Are drugs the new apples of eden?

[flobadob]

Do you think drugs should be treated, in a religious sense, as the new forbidden fruit, in that they are in many cases a natural, god given product which are accessible to us if we so wish, yet we are told not to sample them?

[mandimoo]

i think thats a very interesting question.

[Abdulmajid]

Sorry libertarians, drugs are the evil of modern society.

Ban them forever. They destroy communities, destroy lives and make the most humble of men end up stealing from their own Grandmother.

Following your argument flobadob, God gave us metal and hands, therefore ergo, knife crime is OK.

Tenuous, but could be seen that way.

[raysparx1]

I have seen what drugs have done to my nephew, I detest them with a vengeance, but if it got the scum that supply and get the kids hooked off of the streets, then maybe wizard has a valid point.

[Abdulmajid]

yes, but a cup of coffee and a fag do not destroy communities do they?

[Ice.Maiden]

Sorry. I agree with Abdul. Drugs are the spawn of the devil! The thing is, a bit of weedmight not do much harm, but then again, i've seen people stoned on it, and i certainly wouldn't like to see them behind the wheel of a car in that state - the same as with alcohol. x

[Clanad]

I might add that, at least here in the U.S., statistics indicate that a fairly high percentage of people that experience an addiction to the "heavier" drugs began their drug use with cannabis. Additionally, recent studies have shown long term, irreversable brain damage after prolonged marijuana use. The question arises as to who will pay for the care of individuals who experience, of their own will, such addiction. The numbers of people that would follow such a course, at least intuitively, would increase significantly if control was abandoned totally...
It seems, for some reason, that most of the population can use alcohol on a limited basis without becoming addicted, hence no expense to society. However, the expense to which we're subjected by the individuals who do become alcholics is significant, no?
A friend, who is law enforcement here, has given me a great, first hand education on the effects of production and addiction of methanphetamines. It's use, only once, produces such an emphatic "high" that most users are hooked by that singular experience. The effects are truly startling and destructive to the user... and we all wind up paying for it one way or another...

[rojash]

"I might add that, at least here in the U.S., statistics indicate that a fairly high percentage of people that experience an addiction to the "heavier" drugs began their drug use with cannabis"

Not that old claim again. Did you know that 100% of meths drinkers started out drinking milk as babies? That no more indicates that milk leads to meths than your statistic indicates that cannabis leads to harder drugs.

[flobadob]

There's a reason I put this question in R&S and not Society and Culture...didn't work.

[Clanad]

Well, not wishing to indulge in polemic, rojash, that's has to be one of the most supercilious statements I'v seen in a long while. One hundred percent of people suffering from pnumonia breathe air so, ipso facto air causes the malady? Studies clealry show a causal relationship between marijuana use and the tendency towards harder drugs. "...Of the many surveys on the use of marijuana and other drugs, probably all have demonstrated an empirical association. The marijuana user has a statistically higher likelihood of trying and using a wide range of dangerous drugs than is true of the nonuser; frequency of marijuana use is similarly associated with dangerous drug use." (Source: The Appendix to Drugs in American Society, First Edition, by Erich Goode, Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook )...

[naomi24]

Flobadob, I believe that within nature, there exists a cure for all ills - if only we knew where to look. Heroin, for example, is a wonderful substance and many pain relieving remedies are heroin-based. Likewise, its proven that cannibis offers pain relief. If I was religious (which I'm not), then I would say that God has provided for all our needs, but sadly we abuse that which has been provided (in my mind, by nature). So, yes, drugs used in the way that many people use them, are a forbidden fruit.

[flobadob]

I put this question here as I wanted views on the religious take on drugs and drug use in terms of their being a part of nature, hence god given. Why would we be given these when they are apparently damaging to us. I was trying to steer away from the whole social aspect of it, although important, which as I say is why I didn't go to S&C. Only Naomi seems to have actually read the question before answering. The rest saw the word drugs and went off on the usual pro/anti rhetoric.