The United States is on the cusp of another big social change. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that federal authorities would not interfere when states make laws allowing medical marijuana or legalize the drug entirely. Some legislators think that in a time of severe budget cutting prosecuting marijuana users is not the best use of taxpayer money. Some of them are working on federal laws to change banking rules to allow marijuana dealers to accept credit cards and checks, not just cash.
Essentially, the Obama Administration is working around federal law to allow the states to legalize the drug. The new approach would go a long way to legitimizing the nation’s black market in marijuana.
Opinion polls have shown that the nation’s attitude toward “legal weed” has reached a tipping point in March of 2013 with a majority of Americans (52%) in favor of legalization. Advocates suggest that this is a historic watershed year like in 1933 when the nation legalized alcohol.
Some states are in the process of legalizing the drug. Washington and Colorado will permit retail store sales in January of 2014. Michigan is also considering liberalizing its marijuana laws. Popular CNN medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, has recently reversed his position in favor of legal weed. Senator John McCain has also said we should probably respect the will of the people and legalize marijuana.
Opponents say legalization is being rushed into the states without considering the consequences. But most people don’t even think of the moral consequences of such a change to society.
If the effect of the legalization of marijuana is the same or similar to the effect of the legalization of alcohol, in terms violent crime, broken families and other social ills, the nation would do well to prevent its legalization. If the effect is to becloud the mind so that the Holy Spirit cannot reach the heart, that would also be a serious consequence. However, that is not the direction the United States has been going in any other area of moral restraint. As more and more people become addicted to substances, both hard and soft, the nation is persistently turning its back on the Creator of its citizens.
Though many of the users of marijuana are no longer young people, perhaps they are witnesses to the truth of the following statement.
“On every side, Satan seeks to entice the youth into the path of perdition; and if he can once get their feet set in the way, he hurries them on in their downward course, leading them from one dissipation to another, until his victims lose their tenderness of conscience, and have no more the fear of God before their eyes. They exercise less and less self-restraint. They become addicted to the use of wine and alcohol, tobacco and opium, and go from one stage of debasement to another. They are slaves to appetite. Counsel which they once respected, they learn to despise. They put on swaggering airs, and boast of liberty when they are the servants of corruption. They mean by liberty that they are slaves to selfishness, debased appetite, and licentiousness…” Maranatha, page 139