Pastor Gary Dull opposes Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s concession to state voters who want marijuana legalized, the governor saying he now favors it. Pastor Dull’s response to Governor Wolf’s decision offers the usual inaccuracies about marijuana while adding his own religious views on drugs:
“As a pastor for more than 45 years and serving a church in Altoona for nearly 25 years, I have seen many people agonize over using and abusing marijuana,†Dull said. “I believe it is a great mistake to legalize the narcotic for recreational use for several reasons.†[…]
“I make efforts to uphold biblical teaching, and the Bible tells us to avoid anything that may ‘master’ our bodies (1 Cor. 6:12). Most of us know someone who has ruined their life through addictive drugs. Families have been broken, jobs have been lost and lives have even been taken as a result of the use of addictive drugs. Additionally, most people recognize that marijuana is an ‘entrance’ or ‘gateway’ drug that has the great potential to lead to more serious drug use and abuse.” […]
“Various studies have shown that students who used marijuana regularly are less likely to finish high school and go on to higher education than those who do not use the drug,” he said. “This results in future generations that may be less educated and unequipped to teach and lead their families to a more educated and higher-quality lifestyle. Less education and a lower-quality lifestyle contribute to many negative elements in society.” […]
“In the Bible,” he said, “the word used for the administering of drugs is the Greek word pharmakeia, which in some passages is translated to ‘witchcraft’ (Gal. 5:20) and ‘sorceries’ (Rev. 9:21). Thus, the Word of God makes a clear connection between drugs and the occult, implying that the unwise use of certain recreational drugs can lead to having the minds of the users open to wickedness and demonic activity. And that always guarantees a negative effect upon drug users as well as society in general.â€
Recently appointed Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has been applauded by various Christian groups for his applications of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. While on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, Justice Gorsuch dissented in Little Sisters vs. Burwell where the court found their religious freedom hadn’t been unduly burdened. Gorsuch favored the Hobby Lobby vs. Sibellius decision complicating birth control options. “Yet he won’t allow the religious liberty law to be used as an excuse for all behavior. In United States vs. Quaintance, he rejected drug smugglers’ claims that their marijuana distribution was motivated by religious belief as insincere and thus not protected by the statute.â€
This Halloween season many Christians, wiccans, witches, pagans, humanists, and other smart, open-minded citizens will smoke weed for fun and relaxation. Will religious freedom protect them from persecution? Or will Gary Dull and Neil Gorsuch burn autumn festival goers at the stake?
Must be something in the water.
How a racist hate-monger
masterminded America’s War on Drugs
Harry Anslinger conflated drug use, race, and music to criminalize non-whiteness and create a prison-industrial complex
Anslinger’s zeal for law and order manifested early. He was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, in 1892 to Swiss German parents. His father struggled to find work as a barber and got hired by the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Whoopsie:
“We accidentally sexually assaulted a 16 year old because the dogs lied to us”
A study on marijuana and driving found that “smoked cannabis (12.5% THC)
☛ “led to an acute decrease in speed in young adults,”
☛ “there was no clear effect of smoked cannabis on lateral control”
☛ “there was little evidence of residual effects of smoked cannabis on driving performance.”
A Study concluded that state medical marijuana laws
☛ “increase adult but not adolescent cannabis useâ€
☛ “may reduce some opioid-related harms,”
while recreational legalization seems to have
☛ “little impact on the prevalence of adolescent cannabis use.â€
Here’s one for Duncan
https://twitter.com/jeromeadamsmd/status/1188075865357389824?s=21
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Ha! You’ll never fool me into clicking that link because I know that “Dr.” Adams is a foaming at the mouth prohibitionist!!!
For well over a decade I’ve been keeping track of my perception of the various and sundry factions and cohorts comprising the ranks of the sycophants of prohibition. There used to be at least 7 major groupings in that cohort. Today there are only 2. The first grouping is the people that can be fooled all of the time and not one of them with a triple digit IQ. The other cohort actually has some native intelligence but made a bad career choice thinking that prohibition is for ever. But either way talking at them is just a waste of breath.
Possible historic policy turn for Germany:
https://tinyurl.com/SiegWeedSiegWeed
How the War on Drugs and Myths about Addiction Have Created a War on All of Us
https://tinyurl.com/y5c6ymep
Trump Announces Plan To Turn America Into Giant Militarized Police State
https://youtu.be/OuIenIx7QXw
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From time to time I opine that it’s never a good idea to give a cop permission to search your home and car. It might be different if I hadn’t found misplaced and forgotten vials or baggies of cannabis. People often ask me, how the heck do you lose reefer? Anyway, here’s an article about a man who was in prison 18 years ago. He smuggled in a very small amount of cannabis by putting it in a balloon and shoving it up his nose. Wanna tell me how the heck you forget that you shoved cannabis up your nose?
Ewwww… I’m sharing with my first cousin Jeff, a surgeon and Otolaryngotomist. lol.