Hey there, and welcome back to Take One, the podcast that brings you just one

grounded page of Talmud each day.

And on today's pages, Menachut 14 and 15, we find the rabbis talking about a familiar crop, have a listen. There in the baraita, only hemp and arum are prohibited by Torah law

to be sewn in a vineyard, as we learned in a Mishnah. If once field was sewn with

hemp and arum, he should not sew above them. Why, pray tell, would the rabbis single out hemp,

or good old cannabis, for being sewn in a vineyard? The rabbis deliver many explanations,

addressing everything from cannabis's longevity, reaping

schedule and similarity to the vine itself, all of which makes it verboten to be sewn in a

vineyard.

But they also give us an opportunity to think about a plant that is currently dividing

Americans.

To date, 24 states, or half the country more or less, have legalized the use of cannabis,

with many arguing that it hardly causes a greater danger than, say, alcohol.

And indeed, in 2022, cannabis use surpassed the use of alcohol for the first time ever in history,

with 17.7 million Americans using the substance daily.

With cannabis use on the rise, we could use a touch of the rabbi's skepticism to help stop and consider the effects of cannabis.

I'll let the experts at the Hazeldeen-Beddy Ford Foundation do the explaining.

At the Foundation's Behavioral Health Center for Adolescence and young adults in Minnesota,

89% they report of 734 residential patients in 2017, for example,

had cannabis in their substance use history, and 84% were diagnosed with cannabis use disorder,

which is not mentioning the two dozen or so patients succumbing to cannabis-related psychosis

each year. Surveying more than 100,000 students in grades 6 to 12th since 2009, the foundation

...