PotShot

Medical field against legalized marijuana
Ted Beam | CKNJ.com | September 03, 2006

Even with my busy schedule, I usually make the monthly meetings for the Campbellsville-Taylor County Anti-Drug Coalition held at Taylor Regional Hospital. It matters. Removing illegal drugs from the community will help us reach many goals. We want health, prosperity and hope for our community, not despair, hopelessness and poverty.

I laughed to myself when I read the recent letter from Colorado stating that marijuana could and would be used in a responsible way by responsible adults if made legal. I just don't believe that. I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I watched nickel and dime bags being passed around at concerts and festivals as the police just watched. I helped friends get home safely after they had indulged themselves in smoking the weed. And then I read that "responsible adults" would handle it properly.

I have also noticed that the medical field consistently stands against legalizing the general use of marijuana. The medical field presently uses a synthetic cannabis in some treatments. These treatments are developed and supervised by scientists, pharmacists and medical doctors who have the training, expertise and experience to use a synthetic cannabis in a way that aids their patients. The medical field is using narcotics (both natural and synthetic) in a similar way, to aid their patients. I doubt that most citizens (regardless of how responsible we might be) have the knowledge and skill to use marijuana in a way that does not diminish our mental capacity or even diminish our health.

These are just my personal observations; however, I would like to address one statement made by the citizen of Colorado when he stated that the Bible, even the first page of the Bible, supported the human consumption of marijuana because it bore seeds which caused reproduction. This conclusion is flawed because he makes a leap in logic that just cannot be justified.

The scripture is my area of expertise, with three earned graduate degrees in Bible and theology. The reader from Colorado has a simple argument: God gave all plants that bore seeds and reproduced to humans for consumption. I disagree. If every plant that reproduced itself was given by God for us to consume, then there is an automatic conclusion ... that would mean every plant. This would include coca from which we produce cocaine, peyote cactus and Psilocybe mushroom each from which we produce hallucinogens, none of which have a positive medical use.

If the reader from Colorado is correct in his interpretation of the Bible, then God also intends for us to ingest poison ivy, poison oak and any other poisonous plant. According to Google.com, there are 5.5 million listings for poisonous plants, plants listed as toxic to humans (I don't see a reason to include the multiple names of plants God created that would kill humans). I'm just not convinced God intended for these plants to be eaten, smoked or their resins to be injected. As a matter of fact, Genesis Chapter 2 actually says that those plants that are "good for food" are the only ones given by God to humanity to consume.

I think common sense would conclude that plants which produce health and life are given by God for human consumption. Plants which would alter the state of mind, cause other harm or even death were not given by God for human consumption. God is not in the business of harming the very people He loves. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

Dr. Ted Beam, Senior Pastor

Campbellsville First UMC

Campbellsville

dedbr

I can't argue with either statement. He's right. Legalization will remove illegal drugs from our communities......


Some Where In Ded Land.......He's right.........God love him.....

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TheGnome

But, how can a fruit of a fungus be considered a plant?

biggdoc12

[quote=PotShot;434537]Medical field against legalized marijuana
Ted Beam | CKNJ.com | September 03, 2006

Even with my busy schedule, I usually make the monthly meetings for the I laughed to myself when I read the recent letter from Colorado stating that marijuana could and would be used in a responsible way by responsible adults if made legal. I just don't believe that. I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I watched nickel and dime bags being passed around at concerts and festivals as the police just watched. I helped friends get home safely after they had indulged themselves in smoking the weed. And then I read that "responsible adults" would handle it properly.



Ive grown up in the 90's and been to tons of concerts. And people still pass around joints all the time. (not nicks or dimes! wtf!) hell, if i spark one up, i'll feel like a dick if i don't pass it to the person next to me. you will either get a welcoming thanks or thanks, but i don't smoke. i smoke weed, but barly drink at all. do you realise how many times i've had to take my drunk ass friends home, not stoned, i said drunk. and alcohol is legal for responible adults. me and my friends are very responible. since i barely drink, except for a beer or two, we desided i'll drive. gee that's a no brainer! so they could get as drunk as they wanted and didn't have to worry. if that ain't responible than i don't know what is. drugs don't make people stupid. stupid makes people stupid!

Hansje

Removing drugs from the community is a myth, unless you are advocating a totalitarian state and search everyone coming and going from the community all the time. Just keep letting so-called conservatives, mostly republicans, get into elected office, and we'll have that kind of a country sooner than you want, moron! In a democratic society, we don't do that. Get with the program! Such rhetoric is divisive and counterproductive, as it serves only to put drugs out of sight and thus out of mind, however not out of the community. It doesn't solve the problem, just puts it out of sight.

I live in the community, too, and who the blazes do you think you are to decide for me, let alone speak for me? If I become terminally ill, and medical marijuana is more effective for me than what's in your oevre of pharmaceuticals for which the medical community receives incentives--to put it nicely--you and everyone like you can go pound sand up a pig's butt.

If I or anyone else decide to consume cannabis, here's how it will be in the U.S. and just about any country: Any adult will be allowed to go into a coffeeshop or some other cannabinist merchant and buy it for recreational purposes. It's definitely safer to use to relax than Prozac or Paxil or any of those other pharmaceuticals pushed on you by the medical establishment that cause the consumer to be prone to suicide! And what about these pharmaceutical ads on TV that you can't even be sure what they are for, but you're supposed to ask your doctor?! Talk about pushing drugs! There are some major lawsuits for these drugs making people prone to suicide. Cannabis has a long history, about 5,000 years, and a better track record than those brand names mentioned. Check it out! To people like that I say: Pull your heads out of your butts!

There you have it, from me, Pastor Cannabis. I took that from a yet unwritten and unpublished book of scripture. It will be added on to the existing ones, after the Second Coming has been revealed. When will that be? It will be after the Evil One and his Minions are no longer in control of setting the conservative agenda in the world's most powerful current government and society. When will that be? That will be when that society and its de facto satellites use their status for good, which is after the conversion to renewable and far less polluting energy sources. Hey, the savior is just asking for a little common sense and goodwill toward fellow men and women on Earth, you know. Humans are merely stewards of the planet, and if you can't handle it, then go ahead and wipe yourselves out. It's easy enough for the supreme to give a figurative wave of the hand and suddenly create a highly evolved chimpanzee or cow or alligator or something to see what kind of stewards they will be. Then they'll have dominion over all animals beneath them. See, I can just "interpret" stuff as I go, too!

Dalamar49

Ted Beam mentions that God only wants us to use plants that can be used for food, well:

Cannabis is high in protein. Only soybeans can beat cannabis in providing healthy plant protein to humans. In addition Coca leaves are high in calcium and were regularly consumed by South Americans before that leaves were processed into cocaine, making them unnatural and harmful.

Take that Ted. Your God endorses our use of cannabis. Praise the Lord!

Buzzby

Can "responsible adults" handle alcohol? Is he arguing for a return to the alcohol prohibition of the 20s? How is this any different from tailgate parties at football games?

Interesting... Organizations that favor medical marijuana include the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, Federation of American Scientists, Lymphoma Foundation of America, and the New England Journal of Medicine. There is no reason for medical organizations to advocate recreational use, any more than they speak in favor of social drinking.

Medical doctors in the 12 states that allow medical marijuana are presently recommending the use of whole cannabis to treat several medical conditions. Users find that smoked or vaporized cannabis is superior to the synthetic oral THC because the effects are immediate and the level of dosage is easily titrated to achieve the right effect without under- or over-dosage.

Marijuana used responsibly and moderately has no negative health effects. Like any recreational drug, it effects your mental state. That's why people use them. It has no long-term effects on a user's "mental capacity".

I've got to agree with the Rev's take on the Genesis argument. I see it used over and over again by marijuana advocates, but it is so weak and easily defeated that it just makes the advocates look stupid.

__________________

casketfour

The bible does make mention of cannabis and it's use for mankind and that passage is CORRECT

what is INCORRECT is the interrpretation by the man who refuted it. The bible does NOT say EVERY GREEN PLANT

the bible DOES say EVERY GREEN HERB that BEARS A SEED.

and my final point is that the seed AND plant are BOTH NUTRITIONAL.

and THE SECOND COMING LIVES.

Buzzby

There are plenty of seed-bearing herbs that are deadly poisonous...

The Rev's argument holds up.

casketfour

I think we can assume that God is NOT an IDIOT
and was Referring to the ones that were not poisonous http://www.marijuana.com/420/images/...avey.gif:wave:

Who is to say that at the time of writing that there were even poisonous herbs on the planet? Where it says "and to you it shall be for MEAT" says to me - this must mean "for consumption". While I agree with you that I'm sure it does not mean POISONOUS plants, it OBVIOUSLY says nutrional or safe ones are ok.

this claim can be refuted with "the bible is just a text based on beliefs from sincere men trying to accept their own futitlity" but when you get down to it, the only text I have a problem with is the New Testament, and the truth is a Prophet is a sincerely spiritual man. If you can not understand the bible or do not take heed from it (and I'm not saying this is true, it goes for anyone) then maybe it is because you are not spiritually aware individual.

you are taking an americanized and modernized translation of a text well over 2000 years old written in another laungage first of all

Second English definitions can often at times be very broad and leave out important details, anyone who has taken an English comp course can tell tell you that one word can change the ENTIRE meaning to a sentence.

third, GENESIS is not even the ORIGINAL book, The Torah comes from FIVE SEPERATE books that were written during times of the egyptians, BEFORE HEBREW EVER existed

Who's to say that the ENGLISH word for HERB even equates to the word, or words in the orginal text? We can NOT assume that everything is "as it should be" after all you live in a country that has outlawed possibily one of the most beneficial, and harmless drugs that nature has to offer;

1) for their own greediness
2) because of racism
3) without any scientific evidence refuting their claims
4) cutting off all circuits of research to fight those claims and
5) Personally I believe because they already KNOW it's beneficial and that it is what it is FOR a REASON, I believe there is a deep dark secret in this country and you can find it's meaning on the back of a dollar bill and it has controlled and influenced every major event in our nations "history" that everyone has such a cheap pride for. Cannabis is way to big of a topic in our country these days and spoiled off as the "gateway drug" to this day. Where is the talk of the danger our alcohol or tobbaco, why has the goverment not placed ad's on television warning the consumer not to consume products with NUCLEAR gas.

the goverment warns of the "dangers" of lethargy but never do they tell you how the FDA has a LAW stating that tobbaco can NOT be produced or imported to this country unless it goes through a STRICT FERTILIZATION process.

what does it matter when both systems still line their pockets and you are still living in a controlled society?

I guarentee within the next 7 years this country WILL see MARTIAL LAW put in to place.


the revs argument does not hold up, it is being Challenged, untill you can PROVE otherwise, the debate is open.