Cannabis Isn't Evil

When you hear people talk about cannabis, arguing either for or against it, you’ll hear the usual talking points falling into two areas.

First, there’s health and medicine. Media is filled with documented as well as undocumented examples illustrating some of the benefits to medically used cannabis—how people previously incapacitated by pain have gotten their lives back, folks with seizures don’t have them anymore, their lives suddenly becoming more manageable. The drug even seems to help parents manage autistic children, reducing many of the symptoms.

There are claims and evidence proclaiming pot to be a viable treatment for cancer patients too. Apparently, pain management through cannabis pharmacology does have legitimate medical applications. It’s hard to dispute.

Then there is the recreational use argument. Proponents have the obvious comparisons to make with alcohol. “It’s better for you and for society than drinking,” they insist, pointing out how smoking pot is a private affair and harms no one, and that cannabis is a calming, naturally occurring herb encouraging peacefulness, whereas alcohol agitates, increasing violence.

That’s really it. The natural conclusion being that people drink alcohol to alter their mood, so they ought to be able to consume cannabis to do the same.

So, there is some evidence on each side of the debate. It is often conflated and inconclusive, but it is evidence never-the-less. And these issues really do deserve to be addressed.

It’s easy to concur with much of this, frankly . . .

 . . . were it not for one more aspect to consider. One that is so serious it ought to supersede all discussion on the subject.

In addition to the apparent effects of marijuana, THC also has a consequence on the human psyche that you will not hear about in the usual discussions. This is the metaphysical side to cannabis and it makes the pro and con debate over pot smoking seem puerile and hollow. It is that serious.

Many marijuana users today readily admit that they use THC to alter mood—however it’s termed, to relax, unwind or cope, even for medically sanctioned pain management.

But I would make the case that none the positives, not even a sum of the positives, come close to outweighing the ONE BIG NEGATIVE of marijuana use.

There’s more here than meets the eye. So, let’s get to what’s really significant about cannabis. Let’s see what is really going on when people smoke.

When you take cannabis into your system you are administering Delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a powerful, psychotropic hallucinogen active in the plant. And just like all psychotropic drugs, THC numbs the conscience. It’s automatic.

It is this conscience-dampening effect, regardless of any other feature cannabis holds, that makes cannabis so dangerous.

Without conscience, intuitive discipline mitigates and that internal governor supplying us all with the power to regulate our behavior, to discern right from wrong shuts down. The more cannabis that’s administered, the less intuitiveness you have, until finally it’s all gone. You’ve lost the connection to your Creator and your virtuousness dissolves away.

Without conscience there is no kindness, tolerance or patience. You begin a psychic de-evolution into an animal existence. There’s a gross transmogrifying effect, a cross-over from existing as a spiritually intuited being, into an animalized worldly creature. You cease developing as a spiritual-human entity and become instinctually motivated by selfish need. This is the root of what psychologists call narcissism. This is how every selfish, self-centered boor and psychopathic personality has come to exist.

Your pain, anxiety and other physical discomforts may go away but you lose your original ground of being.  Your moral compass malfunctions and dishonesty, fear and self-centeredness become a way of life. Depression becomes imminent if not already full blown. You simply cannot make good life decisions or live in true peace if you smoke pot, under any circumstances. Even with the seemingly harmless intent of simply relieving physical pain.

That’s because THC is a way to achieve more feelings of well-being, pleasure, and happiness than you than you deserve.

The science on this is simple to understand. THC is thought to reduce GABBA, a neurotransmitter that inhibits dopamine in the reward circuitry of the brain. Dopamine is responsible for feelings of well-being and pleasure. But with less GABBA, more dopamine accumulates, delivering feelings of more pleasure.

As you can imagine then, dopamine would be a very addictive substance to anyone with a chronic need for relief, developing an obsession with feelings. They become seekers of relief. Soon they develop a lifestyle where they can deliberately and willfully press a button, artificially activating feelings of unearned self-worth and undeserved pleasure, manipulating otherwise natural dopamine production.

The discomfort produced by your conscience is relieved by THC and you no longer feel bad about what has pushed you to this point of need—your absorption of anger and playing God through judgment.

You are compelled to continue this way because now you are God. Your Ego identity swells inside like a little dictator. In secret. You don’t even have to let anyone know how high and mighty you are. This is why pot smokers, all drug abusers, become so self-absorbed and desensitized to other people’s needs while at the same time becoming emotionally delicate, prone to suppressed anger. It’s why they can’t love,  seem disinterested, can’t forgive and hold a grudge. It isn’t them. The Ego entity has taken over. Something vile is in charge.  

The pain of the conflicted conscience that comes as the result of a lost identity becomes too much to bear, the pained psyche must be anesthetized.

Sucking a conscience-numbing drug into the body, whether it’s out of burning leaves rolled up into a cigarette, through a steel needle, or licked off the back of a toad—all of it is still taking a conscience-numbing chemical into the body, having the same ultimate effect.

Once your conscience is numbed, you can never feel bad enough about what made you this way to ever want to do anything to cure what made you feel so bad in the first place. You remain the corrupted, broken person you’ve become and will seek illegitimate, artificial relief for your discomfort.  You’ll continue to suffer, from the inside out, having no awareness that you’re dying.

That’s because you are identified with Something that feels alive to play God. And that’s what psychoactive chemicals like THC do.

They allow you feel content to be dead inside by disconnecting you from the course-correcting influence of your moral compass. You are left rudderless, subject to whichever way the wind blows, drifting through life like a ghost ship with no direction.

Now, how harmful is that to society? How many conscience-numbed, self-centered, individuals does it take to demoralize a civilization, sending it into extinction?

Maybe, as some evidence suggests, marijuana smoke does causes cancer. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe THC can be a remedy for seizures. Maybe it cannot. These are sidebar issues, worthy of discussion for sure.

But in any case, the active chemical in cannabis, THC, is still a powerful drug that allows you to feel better than you deserve to feel, and any substance or any behavior that does that, also robs you of your humanity. Spiritual discipline and direction vanish, and you don’t even know that it’s happening to you.

Cannabis is not an evil substance. But the drug it delivers, THC, caters to something dark and pernicious dwelling inside every human being. Take THC and you are kept chemically dulled while a Dark Self takes control, absorbing the corrupted personalities of every person who’s ever projected an angry spirit into you.

When consciousness, your protective shield, is suppressed, all hell breaks loose inside your psyche. It’s is a real hell, the kind you’ve read about in Scripture. Meddling with brain chemistry to feel better than you actually are, destroys your chances for a truly peaceful, heavenly life.