Are
America's Drug Laws in Line With God's Laws?
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, 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 a fiery furnace, only to emerge some time later unharmed.
When the king sentenced Shadrac, Meshac, and Abednigo to that same
furnace that was heated up to 7 times hotter than normal, 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 a Scriptural example 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. 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, 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 religious laws 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 agreement, or 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.
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
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
danger. 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 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. It is beneficial and not dangerous provided
that it is not abused. 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 closed-mindedness.
So do I think everybody should start smoking pot? Of
course not. I sometimes use medical marijuana for a nervous disorder
that I suffer from, as well as a permanent back injury, without any
side effects. 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 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 personally, 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 calls pot “dangerous” and “narcotic” and 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 reason 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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