[Avodah] Issur in smoking marijuana?

[Liron Kopinsky]

>
> BTW, while we're on this thread, I'd like to thank those who answered my
> question by pointing out that the addictiveness of drugs, and the tendency
> to hang out with society's lower elements, do make RMF's teshuva apply more
> strongly to drugs than to tobacco and alcohol.
>
> Akiva Miller


"society's lower elements":
It should just be noted from this comment that it would imply that if
marijuana or any other illegal substance were made legal and taxed and
thereby made available at any corner convenience mart that the issur would
apply less strongly? This would mean that there is no inherent issur on the
use of marijuana itself but rather just on the people who it would cause one
to associate with.

"the addictiveness of drugs"
I thought it was scientifically proven that tobacco is way more addictive
(in the medical sense at least) than marijuana?

I would like to believe that the issurim on not using drugs comes more from
the inherent damage that the drug does to one's body as well as the people
around them (whether by second-hand smoke or by second-hand behavior) and
that the use of tobacco or marijuana or the over-use of alcohol would all be
equally prohibitted. (I differentiate between tobacco/marijuana and alcohol
because I would argue that certain substances which are proven to be more
addictive and cannot have safe use should be entirely assur as well, but I
find it hard to place this type of a ban on alcohol for all people because
there are many people who do effectively show appropriate moderation in
their use of alcohol.)

~Liron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20080823/3936293b/attachment-0002.htm>