– Mark Christopher  

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It has been said that the first casualty of war is truth. Many confuse the issue of cannabis (“dagga”, etc) by co-mingling two different aspects of the debate — medical versus recreational use of marijuana. In truth, while related, these are two separate ethical issues that Christians need to approach differently. 

Ever since the US states of Colorado and Washington legalized the recreational use of dagga, there has been major pressure from the world’s media and pro-pot advocates to push for legalisation of the wizard weed for more than medicinal purposes. In part, the issue came to the fore here in South Africa when IFP MP Mario Oriano-Ambrosini, who has stage four lung cancer, told parliament he uses dagga oil for its palliative properties to help manage the ill-effects of his treatments.  

South Africa legalized dagga in 2018, based on truncated logic and blatant propaganda trotted out in hubbly-bubbly fashion to portray cannabis as a Peter-Pan panacea. It’s the same old worn-out arguments that have been in vogue since the 1960s, when the culture took Timothy Leary’s advice to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” Sadly, many who took Leary’s advice failed to ever surface back to reality.   

Here are three of the many flawed arguments based on smoke-screen logic that are used by the pro-pot lobby to convince the public of the benefits of recreational dagga: