I can see a 20 year span where this matter will be flip-flopped..
JW's Thoughts On Legal Marijuana
by Deltron3030 55 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
zeb
-
EmptyInside
I know Witnesses who use marijuana for medical reasons,mainly to help with pain. It comes in a cream,so they don't smoke it.
I'm not sure smoking would be allowed,but it comes in other forms.
-
Deltron3030
@EmptyInside - I talked to a JW that lives in a state where is legal, even without a prescription, and he said witnesses ingest, but they don't advertise. They did like you said, and found other ROA besides smoking, some that work for a variety of conditions. I think it'll be a difficult situation, because alcohol is way worse, but alcohol doesn't have that "dope" stigma.
-
blondie
Actually, in the 1973 WT articles, using any tobacco products (smoking, snuff, chewing) was forbidden. Also, they discussed the use of betel nuts and coca leaves, which were chewed to get the effect.
But then tobacco is should not be ingested, nicotine is a poison. It seems marijuana does not have the same effect.
Many legal drugs, opoids, etc., have severe addictive qualities, but are allowed by the WTS; probably because many of the admins in the WTS use them.
Almost 47 years later, most jws think it is the physical health issues that made using tobacco products a df'ing offense. Actually, it was because using tobacco in any way was seen as spiritism.
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1973403?q=tobacco+spiritism&p=par
Even worldly governments have been moved to issue serious warnings against the danger of tobacco use. Do, then, persons who have not broken their addiction to tobacco qualify for baptism?
15. Even though tobacco is not specifically referred to in the Bible, how do Bible principles provide an answer to this issue?
15 The Scriptural evidence points to the conclusion that they do not. As has been explained in other issues of this magazine, the Greek word phar·ma·kiʹa used by Bible writers and translated “practice of spiritism” or “spiritistic practices” has the initial meaning of “druggery.” (Gal. 5:20; Rev. 9:21) The term came to refer to spiritistic practices because of the close connection between the use of drugs and spiritism. Tobacco was also used initially by the American Indians in this way. It can properly be placed, therefore, in the category of addictive drugs like those that provided the source for the Greek term phar·ma·kiʹa. The nicotine in tobacco does not have the same mental and emotional effects produced by “hard” drugs such as heroin or the so-called psychedelic drugs like LSD; yet nicotine addiction does definitely affect the mind and exercises a strong enslavement. In Europe at the close of World War II, in some instances cigarettes were worth more than money. Reportedly, prostitutes sold themselves for a few cigarettes, and ordinary people sacrificed even food ration coupons to obtain tobacco.
---But then in 1973 the WTS said that prescribed methadone was questionable. Note this was discussed because of the tobacco, betel nut, coca leaves situation.
-
Deltron3030
Betel nut? Sounds yucky. Lol. I wonder why methadone is questionable? It's better than someone shooting up in a KH bathroom. Methadone, and drugs like Suboxone, are used to keep opioid addicts in remission, so not allowing that is unfair. I work with a girl that's on methadone, and from what she's told me, if you take it as prescribed for opioid addiction it doesn't get you high. She's an addict though, so you don't know when they're lying (her words not mine). I think I would go bat-sh** crazy trying to figure out what is ok, what is wrong, and what is grey. Thanks @blondie for bringing some clarity to the conversation. You rock!
-
Anna Marina
On a related note...
...I can't help but notice that the new Kingdom Hall designs strongly resemble legalized cannabis dispensaries in my area, and IMO - should they ever need to be sold - could be easily repurposed as such with minimal refurbishing.
Coincidence, or irony? (the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive)
Hi Vidiot
I haven’t seen legalized cannabis dispensaries. But I am aware that since 1950s there has been a movement to legalise LSD on the basis of religious freedom.
The Ratafarians say that weed is grass and therefore the wheat from which bread is made. The bread of life is symbolised in the eucharist.
A one-time director of psychiatric research at the Kaiser Family Foundation , and lecturer in psychology at Harvard University (1959-1963), Timothy Leary set out to legalise LSD by framing it as the bread of life/eucharist. He gave LSD to the Theology Dept at Harvard and it received a positive response. He called his movement the League for Spiritual Discovery.
So, if you are able to take the name Jah and disconnect it from the Bible, connect it to Haile Selassie, say he was both God and Jesus and took weed. Maybe a time will come when a lot who have left the Watchtower will feel compelled to return to the head/the Ras… the GB? Is it possible that along with new light, the elders will be renamed counsellors or volunteer psychiatric helpers with rights to influence clinicians on who should or should not be allowed weed?
An imaginative idea I know. But the WBTS is shocking and unbelievable in so many ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suFx6fNd9cg
Why not take a look at this video and see what Aldous Huxley felt was just around the corner, in 1958. A Brave New World and a dictatorship of the future. At 9:15 he talks of Soma (a made-up drug from his novel) and goes on to explain that to get the consent of the ruled you would use drugs (11:24) and propaganda so as to get people to actually love their slavery (11:53).
-
Deltron3030
I think LSD would make for an awesome psych med, but it opens people's eyes up to the world around them, and the government doesn't want that.
-
Vidiot
@ Anna Marinara...
Dispensaries are more and more common up here in Canada.
You'll often find them situated near liquor stores.
-
Finkelstein
I could see down the road marijuana edibles being allowed but not smoking pot.
-
Finkelstein
It seems hypocritically redundant to allow booze drinking but not smoking cigarettes and pot. I knew of a lot of JWS who over drank booze because of this .