These myths show up in a variety of channels in the media and elsewhere, notably pro-marijuana websites, which are eager to draw in more customers to the unhealthy habit, so the weed advocates as an industry can make more money.

These myths appear in college papers and online. The users are eager to believe they don’t have a problem, so they have invented an entire mythology about this plant. Here are only ten of Big Marijuana’s myths and the counterarguments.

I. Marijuana And Society

A. The myths

Myth 1: Tax revenues from marijuana sales will benefit net state revenues and pay for social costs

Let’s do a comparison. Alcohol creates costs to society through criminal conduct, treatment, unemployment, and healthcare. In Arizona, for every dollar that the government collects through taxes, society pays out $10.00 in those costs (Bennett and White 104).

Nationally, by taxing tobacco and alcohol, we collect $40 billion annually, but we about lose $400 billion annually from lost productivity, premature illness, accidents and death (104-05).

So it is true that Colorado has collected an estimated $12 million to $21 million from January to July 2014, from marijuana sales (the figures vary). But it is not difficult to predict, from the numbers for alcohol and tobacco, that the social monetary costs will far exceed the taxes. Pew Charitable Trust predicts taxes will fall short by 46 percent (107).

Myth 2: Holland is an unqualified success story

Holland doesn’t use the word legalization, since it violates international law. But they decriminalized it in 1976.

Holland has also discovered some problems with decriminalizing marijuana. From 1976 to the early 1980s there was little change in its consumption. Then the “coffee shops” found out they can increase customer usage by advertizing and allowing foreigners and tourists to buy their product. In 1996, seeing the results, five hundred local communities were given the choice to allow such coffee shops within their jurisdictions or not, and three-quarters said no.

As normalization of marijuana worked its way through Dutch society, marijuana usage across the population more than doubled from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. For users between eighteen- to twenty-year-olds, use went from 15 percent in 1984 to 44 percent in 1996, or nearly 300 percent.

Further, black market dealers take advantage of the limit on how much customers can buy in the coffee shops, but the dealers sell as much as the customer wants outside. Correspondingly, with liberalization of one drug comes other drugs; Holland has become a magnet of criminal types. France and Great Britain estimate that 80 percent of heroin flowing into those two countries come from Holland.

Finally, observing this deterioration, the Dutch had had enough. In 2011, they scaled back lenient laws, banned tourists from going to coffee shops selling marijuana, and reclassified marijuana as a hard drug along with cocaine (Sabet 142-43).

Thus, Holland is not the shining “city on a hill” that the weed advocates would have us believe –unless the city and hill are shrouded in a certain kind of smoke.

Related: the White House has done a study of drug decriminalization in Portugal, and neither is it a shining city on a hill.

Myth 3: The War on Drugs is a failure

To back up that myth, a commonly used historical comparison is cited: Prohibition of Alcohol (1921-1933). Many believe it also was a failure, so the War on Drugs has to be a similar failure.

However, Mark H. Moore, a professor of criminal justice at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, concludes from his study that Prohibition worked in several areas of society (the next four points come from Sabet 118; Bennett and White 108) .

First, alcohol consumption declined significantly, as seen in the decline in deaths from alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver: from 29.5 per 100,000 in men before Prohibition to 10.7 deaths per 100,000 during the ban.

Second, mental hospital admission for alcoholic psychosis went down from 10.1 per 1000,000 persons to less than 5 at the peak of prohibition.

Third, arrests for drunk and disorderly conduct fell by half.

Fourth, homicide rates rose from 1900-1910 (before Prohibition), but remain roughly constant during Prohibition. It’s not hard to predict that incidents of alcohol-related domestic violence similarly declined.

Further, a small example of prohibition succeeding can be seen in Barrow, Alaska, which outlawed alcohol in 1994. The city saw crime decrease by 70 percent; alcohol-related emergency room visits went from 123 to only 23, from the first month before the ban to the month after it. Once the ban was lifted, due to the pro-alcohol push, local detoxification centers filled with patients, and alcohol-related murders rose (Sabet 119).

What about drug use generally after we began the War on Drugs? In 1979, there were over 25 million drug users — over 23 million of them marijuana users — in a population of about 225 million. By 1992 the number went down to 12 million. In other words, 14 percent abused drugs in 1979; by 1992, it declined to 3.4 percent, with a population of 248 million Americans (Bennett and White 112).

A reasonable person should call the War on Drugs a success by any measure.

But then come the web and the weed advocate websites telling us how miraculous legalization would be for society.

Myth 4: Prisons and jails are overcrowded with marijuana offenders

On these websites one reads figures that legalizing marijuana would save the criminal justice system billions of dollars, but these data do not break down offenders by drugs and multiply marijuana’s share of arrests for drug sale and manufacture (Caulkins et al. 130).

The best estimates are that all drug violations account for about one-fifth of incarcerations, and marijuana-only incarcerations account for less than 10 percent of the one-fifth, less than two percent (130).

Heather MacDonald has written a piece about decriminalization in the City Journal, and in one section she has a graph about the number of incarcerations for various crimes other than drugs: The Decriminalization Delusion. Virtually everyone in state prison for possession (as opposed to trafficking) have long arrest and conviction records. Please click on the link for the pie chart and a fuller explanation.

Myth 5: Drug cartels would disappear after marijuana legalization

This myth is related to the one about the War on Drugs.

In Colorado, Mexican cartels are eager to get involved in legalized marijuana. There has been zero decline in black market marijuana growth and production, as the drug trafficking organizations control about 65 percent of operations in Colorado forests. Crime around dispensaries, such as outright robbery, has gone up (Bennett and White 137).

Further, Rand Corporation has been studying the possible impact of legalizing marijuana in California. Would this reduce drug trafficking revenues? Rand estimates that about 3 percent of the cartels’ profits would diminish (102-03). That drop is not enough to motivate traffickers to withdraw.

Black markets and sumptuary laws work together. The Tax Foundation reports that smuggled cigarettes cut into the retail markets by 55 percent in New York, 50 percent in Arizona, New Mexico, and Washington. The black marketers are trying to beat the high tax on and the high price of cigarettes (105). The same profit motive for legal marijuana will create a similar black market, to beat the “sin” tax.

The truth is that cartels have strong motives to stay involved with marijuana (and other drugs, along with prostitution, gambling, and other vices), so the cartels and black markets will never disappear, and law enforcement will always have to stay in the fight.

B. Summary

The human and monetary social cost of legalizing marijuana is too high. It normalizes and commercializes the product, thus lowering the barrier that the law erects. Impressionable youths will see nothing wrong with smoking or eating it. “It’s legal, man!”

Legalization won’t cure state and local budgets by taxing the product, when they have to spend a lot more money in other areas of society that marijuana degrades and damages.

Related crimes and black markets will still persist.

It is best if we keep the status quo of illegality, but reduce sentencing for simple possession of a small amount and impose a large fine or jail time for selling it or for possessing a huge amount.

States that have legalized it by the ballot initiative have acted unwisely because the medical community says the product is unsafe.

And no reputable private or governmental institute — certainly not the FDA — recommends smoking or eating marijuana in self-administered, unstandardized doses to cure or treat diseases and pain.

Therefore the states that have legalized it for recreational or medical purposes must educate themselves and vote to repeal the law.

And states that are thinking about doing so must not go down this path.

II. Marijuana and You

A. The Myths

Myth 1: Marijuana’s potency today is meek and mild

We are far from the “Woodstock marijuana” of 1969.

At the University of Mississippi, the Potency Monitoring Project (PMP) has been underway for the past several decades, measuring the THC concentrations in confiscated marijuana. The trend is clear: the proportion of samples has grown from ten percent from before 2002 to forty percent today.

It is true that low-grade marijuana is purchased by the majority of customers, but the average potency in nearly all products has risen (Caulkins et al. 28-29).

This high-potency marijuana is called “turbo marijuana” (Bennett and White 17). To draw comparisons with alcohol, in some marijuana products the difference in potency from past decades to now is like drinking a lite beer versus twelve shots of vodka a day (Sabet 35).

Myth 2: Marijuana is harmless and even good for your otherwise healthy body

As difficult it is to believe, some students say it’s healthy for them. Of course this belief defies common sense and science. Any chemical- and carcinogen-laden smoke that enters the lungs and into the bloodstream is bound to damage the body and tweak the brain.

Currently, the best science has come up with at least twelve health risks ***********:  addiction from the higher potency strains (and all strains are potent); heart disease and strokes, which have actually occurred in young users; lung damage; brain chemistry damage and change of brain structure and memory loss in adolescents and other heavy users; schizophrenia and other psychoses; drop in IQ by eight to twelve points in adolescents and other heavy users; poor performance at school and on the job; and car crashes, since marijuana impairs motor skills and reaction time.

Users read on pro-marijuana websites that these studies are tainted by Big Business (e.g. Big Pharma) and Big Government. However, why wouldn’t Big Pharma get involved in the manufacture and sales of marijuana if it becomes legal? It seems their “profit motive” would lead them to sponsor studies that conclude there is nothing wrong with the product, certainly not enough wrong to stop its legalization.

As for Big Government, one conspiracy deserves another: the government should push studies to conclude that marijuana is harmless (when it’s really harmful), so the government can keep people stupid and get more taxes and impose more control over them.

And what about Big Marijuana? Don’t legalization advocates have a “profit motive” to deny common sense and challenge science that doesn’t suit them, so they can get more customers and therefore more money?

Instead, let’s follow common sense and science: smoking or eating marijuana is unhealthy.

Myth 3: “Marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol”

Those were President Obama’s off-the-cuff and unwise words.

But let’s appeal to common sense again. Alcohol is legal and readily available; more people drink it, so the monetary costs to society from drunkenness are higher than those from marijuana, which is not consumed as often because it isn’t (yet) legal nationally. This argues against legalization of marijuana. If we legalize the mythologized plant, we’re making the same mistake twice.

Further, there is only one reason why someone smokes marijuana: to get high. In contrast, someone can drink an aperitif before dinner or a couple of glasses of wine with dinner and not get high. A small amount of dark red wine can even be heart-healthy. In reply, students say I shouldn’t compare a joint to a glass of wine. A half a bottle of wine is closer. They’re right, considering turbo marijuana that is currently being sold.

Nonetheless, getting drunk from a half-bottle of alcohol or high from one joint are symptoms of a deeper problem.

But the difference is clear: alcohol in moderation, particularly wine, which does not get a person inebriated, is not the same as smoking a joint that always gets a user high. And if a marijuana smoker believes that marijuana does not get him high (some students believe this), then why inhale smoke?

Both the alcoholic and stoner should stop. Maybe they should eat healthy, exercise with a brisk walk, and read a book. This evens out the brain chemicals people were born with naturally, not artificially manipulated with an outside substance.

Myth 4: Smoking or eating marijuana is a safe “delivery system” for medical purposes

–“We will use [medical marijuana] as a red herring to give marijuana a good name”–

Keith Stroup, 1979, head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) (qtd. in Sabet 55)

In no other area of medicine is it allowed or recommended to smoke a plant or eat candy or brownies or whatnot in unstandardized doses for medical purposes. The FDA has never recommended this delivery system.

Do we chew on the opium plant to get morphine or the willow bark to get our daily dose of aspirin? Whatever medicine exists in these plants needs to be extracted so the medicine can be controlled (Sabet 57).

The FDA writes in 2013:

… [T]here is currently sound evidence that smoked marijuana is harmful … [N]o sound scientific studies support[s] medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use. There are alternative FDA-approved medications in existence for treatment of many of the proposed uses of smoked marijuana. (updated in 2014)

Further, Rent-a-docs are an open mockery as they prescribe marijuana either by smoking it or eating “edibles.” They need to be held liable in a court of law, if something goes wrong with their “patients.”

Accordingly, after warning real doctors to exercise great care in prescribing approved forms of cannabis (i.e. synthetic versions), the American Society of Addiction Medicine writes, “ASAM rejects smoking as a means of drug delivery since it is not safe.”

The American Medical Association recommends placing a warning label on marijuana products that are not approved by the FDA, but are legal by the vote. The label should read: “Marijuana has a high potential for abuse. It has no scientifically proven, currently accepted medical use for preventing or treating any disease process in the United States.”

And so far the only forms approved by the FDA are in pills.

Myth 5: It’s my body, so I can do what I want with it without bothering anyone else

This is called autonomy: the right to self-rule. In reply, however, private behavior always seeps out into public. No one makes drug consumption choices by himself; he is usually influenced by others. If marijuana is popular or fashionable, then people are drawn to it (Caulkins et al. 121-24).

Substance abuse—whether strong doses of alcohol or harder drugs or marijuana—monetarily and personally impacts society and is never an individual matter. By keeping marijuana illegal, if the law can prevent some measure of private self-damage that always leaks out into the public sphere, then it is worth the modest cost.

B. Summary

To be “blunt” but truthful, marijuana legalizers—Big Marijuana—have told half-truths and outright lies against common sense and the science that doesn’t suit them, to snare as many customers as they can, so the advocates as a whole can make more money. It’s a commercial enterprise.

One gets the impression that if the science suited them, they would suddenly drop their politicized and commercialized hyper-skepticism and celebrate the results.

Further, claiming or implying that smoking or eating only marijuana can relieve suffering, the legalizers also manipulate people’s natural compassion on those who suffer with diseases and pain. But here again science does not support their claims. Of course any substance that tweaks the brain is bound to provide some relief, but smoking or eating it is not a wise and safe delivery system.

Therefore, states that have legalized marijuana for recreational or medical purposes must reverse their course.

And states contemplating doing so must not go down this smoky path.

III. Biblical Point of View

A. No intoxication

The Bible forbids intoxication of any kind. In this next verse it is prohibiting drunkenness with wine, but cannabis also intoxicate:

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18)

Here is a long list of vices. Note drunkenness in bold font:

¹⁹ The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹ and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Gal. 5:19-21, emphasis added)

Alcoholism from regular cannabis smoking or ingestion can exclude someone from the kingdom of God in the future, the eternal kingdom. God is willing to work with you until you break the habit.

Jesus warns against it and partying, just before the Second Coming. People have to be vigilant and sober-minded:

“Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. (Luke 21:34, emphasis added)

Jesus tells this parable to be vigilant. But the servant in charge of the household stray from the master’s warning:

⁴⁸ But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ ⁴⁹ and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. (Matt. 24:48-49)

The Second coming has not happened yet. So do not get morally and spiritually lazy. Stay sober until the Blessed Hope, the Return of the Lord happens.

Other verses: Proverbs 20:1; 23:20-21, 23-35; Isaiah 26:7-8; 56:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:6-8; 1 Timothy 3:3, 8; Titus 1:7; 2:3.

B. Question and Answer

But the Bible allows drinking wine. And didn’t Jesus turn the water into wine?

Yes, the Bible says those two things, but it still forbids drunkenness. Marijuana gets someone intoxicated every time he or she smokes it. If it does not, then why smoke it? It hurts the lungs, as the American Lung Association says. In another post, I will list the other harms it does to the body.

C. Your bodies are consecrated to God.

You cannot spend your bodies in any way you please. You have to walk in holiness and dedication to God.

These verses talk about sexual immorality, but the principle of dedication to God is the same:

¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

You must honor your body and not get it drunk with alcohol or intoxicated with cannabis.

D. Renew your minds.

You must present your bodies to be a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. Then allow God’s indwelling Spirit to renew your mind.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.  ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Rom. 12:1-2)

Recall that Ephesians 5:18, quoted above, says to be filled with the Spirit. Peter was filled with the Spirit three times (Acts 2:1-4; 4:8, 31). You must ask God to fill you with the Spirit many times in your lifetime. This infilling will replace your need for intoxicants.

E. Pray this prayer

Heavenly Father, I repent of my use of intoxicating drugs or drink, including cannabis. I renounce them. I surrender to the Lordship of Jesus. I declare him to be Lord of all of my life, in every area. I renounce and rebuke any demonic influence in my life. Fill me with the Spirit, right now. In Jesus’s name, amen.

Please go to a Bible-teaching, Spirit-filled church, which can help you overcome any addictions you may have.

This post updates and reformats two earlier ones here:

Five Myths about Marijuana and Society

Five Myths about Marijuana and You

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