God-given and deadly
Stan White (Globe, Oct. 6) recently extolled efforts to “re-legalize” marijuana because it is “God-given” and because the Bible refers to plants as “all good.”
I believe this to be a fallacious argument in several respects. First, there are countless substances that are found naturally and assumed to be God-given that are deadly. Arsenic is an element that “can cause many health problems” significant exposure of which “can cause death” (National Library of Medicine, 2007).
As a colleague of mine recently pointed out, hemlock is also such an “all good” plant, so good it was used by ancient states to execute condemned prisoners, including Socrates.
Second, if you believe that God created cannabis, it still does not follow that he approved its recreational use.
In other words, because a substance is “God-given” doesn’t necessarily mean that the inhalation of the chemicals produced by its combustion has a divine stamp of approval.
I think it is wise for accurate beliefs to inform our decisions, but I am deeply concerned (for all of humanity) about the inaccurate beliefs that seem, too often, to rule over them.
There are several sources for these inaccuracies, the least mainstream of which are associated with chemical dependency.
Seth Jackson
Joplin
Opinion
Voices: God-given and deadly
- Opinion
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Our View: Great divide
In 1975, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and the United States began meeting on an annual basis to coordinate economic policies.
Canada and Russia later joined this forum. Today and Saturday the G-8 summit will be held at Camp David, Md. -
Our View: Fiscal cliff
In August 2011, Congress and President Barack Obama agreed to tax increases and spending cuts to automatically take place in January of 2013.
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Our View: Ditto that
Lots of angry words are being tossed around about a secretive ceremony held Monday in our state Capitol to honor Rush Limbaugh’s induction as a member of the Hall of Famous Missourians. Let us add our “ditto” to that criticism.
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Our View: Linked for success
Dr. Richard Reed, a Joplin dentist, lost his office and equipment in the May 22 tornado.
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Your View: An alternative candidate
The bane of Duane Graham’s existence apparently is GOP politicians, other than those who provide him with derogatory commentary about the only competition his personal choice for president has (Globe, May 6).
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Your View: Why stop there?
The Sunday Globe column (“Freight train of entitlements hard to stop,” May 13) by Richard La Near, our local 18th-century economist, did not go far enough.
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Your View: Listening on the lost side of town
There have been many changes in my community since May 22, 2011, when the largest tornado in modern history wiped out one-third of my town of Joplin.
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Other Views: War on terror isn't over
Weary of a war on terror that has gone on for years, we would like to declare victory and return to normalcy.
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Phill Brooks, columnist: Stumbling blocks hinder Legislature
House Speaker Steve Tilley may have coined the best word for the 2012 legislative session. “Incremental” was how he described what the Legislature had accomplished on education.
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Other Views: When is a right a right?
The framers of the U.S. Constitution were admirably clear, or so they and we thought, when they wrote in the Fifth Amendment that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.”
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