“Reefer Madness”
Back in 1936, a church group financed a movie intended to be a morality tale warning about the dangers of smoking marijuana. The film’s acting and production quality were both so poor that today the film is occasionally shown on cable television as satire. Reefer Madness is now a vehicle for mockery for any who dare suggest that pot smoking is harmful.
According to a recent Gallup poll, most Americans view marijuana as less harmful than cigarettes or vaping. Today, nearly one third of young adults use cannabis. This number has more than doubled in the past two decades. Reflecting this popularity, twenty-four states have decriminalized marijuana use. In Michigan, billboards crowd highways near the state line advertising the ready availability of cannabis in the Great Lakes state. It is now widely believed that marijuana is a highly beneficial substance. It is good for stress relief, pain control, and improving the mood. Of course, its use also gives a temporary high. It is also widely believed that this wonder substance provides all these benefits without any negative side effects. Those who suggest otherwise are just ignorant and out of touch.
The legalized sale of marijuana is a twenty-billion dollar a year industry. Cannabis is highly lucrative to those who market it, and municipalities see it as a potential revenue source. Both because of its profitability and because many people simply want to get high legally, there was first a heavily funded campaign promoting medical marijuana as helpful. Then came an aggressive effort to present recreational marijuana use as harmless. This in large part accounts for the dramatic shift in people’s attitude about it.
Is marijuana legalization only profit with no loss? Is it only benefit with no detriment? Is there another side to this issue? In 2019, former New York Times reporter, Alex Berenson published a book entitled Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence that offers a contrasting point of view. Among other things, he points out that marijuana users have an increased occurrence of psychosis. It is linked to bipolar issues and clinical depression. Fully one in four users have mental health issues. The younger the user, the worse the affiliated mental health problems.
Berenson is not a lone voice. There are others warning about the dangers of marijuana use. For example, a 2023 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrated that cannabis use is linked to a significant increase in attempted suicide.
Increased “high driving” incidents, addiction (one in three users are addicted), mental impairment, crime, poor job performance, etc., are effects of the use of this “harmless” substance.
The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:18, “And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess.” It is absurd to suggest that the prohibition here is against drunkenness caused by wine alone, and not by other substances. Voluntarily imbibing in some substance that causes inebriation or intoxication – having your senses dulled, having altered perceptions, and otherwise losing control of your thoughts and reactions – is condemned by God. The Bible does not condemn medical treatment or responsible pain management. (In fact, God invented anesthetics. He caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam before He removed the rib out of which He made Eve.) But the Bible does condemn deliberately impairing your reason and senses for some perceived pleasure.
Not everyone who drinks alcohol gets drunk, but everyone who smokes pot get a buzz. Plainly stated, recreational marijuana use is a serious sin.
Ephesians indicates one reason for this prohibition is that it brings “excess,” or dissipation. The same Greek word translated “excess” in Ephesians is translated “riotous” in Luke’s account of the prodigal son who “wasted his substance with riotous living.” (Lk. 15:13) Reckless, chaotic, debauched living is a common result of the use of mind-altering intoxicants and stimulants – including marijuana.
There may be no financial gain in it, but what needs to be widely advertised is the fact that a society that increasingly endorses for recreational use highly addictive mind-altering substances will be increasingly characterized by disruption and debasement. Many of us remember well the pot-users in high school. Rarely were they honor students. For the most part they were slow-speaking, underachieving troublemakers. There is a reason for this. Our society does not need more addiction, more depression, more mental health issues, more family disruption. Promoting something that brings such riotous living is neither helpful nor harmless. Instead, it can be reasonably called “madness.”
David A. Oliver is the pastor of Ashley Baptist Church in Belding, MI.
Photo by Elsa Olofsson on Unsplash