'GOOD BOOK' HEMP LESSON

Senior Pastor Dr. Ted Beam should study his Bible more diligently
because his denunciation of drug plants made by the Creator insults
God. Denying the usefulness of plants such as marijuana, coca, peyote
cactus and psilocybe mushrooms shows extreme ignorance and a lack of
faith in God.

The only prohibition of any plant found in the Bible is at Genesis
2:16: The Lord God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the
garden you may eat freely; (17) but from the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it
you will surely die."

After the failure of the ban on consuming the tree of knowledge of
good and evil, the Bible never again prohibits the use of any plant.
The bans on consuming certain animals were very detailed and
specific. (see Leviticus 11:1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 2
"Say to the Israelites: 'Of all the animals that live on land, these
are the ones you may eat: 3 You may eat any animal that has a split
hoof completely divided and that chews the cud," etc. The same
precise listing would be provided if any plants were forbidden.

Beam errs when he implies that marijuana has no food value. Hemp oil
has a remarkable fatty acid profile, being high in the desirable
omega-3s and also delivering some GLA (gamma-linolenic acid) that is
absent from the fats we normally eat. Nutritionally oriented doctors
believe all of these compounds to be beneficial to health.

Hemp oil contains 57 percent linoleic and 19 percent linolenic acids,
in a three to one ratio matching human nutritional needs. These are
the essential fatty acids - so called because the body cannot make
them and must get them from external sources.

Hemp seeds saved Australia from two famines in the 1800s. That's why
it is such a terrible insult to the Almighty to spew reefer madness
lies about hemp-marijuana.

Leviticus 24:15: And say to the people of Israel, whoever curses his
God shall bear his sin. 16 He who blasphemes the name of the Lord
shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him; the
sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be
put to death. 17 He who kills a man shall be put to death.

Isaiah 55: 8: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your
ways my ways, says the Lord. 9: For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts.

Beam is entitled to his opinions, but he blasphemes when he attributes
evil to drug plants. These creations have many uses for mankind and
people like Beam should not interfere with God's will because of their
ignorance.

Beam's notion of Bible-based prohibitions becomes ridiculous when we
remember that alcohol, the most destructive and dangerous drug of them
all, is never banned even though many warnings about the dangers of
alcohol are given. Indeed, Jesus' first miracle was making about 40
gallons of wine for a wedding party. (see: John 2:3-11).

Ralph Givens

San Diego, Calif.