Why Christians Should Be Against Drug Prohibition

I don’t use illegal drugs, nor do I promote their use.  But I am very much against the prohibition of drugs.  There are many reasons for this but this short article will address two reasons that I think Christians in particular should be against drug prohibition.

The first reason applies to naturally occurring drugs, such as marijuana:

Genesis 1:11-12
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

It is one thing to disapprove of the use of marijuana as an intoxicant, it is quite another thing to make the plant illegal to grow or possess.  The plant is good, and has many practical uses. If God thinks it’s good, that should be enough reason for Christians to believe that it is good.

Next, free will:

Genesis 2:16-17
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Most Christians believe that God gave us the ability to choose between good an evil because He wanted to man to love Him.  He put man in the Garden of Eden, put a tree in the garden, and told man not to eat from it.  Without that tree, there was no free will.  Without free will, we could not be moral agents – we could be neither bad nor good.  And without free will we could we love God.

How can man be greater than God?  If God allows people to be free to choose between right and wrong, surely it is not man’s place to try to take away that freedom.

The laws of man should punish man for interfering with the rights of others, but not prevent a man from making bad choices.