What If Jesus Smoked Pot?

Anti-cannabis statements are often based on some kind of religious morality. Jews and Christians, for instance, consider their religions as one of the main reason why they should not use marijuana. Rabbi Ronen Lubitsch was very clear about it, saying that according to the Jewish law the use of both drugs and medicines is not conceivable, even when their addictive qualities are minimal. But apparently the Rabbi, as many other believers who belong to the Jewish/Christian religious world, doesn’t know very well the history of the plant and how it is talked about in the Bible.

So, the question comes quite naturally: what role does marijuana play in the Bible? In the New Testament the person involved is Jesus Christ himself. The debates of experts and activists focus on “buying perfume”, which appears for the first time in book of Exodus. Until the 1930s, in fact, it was believed that the expression referred to sugar cane or aromatic incense. In 1936, however, the great anthropologist Shula Bennett, who worked in Warsaw, officially stated that “buying perfume” is the translation of “buying cañamo”, which means cannabis in Aramaic. Even the famous Bible expert Chris Bennett, in a research published in 1996, claimed that Jesus was a cannabis user, adding that him and his disciples probably used the plant in their healing rituals.

Furthermore, Jesus often uses the verb “to anoint”. The recipe of the oil he used to anoint his followers was recently published. It was a cannabis-based ointment that contained around 3 pounds of cañamo. Knowing this, Jesus’ healing rituals make a lot more sense: he used cannabis-based ointments to cure epilepsy, eye infections, leprosy and multiple sclerosis, which we now know can be treated with cannabis-based drugs.

The debate remains open, and not all the experts agree with the conclusions I just mentioned. What we know for sure, however, is that the Bible doesn’t condemn the use of cannabis, a plant that God gave to us to improve our life. As a matter of fact, human beings and cannabis have been enjoying each other’s company for centuries, and today people can buy seeds online (http://greenhouseseeds.nl/) and enjoy a myriad of health benefits.

The moral is simple: before saying that religion is against cannabis, make sure the religion you mention is really against cannabis. Because priests and rabbis are just people with ideas, and they do not embody the religion they belong to.