A couple of emails come in asking whether or not it's wrong for a Christian to smoke marijuana

and assuming that for them it's legal, either for medical use or because of legislation

in the state that they live in, how would you answer them, Pastor John?

Well, I don't know a lot about marijuana, not an expert on it.

I've read a little, listened to some comments about it in the news and so on.

So here's the way I approach it as a novice and yet I think we can have some solid biblical

guidance here.

Marijuana is ordinarily thought of and I think ordinarily used as a mood altering, mind altering

drug that creates a kind of a pleasant euphoria.

It's not generally thought of as making one more attentive to reality, but more oblivious

of reality.

In that sense, if you try to compare it with caffeine, say, and I can imagine somebody

saying, what's wrong, they're both mood altering drugs.

You drink your coffee and they're going to alter your mood and I do my marijuana to alter

my mood and so they're the same.

Well, not exactly because one of the effects of coffee is that it makes you more alert

to reality.

And if it didn't, I think we should run away from it.

In fact, I think it is possible to sin with caffeine, but there's a really significant

difference here in that the mind is being sharpened hopefully, not made more blunt or

more out of touch with reality.

So I don't think marijuana is generally thought of as an empowering drug that enables you

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