God, I Hate Marijuana

I didn’t know the dude was stoned or I probably wouldn’t have approached him.

Arriving early to my lunchtime meeting, I looked around and noticed the man loitering at the bus stop on Madison, right in front of Lindo Veracruz, my favorite hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint. I had about ten minutes, so I figured I’d chat with him, maybe share the Gospel, but at least get a Gospel card in his hand.

As I approached, about 5 feet out, it hit me, the distinctive and familiarly pungent aroma of weed. “Crap,” I thought to myself, but continued to approach hopefully. “Hello,” I offered up. He acknowledged my presence, but that was about it. He wasn’t there. I spoke for just a minute before offering a Gospel card which he blandly accepted, his eyes blank with nothingness. He was fried. I walked away.

Oh well, maybe he’ll read the card later.

I hate weed.

The Logic of Weed

“You like guns, right?” Trey asked me.

“I do,” I responded hesitantly. Where was this going?

“If the government doesn’t have the right to prevent you from having a gun, why should they be able to prevent you from having weed?”

Interesting.

Absent the Gospel, the logic pans out, sort of. Who am I hurting? What’s the big deal? Alcohol is legal and damages tons of people and causes people to damage tons of stuff. Marijuana is a plant. It’s natural. In fact, it’s beneficial to many, so why not legalize it on a national level and be done with it? Most states are moving this direction anyway if they haven’t already.

Weed Growing Up

I don’t remember ever seeing weed.

In the 80’s, we maintained a sharp distinction, or at least I thought we did. Jocks hung out with jocks and did jock stuff. Nerds rolled with nerds and did nerd stuff. I kind of straddled the jock/nerd divide or thought I did. The stoners though.

They wore their hair long and sported ripped up denim jackets and bad attitudes. And they smoked weed, lots of it. I was cordial with a handful of the stoners, but never close enough to be offered to partake of their weed nor would I have. I would’ve been too afraid of getting caught and getting in trouble.

You can imagine my chagrin when years later I discovered that there had been a distinct jock/stoner collaboration and that many of the jocks smoked weed in cahoots with the stoners. I felt betrayed!

Weed Everywhere

“Everyone smoked weed where I grew up,” my buddy Martin boasted. He was from Montana and coolly informed me that in the west, no one really drank. They smoked weed. He even smoked weed with his parents! And this was 20 years ago.

Nowadays, it’s everywhere. Everyone smokes weed. I’m a realist. Being a foster/adoptive parent will do that to you, quickly crushing any dreams of parental utopia. At some point, we began fostering teenagers and even housing teens who’d aged out of the system. We made a discovery that I still maintain. If allowed, they’ll all have sex and smoke weed. Experience is a great schoolmaster you see.

California legalized medical marijuana in 1996 and as of this writing, 39 states and the District of Columbia have legalized it. California again led the way for recreational use, legalizing it in 2016. Twenty other states along with the District of Columbia have followed suit, with several likely to follow in the months and years to come.

You can buy it about anywhere, I’m told. I smell it everywhere: at the gas station, behind the kid in line at the grocery store, literally sitting in traffic. And let’s just say that I don’t necessarily frequent what I would call “high usage” areas. It’s pervasive.

Per the National Institute on Drug Abuse, among people 12 or older, 18.7 percent (52.5 million people!) smoked weed in the last year. A striking 30.7 percent of seniors in high school make the same claim.

Kids and Weed

Smoke your weed if you like, but what about the kids?

We had a set of foster siblings for quite some time, taking them for periodic visits to their biological parents. I recall standing on their doorstep, literally smelling the weed through their front door.

At times, I’d walk into their home and the smoke would literally sting my eyes. I could smell it on myself even after leaving their home. And their kids, one an asthmatic, what of them? Every time the asthmatic girl would return from a visit, she’d cough and hack for days. We’d double her up on her meds for a few days to get her over the hump.

They also had a baby. I recall once, standing in their dingy living room, waiting to pick up the kids, and looking at this little baby, maybe 1-year-old, sitting in a little baby chair in a haze of marijuana smoke. This little baby, growing up breathing marijuana smoke daily, grieved my heart. “She doesn’t stand a chance,” I thought to myself.

The parents were oblivious, or so it seemed. I’m confident this is not an isolated condition to this particular family, seeing the vast proliferation of use.

Weed and the Gospel

I’m sure that weed is bad for you. For starters, it’s smoke in your lungs and I’m no Alfred Einstein, but that can’t be good.

It’s a gateway drug. We all know that. No one wakes up and says, “You know, I’d like to be a crackhead today.” It frequently starts with weed. Someone hands you a joint at a party. Someone hands you a joint laced with something at a party. I’ve heard that story too often to tell. And from what I’m told, weed today is different than weed from forty years ago, more potent, more addictive.

There are other harmful side effects.

But what about being fried, having your mind enslaved to a substance? I had a good friend of mine from high school get heavy into weed. I went to visit once, and I’m not sure he even knew I was there; he was so stoned.

What about the Gospel?

I think this is what I hate most about weed. It renders the user unable to hear, understand, or respond to the Gospel message, the words of life that literally are the power of God for salvation. (Romans 1:16) Paul writes, “how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Romans 10:14b) Preach all you like, if that someone is stoned out of their mind, it will make little difference.

This is where my buddy’s logic begins to break down.

No one ever misunderstood or even missed the Gospel based upon their status as a gun owner.

The Culture of Weed

I get it. It’s cool. It’s trendy, even funny.

Snoop Dogg is stoned all the time. So is Willie Nelson, and everyone else. Are Cheech and Chong still around?

The scary thing is this. I am acquainted with some entire people groups whose entire lives revolve around weed. Entire families, entire cultures, entire groups. They are either stoned, getting stoned, planning on getting stoned, or recovering from getting stoned. It’s normative. It’s what they do.

When will they ever be able to hear and receive the Gospel message?

I just pray that somehow, in some way, God would penetrate their self-induced stupor, awaken them from their slumber, lift the veil, and reveal to them the depths of their depravity and the only hope found in the risen Lord Jesus and His atoning death on the cross at Calvary. I have no solution otherwise, no action step really. This is all just a sickening observation coupled with a strong hope in the God of all creation.

Until then, have another toke. Lost is lost, and it probably is more pleasant while stoned.