Living at home with no job has given me much time to read, catch up on a few TV shows, and have serious thoughts. Today I am filled with serious thoughts, all of which revolve around a sacrament of the Rastafarian religion, marijuana.
The last year I have come in contact with several people who smoke this weed, and recently I found out that my own brother also likes to smoke dope. I have heard all kinds of arguments about how this drug is harmless. cigarettes do more damage then smoking pot, its non habit forming, a cup of coffee is more damaging to the system then pot, you can drive stoned and you aren't as dangerous as if you were driving drunk.
I have always felt and believed that smoking pot is wrong. But I can not deny the excuses that i have listed above, nor the medicinal uses that marijuana has, and there is no verse in the bible that says taking drugs is bad. So why fight it, how could it be wrong? It is illegal yes but so what?
So this is where I started today with my serious thoughts. which led me to the bible and i thought about what the bible says about drinking. there are several times when the bible talks about the dangers of being drunk.
Proverbs 23 is the wise teachers description of a drunk, "Who has anguish? Who has sorrow? Who is always fighting? Who is always complaining? Who has unnecessary bruises? Who has blood shot eyes? It is the one who spends long hours in the taverns trying out new drinks. don't let the sparkle and smooth taste of wine deceive you. For in the end it bites like a poisonous serpent; it stings like a viper. You will see hallucinations. and you will say crazy things. You will stagger like a sailor tossed at sea, clinging to a swaying mast. And you will say, 'they hit me, but I didn't feel it. I didn't even know it when they beat me up, when will I wake up so I can have another drink?'"
What does that have to do with pot? Being drunk creates a fake world, one where things don't hurt so much, a fake euphoria. Being high does the same thing. It may not be as dangerous, it may not be as numbing, and it may not have the after effects of being drunk. But from all that I have heard from people who smoke it pot creates a brave new world to replace the real world.
A brave new world... that took my serious thoughts to another place, a book I read under that tittle. in the world of this book people are made not born; conditioned not taught; designed not created; and replace the mixture of need, gift, and appreciative love for only need love. Most of all the people of this Brave New World are all duped up on a drug called Soma. which gives the people a state of happiness that is more then what is experienced during sex with no side effects. No drunken stupor, no visits to the vomitoriam, no come down, and no hangover. It also helps the government control the people better.
Everything about soma is fake, it is an escape because no one should ever feel sad, or board, or even depressed. is marijuana that different?
Here is where my serious thoughts led me. Marijuana, despite the pain killing qualities, and lack of negative side effects, offers very little good. The world it gives is fake, and therefore becomes an escape from reality. Weather to actually escape from something or to just take a little vacation, it is still an escape and still fake. If we are so caught up in our own little fake realities how can we ever be used the way that God has planned to use us in the real one?
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