In response to When Jesus, Drugs, and Lawrence Welk Collide, a reader wrote me to ask: “What’s your view on Christians smoking pot? Because the Bible never actually references it, and it is a natural thing given to the earth. Just wondering.”
In my return email, I wrote
My view on Christians smoking pot is the same as it is on anyone smoking pot, which is that weed is a good thing to avoid altogether, since it’s as addicting as any other psychoactive drug, and has the effect of making its users narcissistic and emotionally immature.
And I might as well add this, since I’m sure it’ll come up: Rastafarians do, in fact, point to the Bible’s Psalm 104:14 as divine inspiration for smoking pot: “He causeth . . . herb [to be grown] for the service of man … .”
So, you know. That’s close enough for stoners.
I think weed is seriously bad news. I live in small southern California beach town, and what seems to be its entire population of young people (not to mention its aging hippie population) has been absolutely ravaged by weed. Which is no different from the exact effect I’ve seen it have on every one of the zillions of people I’ve known throughout my life who have regularly smoked it.
Whatever emotional age you were when you started smoking pot is the emotional age at which you remain arrested until you stop smoking pot. That’s a fact, and it’s all the reason anyone should ever need to avoid pot like the severely addictive personality thief it is. (Though of course that barely stops anyone. Everyone thinks they drive perfectly fine while drunk or talking on their cell phone; everyone who smokes pot thinks it doesn’t really negatively affect them at all. That’s the seductive hook of addiction: it makes every addict feel like their relationship to the state of being high is unique, and special, and oh so wonderfully magical.)
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