By Johnny O. Trail
Our last presidential election caused many to pause and consider the moral climate of our great nation.  It would be wrongheaded to assume that the America of a few decades ago is still the same nation today.  Regardless of your feelings, regarding of the outcome of the presidential portion of the election, two votes have caused much concern among God fearing people in our nation.  Two more states voted to legalize gay marriage and two states voted in favor of making recreational marijuana legal.  Colorado and Washington voted to make the drug legal despite ongoing opposition from the federal government.
Even in a free society there must be limits to personal freedom.  It is the hallmark of a great people to control themselves even in a nation that extends great freedoms to its citizens.  There are several biblical and common sense reasons to oppose the legalization of marijuana.
Firstly and most importantly, it is wrong for a child of God to put things into his body that are harmful.  We are called upon to be good stewards of our physical bodies—after all they were created by God.  I Corinthians 6.19-20 “What?  Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own.   For ye are bought with a price:  therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
With this fact in mind, drugs destroy a person’s essential humanity.  We were all created in God’s spiritual image.  Genesis 1.26 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”  Drugs destroy the lives of those who choose to use them and of those around them.  At present, we have thousands of people who are addicted to marijuana.  If marijuana is further legalized, we would have tens of thousands who are addicted.  Is it moral and just for a society to legalize drugs and constrain future generations to the problems created by legal drug use?  It is by no means.  The policy passed by Colorado has been described as “left” of the policy in the Netherlands (http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/colorado-washington-legalize-recreational-marijuana/story?id=17656515#.UJpQHIZRFI4).
Finally, drugs, by their addictive nature, can become the equivalent of an idol to the one using the narcotic.  Anything which supplants the supremacy of God in our lives is sinful.  This writer has personally known of addicts who have lost everything to obtain the next high.  Considering the addictive nature of drugs, can we honestly say that legalizing narcotics will not result in more of the same behavior but on a far worse scale?
The negative effects of marijuana on our bodies are legion.  It is far from being a harmless recreational drug.  One who uses marijuana is 104 times more likely to progress to cocaine (www.emedicinehealth.com/substanceabuse/article_em.htm).  As with most other forms of drug use, marijuana is coupled with a plethora of other substances to enhance its intoxicating effects.  That is, drug and substance abuse tends to evolve to strong substances and greater degrees of intoxification.  Other negative effects are listed here:

  • Marijuana causes short term memory loss.
  • It inflames the lungs and may contribute to lung cancer.
  • It can create an acute panic reaction in stronger doses.
  • It creates anxiety in its users.
  • Marijuana can trigger schizophrenia in certain individuals.
  • It is a drug that creates dependency for its users.
  • Marijuana causes impairment in decision making situations
  • Withdrawal symptoms include irritability, restlessness, decreased appetite, sleep disturbance, sweating, tremors, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
  • It causes an increased heart rate that can cause heart attack.
  • Marijuana causes a reddening of the eyes.
  • It causes blurred vision and headaches.
  • Marijuana causes decreased fertility in women.
  • Marijuana also causes decreased sexual drive in men (Grilly 256-278).

There is some validity to the argument that marijuana has limited medicinal uses, however this is not an argument for legalization.  The chemicals within marijuana that have medicinal value can be extracted and used in a non-smoking, non-intoxicating form.  “Because of the development of synthetic cannabinoid compounds with fewer intoxicating qualities and concerns over the potential harmfulness of marijuana, in 1992 the U.S. government stopped accepting participants in its medicinal marijuana program, which, for some 15 years, had been supplying government –grown marijuana to patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma, and AIDS” (Grilly 278).
Some have argued that legalization would result in less illegal behavior in the methods that are used to obtain and continually use the drug.  Most recently in our context, some have argued that we need to make drugs legal while placing greater restrictions on gun sales to curb violence and drug trafficking along the U.S. boarder.  Such arguments are ludicrous and irrational.
In European nations where drugs have been legalized, this has not been the case.  Europeans who obtain their drugs legally are not models of decency and citizenship.  While the frequency of crimes might have decreased, the volume of crimes committed is quite large.  A strong narcotic at any price presents an opportunity for the criminal to steal, kill, or cheat to obtain the next high.
To the informed, arguments for the legalization of drugs are ridiculous.  To the child of God such arguments are inconceivable because of the moral implications.  Let us oppose movements which will harm the moral fiber of our society.
 
Works Cited
Grilly, David M. (2006).  Drugs and Human Behavior, 5th ed.  Pearson, A and B, Boston.
www.emedicinehealth.com/substance_abuse/article_em.htm
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f_news/2274885/posts