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Have Compassion
Robert Joseph Blevins | Central Kentucky News Journal | 09/11/2006

This letter to the editor is in reference to the latest marijuana/cannabis debate letter from the Rev. Ted Beam.

Maybe if Mr. Beam had paid more attention in theology school he would be more clearly focused on this debate. Instead, he has blurred the lines of the conversation about cannabis legalization and research. No one was stating that mushrooms and cocaine are anything good for society, but Mr. Beam sure breached the topic really quickly. I'm sure this is happening all over the country where theologians and politicians blur the actual context of the debate in order to make a point.

Mr. Beam is avoiding the simple word "compassion" from theology and going straight to ethics and morality. There are members of all denominations - Methodist and even Southern Baptist, with cancer, aids, eating disorders and mental illness who could benefit from just the research alone of cannabis treatment, but theologians like Mr. Beam aren't even allowing medical doctors like Lester Grinspoon of Harvard to conduct research.

He may have family members who need this treatment, and his compassion isn't present in his faith - due to his moral convictions about "drug" use. These morals of his seem to reach out to other people who are sick and that is just tragic that people like him have lost the faith to have compassion. This doesn't seem like the compassion of Jesus - Jesus may be offering a new solution to our medical problems, and with your faith centered on tradition, you may not be able to allow God to work through this new avenue.

Let's say that cannabis is everything wrong that Mr. Beam points out ... we "still" don't even have scientific proof to even back him up because of the harsh limitations posed on researchers. This rhetoric seems reminiscent of a church that fought all scientific progress during the time of Gallileo.

Mr. Beam, please quit fantasizing and criminalizing people with opinions about cannabis research and medication - after all, if Christians had to endure the persecution of a medical cannabis user (jail, criminalization, losing everything even their own family) - first off, that would be the kind of Christianity the Bible talks about, and secondly, I guarantee that a Cost of Discipleship that high would bring modern Christianity to a halt.

Robert Joseph Blevins

Campbellsville

 

Buzzby

The editorial to which this article refers can be found here: KY: Medical field against legalized marijuana

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