GOD-GIVEN AND DEADLY

Stan White (Globe, Oct. 6) recently extolled efforts to "re-legalize"
marijuana because it is "God-given" and because the Bible refers to
plants as "all good."

I believe this to be a fallacious argument in several respects. First,
there are countless substances that are found naturally and assumed to
be God-given that are deadly. Arsenic is an element that "can cause
many health problems" significant exposure of which "can cause death"
(National Library of Medicine, 2007).

As a colleague of mine recently pointed out, hemlock is also such an
"all good" plant, so good it was used by ancient states to execute
condemned prisoners, including Socrates.

Second, if you believe that God created cannabis, it still does not
follow that he approved its recreational use.

In other words, because a substance is "God-given" doesn't necessarily
mean that the inhalation of the chemicals produced by its combustion
has a divine stamp of approval.

I think it is wise for accurate beliefs to inform our decisions, but I
am deeply concerned (for all of humanity) about the inaccurate beliefs
that seem, too often, to rule over them.

There are several sources for these inaccuracies, the least mainstream
of which are associated with chemical dependency.

Seth Jackson

Joplin