Marijuana and the Bible; Why it became outlawed in the U.S.
Prepared by: Temple ii
As an introduction to this topic of marijuana and the Bible; some may utilize the fact that since the marijuana plant and THC’s euphoric benefits were used or found in the Bible, this gives a 100% right or access to use freely without restriction from nobody. As we research further through ancient manuscripts, we will find that Marijuana or Cannabis was forbidden to most even in Ancient times to be disclosed openly to the societies without strict rules or supervision for usage.I will prove the validity of restriction from access through presentation of various sources, articles, and empirical data. By doing so, this will prove the beginnings of abuse and violations by man and woman throughout the ages into the patterns of Bad-trips, lack of knowledge of the plants and medicines, and abusive environments, violence, rebellion and more downward spiral events of man and woman. Let us first look at why marijuana is outlawed in societies as stated in the Bibles or what the New Testament reads about abnormal usages. This may be found today as simply recreational use, and not to be mistaken by medical use. This will show the hidden stigma throughout most of society today in the U.S. and other countries in the world who hold strong to why using Marijuana will cause one to no longer be Sober under drugs.
The Bible forbids participating, for the sake of personal pleasure, in practices that hinder our moral judgment or weaken our self-control.
• 1 Thessalonians 5:6-8 - Being sober is the opposite of being drunk and is associated with being alert and watchful.
• 1 Peter 1:13-17 - Be sober, gird up the loins of your mind so you can avoid lusts and be obedient and holy. This requires being alert.
• 1 Peter 5:8,9 - Be sober so we can be on guard for the devil, resist him, and not be devoured by him. Realizing how dangerous Satan is, we should keep our minds clear so we can recognize his deceit and resist his temptations.
• 1 Corinthians 9:25-27 - Bring our bodies into subjection to our minds, exercising temperance (self-control) like athletes in training, so our bodies will be properly guided by our minds.
• Proverbs 4:23 - Keep your heart (mind) with all diligence because it must decide the issues of life.
• Struggling against evil is difficult and dangerous at best, even with the clearest of faculties. That is why God has forbidden intoxication. There are other ways to violate these principles, but drug abuse is surely one way.
• [2 Tim. 1:7; 1 Pet. 4:1-7; Tit. 2:2,4,6,12; Acts 24:25; Gal. 5:23; 2 Pet. 1:6]
WHY WAS MARIJUANA NAMED THE NAME IT IS?As a short answer, the Spanish. This influence clearly shows the names of Spanish Christian connections to its ritualistic usage in the churches before it was replaced.Mari or Mary is equal to Mother of Jesus, disciple of Jesus, and Mary of Magdalene.Juana or Juan is equal to the brother or cousin of Jesus, “John.”
So we have Mary, John.We also find that Mary’s Cousin was Elizabeth, who had a son who was named “Juan” in Spanish which in English is “John.” We know him as “John the Baptist.”
MARIJUANA, also spelled "marihuana," whose scientific name is cannabis sativa, is a drug obtained from the stems and leaves of the Indian hemp plant. Marijuana is one of the most commonly used drugs in the world:
Marijuana was introduced into India from China and from there it spread to North Africa and Europe as early as A.D. 500. The Spanish introduced it to the New World in 1545. The English settlers at Jamestown (1611) used hemp produced from the marijuana plant's fibers to make clothes. The hemp industry started in Kentucky in 1775 (in 1860, 40,000 tons were produced). The Harrison Narcotics Act became law in 1914 and aimed at controlling the sale of narcotics
Evaluations of marijuana and its effects vary radically.
In the 1950s the beatniks praised it (as would the hippies of the 1960s) as a gesture of protest against materialistic society and as a possible means of attaining enlightenment, though this assumption was later declared mistaken by such a counter-cultural figure as Allen Ginsberg.
Source Citation: "Marijuana."Dictionary of American History. Stanley I. Kutler, ed. 3rd ed. 10 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. http://galenet.galegroup.com.famuproxy.fcla.edu/servlet/HistRC/
Marijuana, "the Devil's Weed" (1930’s)During this time period in the U.S., the thought, look, smell, usage and taste of Marijuana or Cannabis, brought forth swift punishment during the 1930’s. This now reclassified marijuana or cannabis as outlawed or “Forbidden.” This in turn will give the new names as we know as the Devil’s Weed, as suggested in the Biblical account of Genesis as the “Forbidden Fruit” drug schedule classification. This will change the course of world history and U.S. history by now giving man and woman decision making powers of what plants, herbs, spices, and even holistic remedies should be restricted from access. It would seem a revisit or twist of the genesis account as read in chapter 1 verse 29: “I give you every seed-bearing fruit..”, being now placed in the “Forbidden Fruit” category. In the article below this will attempt to display this fact of Re-scheduling of all plants and remedies by man and woman similar to the Lord God in the Genesis Chapter 2.
Modern physicians are intrigued by marijuana's effectiveness, but a wave of drug hysteria that started in the 1930s effectively negated the drug's positive reputation. Despite their checkered history, hemp and marijuana remain important aspects of American popular culture.
One of the oldest psychoactive plants on earth, cannabis is native to central Asia and was first cultivated some 10,000 years ago. Many cultures have used hemp to make paper and rope, and some revered marijuana as a sacrament. As early as 2737 B.C.E. in China, written accounts have extolled the use of marijuana as a treatment for malaria, rheumatism, fever, dysentery, depression, or as an appetite stimulant, or to induce sleep. The classical and Hellenistic eras also noted marijuana as a common remedy, and by the 1700s it had become a popular folk cure-all throughout eastern Europe.
Hemp cultivation in the United States dates back to the colonial crops in Virginia in 1611, when hemp was an important resource for sails, rope, paper, and clothing.
In the 1920s and 1930s, marijuana was increasingly viewed as a catalyst for anti-social behavior, especially among minorities. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics launched a campaign to rid America of "Marijuana, the Devil's Weed," and spread exaggerated and unsubstantiated reports of violent crime, addiction, and psychosis induced by smoking marijuana.
Some independent experts tried to dispel the myths but were shouted down by government agencies and the research institutions they supported. While its purpose was to discourage recreational marijuana smoking, the tax merely made it difficult or prohibitively expensive to procure the drug legally. Thus, manufacturers eventually switched from hemp to synthetic materials due to financial concerns and the stigma attached to cannabis.
By the 1960s anecdotes of the utility of hemp and marijuana began appearing in popular publications such as Playboy and National Geographic. These reports originated from a counterculture that equated drug use with social defiance and considered cannabis prohibition a violation of one's civil rights. Such attitudes only spurred harsher legislation, though, and in 1970 marijuana possession and cultivation were made illegal by the Controlled Substances Act, which categorized all psychoactive drugs into five schedules. Cannabis was placed on Schedule I (the most restrictive) which prohibited medicinal marijuana use even under a doctor's supervision due to high potential for addiction and abuse.
A large number of specialized, sanctioned, and regulated drugs are available legally to the general public. Thus, it is difficult to rationalize the illegality of marijuana, let alone deny the far-reaching applications of hemp as a renewable resource. Nevertheless, while public opinion waffles on its view of cannabis as a controlled substance, the historically documented medical applications of marijuana are as real as the suffering it relieves.
Source Citation: "Marijuana." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. 5 vols. St. James Press, 2000. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale.http://galenet.galegroup.com.famuproxy.fcla.edu/servlet/HistRC
ABUSE or Abnormal Usage in Social Society Structures
Socially, substance abuse has been implicated in relational, occupational, academic, and living difficulties, such as loss of a job, housing, or a spouse; spousal and child abuse; social rejection; economic collapse; and social isolation. Psychological difficulties can occur, as the repeated misuse of substances can lead to numerous other psychiatric disorders, such as mood and anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, sexual dysfunction, delirium, dementia, amnestic disorder, and psychosis.
In the early 2000s, the three most popular drugs of abuse were alcohol, tobacco, and MARIJUANA. Each has an extensive history dating back thousands of years.
In 2001 roughly 80 percent of U.S. high school seniors had tried alcohol. Sixty-four percent reported having been drunk at least once in their lives. Approximately 14 million Americans meet the diagnostic criteria for alcohol abuse or ALCOHOLISM.
Tobacco products are the second most commonly used drug, and are the delivery system for the addictive substance called nicotine. In 2001, 61 percent of high school seniors had tried cigarettes and almost 20 percent had tried smokeless tobacco.
The third most commonly misused substance in the United States is marijuana. Marijuana is a plant that contains chemicals that, when smoked or ingested, lead to altered mood states. Marijuana use has been documented as far back as 2737 B.C. in China. In the United States, marijuana was used in the nineteenth century to treat migraine headaches, convulsions, pain, and to induce sleep. Recreational use has been documented to have begun in the 1920s, coinciding with the Prohibition era. At the end of Prohibition, marijuana use dwindled.
An important debate in treatment of substance abuse has centered on whether the main goal of therapy is abstinence or reduction. While the traditional approaches—supported by existing laws—advocate for complete abstinence, some people in the field advocate for reducing the harm potential of the use of a substance. Harm reduction programs arrived in the United States in the 1990s, having been successful elsewhere. Advocates of this approach view it as "humane" and "practical" in that it focuses on the effects of the drug (rather than the drug use) and seeks to minimize negative effects for people who use substances and for those around them. This debate is quite charged given that some proponents of harm reduction also support the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. The intersection of academic perspectives on substance use and social policy makes this area of study controversial.
Demand reduction includes all efforts whose primary goal is to decrease the underlying desire for substances to abuse. Demand reduction theorists argue that if there is no market demand for substances, then their use has been effectively prevented. Demand reduction strategies for prevention of substance abuse include a broad range of activities that are designed to stop substance use before it begins, provide people with the tools to prevent relapse, or build resilience among those who are at high risk for substance use. Demand reduction prevention activities can be broadly categorized into three levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary.
Suppression efforts include the use of punitive measures to thwart substance use and abuse. Historically, suppression efforts occurred in China in the eighteenth century, when opium-den owners were executed, and in the United States during the period of Prohibition (1920– 1933) when the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawed the production, distribution, or sale of alcoholic beverages. Suppression efforts in the early 2000s centered on enforcing existing laws and establishing new laws designed to stop drug trafficking, distribution, and use. Research has shown that public policy strategies such as raising the minimum drinking age to twenty-one and increasing alcohol prices has resulted in fewer deaths, such as from motor vehicle accidents. In 2002 the Office of National Drug Control Policy requested a budget of $19.2 billion for drug control strategies.
Source Citation: "Substance Abuse."Dictionary of American History. Stanley I. Kutler, ed. 3rd ed. 10 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. http://galenet.galegroup.com.famuproxy.fcla.edu/servlet/HistRC/
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Drug Enforcement Administration
In The Matter Of MARIJUANA RESCHEDULING PETITION
Docket No. 86-22
OPINION AND RECOMMENDED RULING, FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND DECISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE FRANCIS L. YOUNG, Administrative Law Judge
DATED: SEPTEMBER 6, 1988
Section 8 of Judge Young's "Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Decision."
Page 56 & 57 Judge Young's Ruling
The most obvious concern when dealing with drug safety is the possibility of lethal effects. Can the drug cause death?
Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality.
This is a remarkable statement. First, the record on marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana is now used daily by enormous numbers of people throughout the world. Estimates suggest that from twenty million to fifty million Americans routinely, albeit illegally, smoke marijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision. Yet, despite this long history of use and the extraordinarily high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death.
By contrast aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year.
Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced toxicity. A number of researchers have attempted to determine marijuana's LD-50 rating in test animals, without success. Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to induce death.
At present it is estimated that marijuana's LD-50 is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.
In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity.
Source: http://www.jackherer.com/comparison.html
The translation of 'Calamus, or Sweet Incense is said to have been mis-translated in Greek.
The word Kan eh-Bosm is the Hebrew word that is translation came from.
source: Vera Rubin, "Cannibus and Culture" pg 2
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=CBXxnaGk0hwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA39&dq=kaneh&ots=L4jU5h6S68&sig=2qOpurDwgWJNV1C3WxfwTGhpGFY#PPR11,M1
Source: Mary Lynn Mathre, "Cannabis in Medical Practice" pg 39
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1AWGDhIOvk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA35&dq=kaneh-Bosm&ots=a-zqegkLyr&sig=MgclOwOWBGxJDbJfN2-iExk5WKk#PPA39,M1
Source: CHEMISTRY & BIODIVERSITY – Vol. 4 (2007)
http://www.suomenkannabisyhdistys.org/media/documents/Russo2007.pdf
