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
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