Mountain states Mormonism misleads on marijuana

Twenty-four U.S. states have legalized sales of recreational marijuana, yet parts of the Rocky Mountain West remain steadfast in their opposition to cannabinoids. One reason is state and local political domination by the LDS or Mormon Church. Starting in 1915 Mormons made marijuana taboo.

A hundred years later problems with Mormonism’s public image resulted in an attempt to rebrand itself exclusively as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Try as it may, Mormonism cannot outrun the history of its attitudes toward marijuana. It clearly outlined its position on cannabis and drugs in its out-of-print 1992 edition of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism:

In addition to avoiding tea, coffee, and alcoholic beverages, members should not misuse legal drugs, and should not use any substance that contains illegal drugs or other harmful or habit forming ingredients.

The Encyclopedia goes on to contrast Mormonism with the drug awareness of other religions in a holier-than-thou ranking system that uses marijuana legalization as its moral benchmark:

Legalization of Marijuana: Only one in ten Latter-day Saints supports the legalization of marijuana, compared with about two in ten among Protestants and Catholics. Forty-one percent of Jews and half of those with no religion favor legalization of marijuana. [NORC pooled surveys for 1972-1988]

If someone wanted to construct criminal laws in which a higher probability of arrest falls upon Jews, non-believers and people other than themselves, few better options exist than making marijuana illegal and creating draconian penalties for its use. Faith alone cannot justify the constitutionality of anti-marijuana laws. That would be an illegal establishment of religion by the government. Something more organic or scary is needed.

Prior to and after World War II, Jews and non-believers were often lumped together with Communists. Mormonism was strongly tied to the anti-Communist John Birch Society by one of its biggest fans, church president Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994). Benson and the Birchers believed legalizing marijuana and water fluoridation were Communist plots. Fluoridation has since been cleared of all charges of Communism by medical science.

Marijuana criminalization remains useful to religious isolationists living in remote towns and villages because its illegality discourages certain undesirables from traveling, working or retiring there. Anti-marijuana laws give Mormons and other prohibitionists an edge when it comes to government employment. Persons applying for a drug enforcement job with the DEA, or the FBI which also covers drug cases, will be summarily rejected if they have tried cannabinoids only once in their lives. Service in the military is unlikely with marijuana or other drug arrests. Security clearances will be denied. All it takes are polygraphs or a positive urine test to terminate a government career.

Persecuting marijuana consumers creates easier pathways for anti-marijuana religious groups to take over government agencies. In one example Mormon FBI managers attempted to usurp the bureaucracy—if not the whole of the FBI—only to be busted in 1989 for discriminating in the hiring, training and treatment of Hispanic job applicants. The offending agents also targeted FBI employees possessing seniority and perfect job performances based solely on skin color, culture, and ethnicity. The Book of Mormon labels darker skinned people as “Lamanites” who it says are “loathsome” since they are believed to be the descendants of Laman and are thereby allegedly cursed for their evil nature and corruption. It goes on to proclaim that Lamanites can repent and embrace the Book of Mormon and automatically become “white and delightsome”. A landmark lawsuit brought by Hispanic FBI agents, Mat Perez vs. FBI, resulted in the presiding judge ordering the FBI to clean up its act.

The LDS Church has experienced a declining membership since 2013 in contrast to cannabinoids which show a tolerance or popularity increase that now encompasses 70-percent of adult Americans. The Church’s declining membership has several sources: lower birth rates, modernism, science, secularism, eroding beliefs, its cover-up of its neglect of charitable functions, and a scandal in which shell companies were used to disguise its ownership of for-profit businesses and other organizations. Typically left out of the calculation is the Church’s disdain and persecution of consumers of a plant the ancient Egyptians referred to as the “branches of bliss”. It’s possible that many Mormons who once regarded Mormonism as their preferred drug switched to a better one. Certainly few of those who enjoy branches of bliss today would give it up merely to join the Latter-day Saints.