[Avodah] Is there an issur in smoking marijuana?

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 02:55:28PM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: Rav Moshe Feinstein wrote about this in Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah
: 3:35...
: He then gives his reasons. I found it interesting that violating the
: local civil laws is NOT among them. Of course, it is best to study his
: actual words directly, but my summary of his reasoning is:

: -- It is physically harmful.
: -- It damages the mind so that one cannot think straight, which prevents
:    one from learning Torah properly, and also prevents one from prayer and
:    other mitzvos.
: -- It leads to a desire (addiction?) which some are unable to keep in
:    check, which is the prohibition faced by the Ben Sorer uMoreh.
...
: -- It also violates Kedoshim Tihyu as explained by Ramban.

BTW, addiction is a violation of qedoshim tihyu - perushim tihyu,
since a desire one can't control (perhaps the definition of addiction)
is the one thing all agree perishus applies to. I think one of these two
(listed out of order for comparison) are redundant.

I am not the first to note that these objections would apply to
cigarettes or alcohol. The difference here is that:

1- Both apply at once. Not sure that's relevent.

2- Beyond DDD, which is a quagmire to pasqen which laws are "dina
demalkhusa", there is a secondary effect: 

: -- The reason given for the Ben Sorer uMoreh also applies to this case:
:    He will eventually come to rob others.
: -- It also leads to many other prohibitions.

Because it's illegal, willingness to smoke pot places on in a bad peer
group. It also culturally got associated with crime. Add that to
addiction and you have blatant similarlities to the BSuM.

And in that way, it's dissimilar to cigarettes or alcohol (since
prohibition, and even during prohibition, it was much less an "underground
society" thing).

Libertarians may use this argument as reason to legallize marijuana.
However, until the law changes, that's the metzi'us about which R' Moshe
wrote.

: But if that is so, then what would he say about occasional and light
: use of alcohol? Which of Rav Moshe's arguments would apply to a few puffs
: of a marijuana cigarette, but not to a few shots of whiskey? Does anyone
: know if he ever spoke or wrote about this?

It takes far more shots of whisky to create the same level of addiction.
Smoking is more iffy; I think nicotine is more addictive than marijuana.
(Although I don't know if that's only chemical addiction, or if it also
takes into account the greater psychological feedback loop.)

IOW, taking one's first cigarette raises venishmartem issues because it
will take that much more work not to take a second. The occasional user
is living with a desire he'd be better off not playing with.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Time flies...
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