A friend of mine was telling me about her recent trip to Peru. She said she had trouble with the altitude in certain areas of Peru but the locals offered her a tea derived from the coca leaf and that helped tremendously with her symptoms.
I began to think about how I would have handled the situation as a JW given that coca contains an alkaloid that is used to produce cocaine. In its natural form, the content is very low and the locals use it as a stimulant similar to coffee.
However, as a JW I would have probably refused to drink it viewing it as something similar to a product derived from tobacco leaves. I'm not sure if there's an official WT policy on this tea, but my instinct tells me there probably is.
So that led me to the next thought, prescription pain medications are often opiates and differ from heroin only in their dosage (from what I understand). However, they are quite common and I'm not aware of the WT having any doctrines against the use of prescription opiates.
If prescription opiates are okay, why would medicinal marijuana not be okay? If marijuana were legalized, would the JWs allow its use if recommended by a physician? Almost certainly not. It seems they're backed into an illogical corner on that one and it's not something I had ever spent much time thinking about.
What's the line and when does a substance go from being okay to sinful because it harms the body? What is it about drug use that's sinful? Obviously, the Bible doesn't address marijuana, cocaine or any other modern drugs. Is it the illegality? If so, why is tobacco sinful? Is it its long-term health consequences? If so, why aren't all-you-can-eat buffets sinful?
This was the kind of thing I would just let "Mother" decide when I was a JW because the GB is God's channel or whatever, but it doesn't make any sense when you start trying to break it down.
Anyway, just a random thought that entered my mind over a decade after I stopped being a JW.