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catholictiger
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please don’t be baptists alcohol can be used for just recreational use as long as you use it in moderation. But why do you think its a drug, is ethanol a drug?
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Rich_Olszewski
Guest
If not used “responsibly,” yes. Keep in mind that the most abused drug there is, historically and currently, is alcohol. It can do great damage to one’s liver and lead to one’s death.
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Mickey
Guest
It is not wine according to your Church. It is the Body and Blood of Christ.
Furthermore, there is no such thing as smoking pot in moderation. The effects of THC are immediate. The marijuana that is available today has a very high and potent THC content. One inhale from a joint and you are impaired…stoned…high. Alcohol can be consumed in moderation…marijuana cannot. Alcohol is legal…marijuana is not. Of course if drink too much alcohol, the Scriptures have much to say about drunkeness. I understand your motivation to attempt to defend marijuana because your son likes to smoke it…but the Church does not agree with your philosophy.
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Rich_Olszewski
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Alcohol is the oldest and most widely used drug in the world. Nearly half of all Americans over the age of 12 are consumers of alcohol. Although most drink only occasionally or moderately, there are an estimated 10 to 15 million alcoholics or problem drinkers in the United States, with more than 100,000 deaths each year attributed to alcohol. Among the nation’s alcoholics and problem drinkers are as many as 4.5 million adolescents, and adolescents are disproportionately involved in alcohol-related automobile accidents, the leading cause of death among Americans 15 to 24 years old.
What is Alcohol?
Alcohol is the name to given a variety of related compounds; **the drinkable form is ethanol, or ethyl alcohol. It is a powerful, addictive, central nervous system depressant produced by the action of yeast cells on carbohydrates in fruits and grains. **
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Mickey
Guest
You said one or two joints is moderation (which is a joke). Studies show that one joint is equivilent to an entire pack of cigarettes in terms of damage to the lungs.
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Mickey
Guest
Alcohol is legal. Alcohol can be consumed in moderation. Drunkeness is a sin.
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austenbosten
Guest
I don’t get why people are so obsessed with being able to smoke marijuana. Why can’t you just light up a cigarette and be happy 
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Mickey
Guest
2291 does not address it. This one does:
[2290](javascript
penWindow(‘cr/2290.htm’) The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.
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Rich_Olszewski
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We can argue about this all day. “Alcohol can be consumed in moderation. Drunkeness is a sin.” I say that MJ can be consumed in moderation. Getting stoned is a sin.
The smart money is on the legalization of the use of MJ sooner or later.
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Rich_Olszewski
Guest
Yes, avoidance of excess. I agree.2291 does not address it. This one does:
[2290](javascript
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Mickey
Guest
LOL! Yeah right. Smart money.
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catholictiger
Guest
I don’t disagree that alcohol is addictive and bad if drunk excessively. But lets say marijuana was used at the same rate, how much worse of an impact do you think it would have. Or lets compare drinking one bottle of beer vs one joint of marijuana. What would have a bigger impact. I don’t know anything about marijuana but I know if you drink one bottle of beer it won’t have that big of an impact on you. Don’t drink but a couple a week you body will be able to handle it. It’s not good for you body but if you drink alcohol intelligently then it won’t kill you. If you do the same with pot would it have the same small impact or much worse.
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Mickey
Guest
This is my last post on marijuana because we are way off topic.
When I was in the Catholic Church, priests and monks explained to me the physical and moral dangers associated with drug use…including marijuana. They told me it was sinful. Now, as a member of the Orthodox Church…the understanding is very similar. This is a wonderful explanation from an Orthodox priest.
In considering the use of marijuana, because it is not directly addressed either in scripture or in the patristic teaching of the Church (most likely because its use was unknown except possibly in pagan mystical rites), we have to use the principles laid out for us by the scriptural and patristic teaching concerning the use of alcohol (another intoxicating drug with certain medical benefits). It is clear that the use of alcohol for medicinal purposes is accepted within limits (St Paul’s admonition to Timothy, for example) however there are limits - and those limits revolve around intoxication (the side effect of too much alcohol consumed in too little time). It is quite clear that we are not to become “drunk with wine”.
Let us now apply this to marijuana. Is it possible to “take a little marijuana” without becoming intoxicated? In my experience (and yes I mean my personal experience when I was young and foolish) the answer is no. The intoxicating side effect of marijuana is much more pronounced and occurs immediately with any and all other effects of using the drug. (With alcohol, a little can be taken and benefit received without intoxication). Thus the use of marijuana is indeed considered a sin by the Church as it leads immediately to intoxication thus transgressing the scriptural injunction against intoxication.
I know of no tradition within the Church that condones the recreational use of marijuana. Nor have I ever heard of a recognized spiritual father or hierarch of the Church who recommends the use of marijuana for any reason. Rather than assume that it’s ok to use marijuana unless some prohibition against its use is found, it should be eschewed unless a (heretofore unknown) specific approval within the tradition of the Church is discovered and confirmed by the living heirarchy of the Church.
Fr David Moser
When I was in the Catholic Church, priests and monks explained to me the physical and moral dangers associated with drug use…including marijuana. They told me it was sinful. Now, as a member of the Orthodox Church…the understanding is very similar. This is a wonderful explanation from an Orthodox priest.
In considering the use of marijuana, because it is not directly addressed either in scripture or in the patristic teaching of the Church (most likely because its use was unknown except possibly in pagan mystical rites), we have to use the principles laid out for us by the scriptural and patristic teaching concerning the use of alcohol (another intoxicating drug with certain medical benefits). It is clear that the use of alcohol for medicinal purposes is accepted within limits (St Paul’s admonition to Timothy, for example) however there are limits - and those limits revolve around intoxication (the side effect of too much alcohol consumed in too little time). It is quite clear that we are not to become “drunk with wine”.
Let us now apply this to marijuana. Is it possible to “take a little marijuana” without becoming intoxicated? In my experience (and yes I mean my personal experience when I was young and foolish) the answer is no. The intoxicating side effect of marijuana is much more pronounced and occurs immediately with any and all other effects of using the drug. (With alcohol, a little can be taken and benefit received without intoxication). Thus the use of marijuana is indeed considered a sin by the Church as it leads immediately to intoxication thus transgressing the scriptural injunction against intoxication.
I know of no tradition within the Church that condones the recreational use of marijuana. Nor have I ever heard of a recognized spiritual father or hierarch of the Church who recommends the use of marijuana for any reason. Rather than assume that it’s ok to use marijuana unless some prohibition against its use is found, it should be eschewed unless a (heretofore unknown) specific approval within the tradition of the Church is discovered and confirmed by the living heirarchy of the Church.
Fr David Moser
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LisaA
Guest
I don’t think so. Some states/locations that did make it legal realized the mistake and reversed this decision. The areas where the “medical” marijuana has become a big business are a nightmare with gangs, crime and violence following the ‘crop.’ Marijuana is NOT like alchohol in that you don’t have a relatively clear threshhold between a nice little buzz and zonked out. The quality varies and the strength varies greatly. Also individual tolerance varies.
I will confess to having tried this in my late teens. I would hate to think that I face people on the road who are stoned because I assure you my reaction time, vision and judgement were seriously impaired. I didn’t find that feeling particularly appealing and never used it again. But I’ve seen the results in varioius social agencies where I’ve volunteered. The effect particularly on the young brain is devastating.
Let’s not ask for more problems by opening a can of worms in support of something that is completely unnecessary to consume.
Lisa
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Rich_Olszewski
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Fine. It was “round and round the mulberry bush” on this topic, anyway.
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Jeanne_S
Guest
or perhaps round and round the weed?
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Rich_Olszewski
Guest
I had a similar experience with tobacco. Like other young kids (13 or so), I tried cigarettes, but I found them so unappealing that I stopped after about 5 uninhaled cigarettes - and that was some 55 years ago. Never again!
Not a good argument about consumption. The same is said about eating fois gras and some other delicacies. We Poles, e.g., eat kishka, blood sausage; some people retch at the thought of it.
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Rich_Olszewski
Guest
Yup!or perhaps round and round the weed?
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Elizabeth502
Guest
Hmm. Spoken like a cynical lawyer. This is why I chose not to become one. Don’t like cynicism as a profession.
I specifically excluded minor offenses. Three+ mph does not qualify and so is a straw man.
As to 75 mph, no need to exaggerate. Someone else might be able to demonstrate that 40 mph is, to them, appropriate. But if I’m conscious of doing so in a flippant (‘arrogant’) fashion and without good reason (such as hurrying someone to a hospital before an ambulance arrives), then I am committing a venial sin. If it’s super-excessive speed, it’s obviously a mortal sin. Violates the Fifth Commandment.
Three principles are being discussed here:
1 - Catechism precepts about the use/abuse of the body.
2 - The Fifth Commandment
3 - The Fourth Commandment
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Rich_Olszewski
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I respect your position. I have no problem with it nor with my choice of profession. My comment wasn’t meant to be cynical. It simply would be the best way for you to not have such a charge on your driving record.
I was looking at it from a legal point of view. I have no doubt that speeding, whether a few miles over the limit or way over the limit can be sins. BTW, 3 miles over the limit is not a strawman. Here in Little Rock, there is a small village, Cammack Village, where its police will nail you for doing 2 miles over the limit - and not just in School Zones! Glad I live in North Little Rock and work in Little Rock!
Again, one would have to consider where the excessive speeding was being done to judge it as violating the 5th Commandment. On a race track, on an empty freeway, in downtown traffic, in the presence of people who might be in harm’s way. To an attorney, all things tend to be varying shades of gray, and so I’d not be able ordinarily to say that speeding violates the Commandment absent the circumstances.
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