Moore on Marijuana: Southern Baptist Thinker Rejects Legalization

Within the past year, opinion polling firms have noticed a leap in support for the legalization of marijuana, currently a Schedule I illegal drug in the United States. One recent CBS poll found majority support for the first time since CBS began polling on the issue, despite the fact that opposition and support were tied at 45 percent less than a year ago. Another Gallup poll found a resounding 58% of Americans supported marijuana legalization. While public support grows, a growing number of states have begun legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana while Colorado became the first state to legalize the drug for recreational use.

It is hardly surprising then, that Dr. Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and leading Southern Baptist ethicist would eventually address the question in his Questions and Ethics podcast. Dr. Moore received a message from a pastor asking where Christians should stand on the question of medical marijuana. “Are you like the Sadducees and Pharisees?” Moore asked half-jokingly, saying the question reminded him of the trick questions the Jewish sects posed to Jesus.

Dr. Moore said the question of medicinal marijuana “is one I hear about a lot,” given the recent pushes on the state level. The push toward legalization, he argued, was driven by forces on both the left and the right. “On the left there is a progressive acceptance of marijuana use that comes out of the counterculture. And then on the right, there’s a libertarian understanding of decreasing law of personal autonomy.” He cautioned that these two forces in both political parties makes it likely that Christians in all parts of the country might soon be faced with the dilemma of whether or not to legalize marijuana.

Dr. Moore differentiated between the recreational use of drugs and their medical use, and that Christians are permitted do the latter. “What I would say is there are all sorts of mind-altering drugs that are given to severely ill people in order to correct their illness, and sometimes put them out of consciousness. I think of morphine for instance. I think that’s ethically alright.” He cited Proverbs 31:6 in which the mind-altering aspects of alcohol are approvingly described as being given to a dying man, even though drunkenness is condemned throughout Scripture.

However, Dr. Moore said that the legalization of medical marijuana runs into problems not seen in other drugs. In making his point, he quoted extensively from a CNN opinion piece written by political commentator David Frum:

…”medical marijuana” is a laughable fiction. In California, the typical user of so-called medical marijuana is a 32-year-old white man with no life-threatening illness but a long record of substance abuse. Under Colorado’s now-superseded medical marijuana regime, only 2% of those prescribed marijuana suffered from cancer, and only 1% from HIV/AIDS. Some 94% cited unspecified “pain” as the justification for their pot prescription.

“This is not something that is being given to people with terminal cancer,” Dr. Moore pointed out, “…it is something that is being given very indiscriminately with a substance that has a long cultural history in this country of essentially inducing a kind of immediate drunkenness which is of course is prohibited in Scripture for a believer: ‘Be not drunk.’

While he reiterated that a sick person who obtained a medical marijuana prescription where legal was not sinning, Dr. Moore ultimately stated “…[I]f I were in a state where medical marijuana was on the ballot, I would vote against it.”

Dr. Moore’s stance is certainly in line with the Southern Baptist Convention’s stalwart opposition to alcohol. He stated that virtually all agree that drunkenness at least is prohibited by Scripture, making his advice applicable to all Christians.

“What does the normalization of marijuana usage do to people?” he asked. “We already have a tremendous issue of wrecked lives in this country when it comes to alcohol abuse, and we have a tremendous issue in this country of wrecked lives when it comes to prescription pain [pill] addiction.” He noted that very few seriously believe that marijuana use was a good thing, citing its damage to work ethic and general life.

“…[T]he people who tend to get hurt in all of these situations aren’t those who are in the cultural elite, who often are the ones who are normalizing these things culturally,” Dr. Moore said. Instead, he said the people who get hurt are those on the bottom of the rung, while big businesses scoop up profits.

“As Christians, I think we need to recognize what’s happening here… There is an industry, just as Big Tobacco was an industry that had a cheap product that was able to hook people in, we have the same sort of industry involved here with marijuana.”