Pot & Christianity - Peter Wilson

You can’t roller-skate in a watermelon patch and you can’t build a moral and just society using immoral and unjust laws. [pause & repeat]Outlawing pot was not a “noble experiment,” like alcohol prohibition. It was, “Let’s get ‘em!” The premise of marijuana prohibition is the “preemptive-strike.” Marijuana is said to cause all sorts of insidious behavior, and in order to prevent this intolerable decay of society, The Law will strike-first. The Law will arrest the marijuana user. Once the marijuana user has been beaten down–figuratively speaking, of course–stripped of all dignity, a lot of cash, a car or two, maybe a child, and passed x-number of random drug-tests, the former addict will no longer be a threat to society. That’s the plan. Any questions?

Yeah. Where in the Bible is it written, “And if you suspect your neighbor may do wrong, strike him first!”? In Judaism, Christianity and every other moral code-of-conduct, the preemptive strike is in the category of immoral. Some say it’s okay to strike-back, but even motorcycle gangs say not to strike-first. The marijuana laws are immoral. You cannot build a moral and just society using immoral and unjust laws.

What is written is that God created all plants, and called them Good. Our “Christian” leaders, however, point out that the Bible is chock full of errors. Our God created some bad plants, along with the good. He is not half-bad. The Bible also instructs us to not bear false witness, but early scribes apparently got that wrong, as well. There is an exception for marijuana users wide enough to pass two camels through, side-by-side. It may be a sin to bear false witness about most people. But dope-smokers? Go right ahead! They’re fat; they’re lazy; their stupid; they‘re unsafe drivers… Any lie will do. The Bible is just way off-base on when it comes to stoners. Without telling lies, how can we justify destroying their lives?

Furthermore, Jesus taught, “Not what a man puts into his mouth; what comes out of a man’s mouth defiles him.” Obviously, Jesus had no idea what he was talking about. I bring this up just to point out that the Bible is so unreliable, we might as well toss it. Today’s pot is far more potent than it was in Jesus’ time, but that is no excuse for His lapse in judgment. You are to judge marijuana users! Duh… This town is simply not big enough for pot prohibition and Christianity. One of them has got to go! You cannot have it both ways.

Think about it. Every coach in the NFL has the same problem: the players need to train, and be driven hard, but you want to avoid injuries during practice. Imagine if the Cardinals addressed this problem by having the team practice against high-school players. Blocking, tackling, pass-receiving and pass-defending are all practiced against high-school athletes. The Cardinals go 4-0 in the preseason, beating four of the best high-school teams in the state! They might avoid injury to players, but would probably be the worst team in the NFL.

There’s an interesting book, Miranda Nation, that takes a look at the actual crimes and police action that led to the famous “Miranda rights.” It is written by one of the police officers involved, but it is not exactly flattering. The Phoenix PD in the 1960s is portrayed as somewhat bumbling. You could almost say Miranda was convicted of rape in spite of the police investigation, not because of it. Years later, after Miranda had served his time, he was killed in a barroom fight. The Phoenix police, “put two-and-two together,” but not until after they had released the suspect! When they went back to his residence to make the arrest, he was already gone and never seen again. More like Inspector Cousteau than LA Law.

Yet the “clearance rate” for rape and murder was higher back then than it is today. It is easier to get away with rape and murder in Phoenix today than it was 50 years ago. With all the advances in technology and training, how can that be?

Because our legal professionals have been playing against high-school kids.

Proving guilt in a marijuana-possession case is like the NFL playing a high-school team. There were 13,496 marijuana arrests last year in Arizona, and 13,495 marijuana convictions. One is still pending. On the other hand, proving guilt in a rape or murder case is more like NFL on NFL: never easy, with few certain outcomes.

Nobody wants to admit it, but five decades of focusing on stoners instead of criminals has enfeebled our law-enforcement system. They arrested and convicted thousands of marijuana users last year, but the freeway shooter is still-at-large. If your son or daughter is caught with pot, he or she will be convicted. If your son is murdered or your daughter raped? Good-luck, is all we can say. Figuring out who killed your son or raped your daughter is no easy task. Like playing in the NFL. Try to understand, because they do. If your car has been jacked or your home burglarized, the police dispatcher will try not to laugh when you report it!

You cannot build a moral and just society using immoral and unjust laws. In desperation, opponents of marijuana legalization are trying to build a practical case: Legal marijuana will throw a monkey-wrench into the workplace. A recent story in the Arizona Republic, with a Big Green Leaf atop page-1, quoted a worried personnel manager: “If someone shows up for work drunk, we just send them home. But if they’re high? There’s no way to tell. We have to be able to fire workers by randomly testing for pot, because that is the only way to tell the grasshoppers from the ants.” Or words to that effect.

Speaking of the workplace, have you ever done this? You wake-up, shower, grab a bite to eat, hop in the car, drive to work, show your badge to the security-guy, come to shift-meeting and notice everyone is staring at you. You look down and suddenly realize, I forgot to get dressed!You’re not Lady Godiva. Your mind is racing: How did I get through breakfast without noticing? Wasn’t I worried about spilling some coffee below-the-belt? How did I step outside and not notice the weather? How did I get in the driver’s seat and put my seat-belt on without noticing the seat feels kinda funny on bare-skin? Why didn’t the security-dude say something?!?!

Like the dreamer who goes through the entire daily-routine without noticing his or her lack of clothing, proponents of marijuana prohibition appear to be sleep-walking. They go through their litany of arguments, without noticing that none of them make any sense. They don’t notice that their reasons to outlaw pot apply to cake, ice-cream, cheeseburgers and pizza. They do not notice that almost a century of marijuana prohibition has not reduced its use. They do not notice that the “message” we are sending to our children is one of hypocrisy and inability to learn from our mistakes. They want Dad in prison “for the children,” without noticing that having Dad in prison is not good for the child. They do not notice pot prohibition has made the police our enemies, made society more violent, corrupted the judicial system, and starved our schools.

Marijuana prohibition has not reduced marijuana use, but it has almost rid us of Christianity. The strike-first mentality of marijuana prohibition, written into law, has now permeated our culture, to ill effect. You see the preemptive strike everywhere. We arrest marijuana users because they “might” do something wrong; we shoot unarmed black teenagers, “just in case.”