An uncle of mine who never married, took over the family farm after his siblings left. He farmed well for 20 years but after my grandmother died, he began to experiment with alcohol. A few years later, he was addicted. Whenever we drove up to the farm, my uncle was standing in his tractor shed bottle in hand. Beer bottle lids littered the ground and empty cases were stacked up behind the tractor. He seemed happy enough and no doubt would have said that he felt free, but everybody else could see that he was losing touch with life and reality. A few years later he became ill and died with liver disease. My uncle never imagined that something he enjoyed initially, would kill him in the end.
NZer’s will be asked to vote soon, in a referendum on the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill. Marijuana is called by all, a psychoactive drug, which means it has the same mind-altering effects as alcohol.
My mother’s advice to me when I was a teenager was simple. " Don’t waste your money on beer or tobacco" Like a lot of teens, I tried them both. She went on to say “ but if you going to choose one, make it smoking because you will only kill yourself, but if you drink you could kill someone else as well”, referring to drinking then driving. If my Mum had thought I would encounter marijuana, it would have been on the list too!
In my teens, I had a friend who was a rich kid. We took his father's 24-foot Mason clipper out for the weekend to Mansion house. As he puffed his joints (I didn't partake because I heard my mother's voice in my head. Good on ya Mum) We arrived too late at night and drove too fast amongst the anchored boats, causing a lot of shouting from the other boats. Enjoying his high, he then got out his spear gun and shot it into the water amongst the boats. Really sensible behaviour! That was in the 70s but the new laws will proudly limit the THC content for smoking, at 15%, initially. Which is 5 times higher than it used to be in the 70s (Think Woodstock).
Under the proposed new laws, every person can grow 4 plants at home, which is enough for 33 joints per day, every day of the year. Plenty for all the family and maybe something new for family night! I don’t think this will help our poorer children break out of the poverty addiction cycle.
There may well be some beneficial use of THC for medical pain relief (This is a separate issue), but in countries where cannabis has been legalised like Canada, edible marijuana flooded the markets encouraging new users, especially young people. Great! A pillar of sickly smoke going up in the playground would be obvious but a lolly party under the jungle gym, not so much. Teens won’t need to worry about stained teeth or bad breath, they can have a lolly!
The Greens and those hoping to make money from the legalisation will tell us the benefits of making it normal, but I prefer to read what medical doctors say that have no vested interest. Web MD says smoking will give you a high relaxed feeling but also may leave you panicked, depressed and eventually even paranoid. (seeing and hearing things that aren't there).
One in six teenage users will become addicted and even more frightening, imaging tests on adolescents, show that marijuana can physically change the brain and reduce the number of neural connections. This makes it hard for them to think, remember and concentrate. Why would we even think about making that normal? Years ago, one drug-taking relative had a
meltdown - I led him to the Lord but in the morning he remembered nothing of it.
Doctors say it can heighten your senses, but it can damage your motor skills and impair your judgment when driving or working. And edible MJ lasts up to 6 hours in the body’s system. I would want to know that my dentist, pilot and co-road users, have not been on the weed. People may be given the right to mass-produce and consume dope, but as my long-gone Mum said, it will end up hurting others.
But doesn’t everybody want to experience some sort of transcendency? To be more; to feel like their life is bigger than themselves. Yes! Alcohol and substances that alter states of consciousness can do that. So can sports, hobbies, bungee jumping and being in love. They result in powerful hormones, like adrenaline, dopamine, and beta-endorphins. But true transcendence (experience beyond the physical level) must be a spiritual experience.
Jesus spoke to a woman from Samaria who was looking for some transcendence in her life. She tried to find it by filling the emptiness of her life, with men. And Jesus understood. Jesus has no problem with people looking for “more”, but with the places or things in which people look for it.
Like the woman at the well, some people don’t know how to find Life in all its fullness, so they look for “more” in all the wrong places. When the Samaritan woman had the spiritual understanding that Jesus was the Messiah, she left her vessel and left her men, because she finally had met the More!