail is no place for anyone to be, and it
is that way by design to deter crime. But what if the laws we are
duty-bound to obey run contrary to the Bible? Is it possible for a
man-made law to be contrary to the Bible's teachings? And if so,
should we still obey it? Is there an example of this anywhere in the
Bible?
The
answer to all of these is an emphatic yes. The most obvious example
of this would be the crucifixion of Christ Jesus himself. If we take
all the religious teaching in the Bible and set it aside for just a
moment, we find that from a purely historical perspective Jesus was
crucified as a criminal because He preached against organized
government and organized religion. It is not well understood by many
people that the teachings of Christ were revolutionary in their time,
a fact that the modern church is not teaching (excluding mine), much
to their discredit. When Jesus taught, he spent much more time with
the common people than He did at the temple at Jerusalem, where His
teachings were met with much consternation among the religious
establishment of that time. He was viewed by the political and
religious establishment as a threat, and so they put Him to death,
not realizing that He would only be in the grave for three days.
Another example would be in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament.
When Daniel refused to bow down to the god of king Nebuchadnezzar,
the king had Daniel thrown into the lions den, only to emerge a few
minutes later unharmed. When the king sentenced Shadrac, Meshac, and
Abednigo to the firey furnace that was heated up to 7 times hotter
than normal (see Daniel chapter, they too were unharmed. Instead, the
king looked into the furnace and saw four men instead of three, “and
the fourth man looked like the Son of Man”, which was Jesus Christ.
Jesus stood with Shadrac, Meshac, and Abednigo in king
Nebuchadnezzar's great furnace and protected them from harm. He did
so despite the fact that they had been given a death sentence by the
governmental authority of their day.
The
most relevant question to ask at this point is whether there is an
example of this in modern times, and how it applies to us. The
unfortunate answer in this case is also an emphatic yes, and I am
talking about the criminalization of marijuana (and its cousin, hemp,
one of the most useful plants that exists with numerous applications)
in this country. (Beg your pardon, pastor? Marijuana! Been smoking
any?) Before anyone jumps to conclusions or judges me for my words, I
have two Scriptural examples of what I am talking about. Just hold
your thoughts for a moment for a quick check of God's Word. In the
book of Acts in the New Testament, it says the following in chapter
ten:
“About
noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching
the city, Peter went up … to pray. He became hungry and wanted
something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into
a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being
let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of
four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of
the air. Then a voice told him 'Get up Peter, kill and eat!'. 'Surely
not Lord', Peter replied, 'I have never eaten anything impure and
unclean'. The voice spoke to him a second time 'Do not call anything
impure that God has made clean'. This happened three times, and then
the sheet was taken back to heaven.” (Acts 10, 9-16 NIV)
Now let's hold that thought while we go back to the book
of Genesis, the first book in the Old Testament, to the very first
chapter. It states in verses 11 through 13:
“Then
God said, 'Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and
trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their
various kinds'. And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants
bearing seeds according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with
their seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was
good. And there was evening and there was morning the third day.”
(Genesis 1, verses 11-13, NIV)
And so, it really jumps out at us in Genesis that God
made all the plant life and fauna on earth and then “saw that it
was good”. And yet cannabis is outlawed as a dangerous schedule one
narcotic, when in fact it is not. Never mind that nobody ever died or
overdosed from smoking weed, while cigarettes kill 50,000 people per
year and overdoses of legal prescription drugs kill 100,000 more, not
counting suicides. On the other hand, medical uses for cannabis are
well documented, such as being effective for glaucoma and
chemotherapy patients as well as some (but not all) mental health
patients, among other things. There are literally millions of others
like me who are clamoring for legalization. Moreover, in a poll just
released this week 52% of all Americans want cannabis (its proper
name) and hemp (its cousin which has literally tons of commercial
applications, including biofuel) to be legalized. If either or both
were to be legalized, regulated and taxed, it would create an
agricultural and industrial bonanza, creating several million new
jobs, maybe even more.
The Bible admonishes us to “not call anything unclean
that God has made clean”. Peter, who was the equivalent of an
orthodox Jew in today's world, protested to God against breaking the
religious laws of the time. He was forbidden from eating the meat
from certain animals based on the Law of Moses, the Jewish religious
doctrine of that time, which is known as the Old Testament today. But
God told Peter in his vision that it was okay, that His laws
superseded the legal system of the day. This is noticeably consistent
with the teachings of Christ, who taught that His teachings were a
new agreement between mankind and God that replaced the Old
Testament. Today, being a Christian means being “born again” and
receiving a new life in Christ, with all our sins against God, our
mistakes and character flaws, our personality defects and moral
shortcomings of our past being canceled out by the blood of Christ.
And so we become fortunate enough through our newly found favor with
God to not be charged with any penalty for the sins and errors of our
past, provided we turn away from evil and focus ourselves on dong
good so we may honor the holy name of the Lord.
Let
me be absolutely clear that we are being lied to by our government
about the “dangers” of marijuana use. Cannabis, as it is called
in much of the rest of the world, is erroneously classified by the
Drug Enforcement Administration as a schedule one narcotic. A
narcotic is defined as a barbiturate (downers) or
an
amphetamine (uppers). It is a manufactured substance made up of
certain chemicals which can be physically addictive when abused. Yet
these two classes of drugs are legal in spite of their inherent
dangers. The USDEA, on the other hand, has classified marijuana as a
dangerous narcotic when in fact it is neither. Marijuana is nothing
more than a plant. It is not manufactured and it contains no added
harmful chemicals or physically addictive tendencies. God put the
marijuana plant on this earth for mankind's use. It has medicinal
properties that are well documented. I use (on a part-time basis for
financial reasons) medical cannabis because it cures or alleviates
the symptoms of my bipolar disorder, my post traumatic stress
disorder, and my chronic back pain. It is beneficial and never
dangerous provided that it is used responsibly. AIDS patients use it
because it helps them regain their appetite. There is study after
study published in various medical journals going back decades that
prove that marijuana used for medical and recreational purposes is
harmless when used in reasonable quantities. That's why we should, as
in times of old, “not call anything impure that God has made
clean”. Who do the abusive authoritarians think they are to
criminalize God by outlawing that which He created? All this proves
is their colossal arrogance and their extreme closed-mindedness.
So do I think everybody should start smoking pot? Of
course not! But this does not mean it's for everybody. For example,
certain individuals may be allergic to weed, or they may dislike the
smell of the smoke, or have other personal or legal reservations
about its use. As Paul wrote in his letter to the church in Rome,
“Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial”.
What's good for one person may not be so for another. Many people
drink and have no problem with it while others abstain by choice, and
each is equally entitled to their opinion. Is this a contradiction in
the Bible then? Not at all. You will recall that I stated that Christ
replaced the Old Testament with the New when He died on the cross and
then rose from the dead after three days. So if we obey the new law,
the law of Christ, obeying the laws of the land should come naturally
without effort. But the criminalization of marijuana that calls pot
“dangerous” and “a narcotic” makes something “unclean” of
a part of God's creation that He has “made clean” (by its very
creation). That's why the marijuana laws in this country run contrary
to God's laws.
What should we do? If medical marijuana ever comes up
for a vote in your state, vote yes. In the meantime, try to be a
law-abiding citizen, understanding that not all of the laws on the
books are good ones. Some, like the drug laws, are there for the
wrong reasons because they are protecting the wrong people. That's
why the drug laws are bad ones. We live in a world that is basically
evil, but there is still much good despite all that. The Bible can
teach us to learn to differentiate between the two for our own
benefit.
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