I only have a few minutes to post. Many readers are aware of the fact that I am a recovering addict. I have certainly smoked out many times. Pot is a powerfully mind-altering drug that can have many very negative long term social and psychological consequences. Right now, a member of my wife’s family is struggling with a literal addiction to marijuana. He has not been able to quit. We had an intervention for him about a year ago and he tried to get clean but has not been able to. He lives in Colorado. He cannot get away from the pot. It is everywhere out there now.
The notion put forth by many cannibis advocates and High Times readers that marijuana is a harmless drug with virtually no side effects is a complete lie. As is their claim that marijuana is non-addictive.
The human mind is incredibly powerful and little understood. One of the things I have taken away from NA over the years is that people can get addicted to anything. No Doz, Robitussin, Diphenhydramine……I have known people hooked on them all. People can develop powerful psychological dependence on marijuana, too. A young man is putting his wife and family through enormous stress and strain right now because of such dependence. Never believe the lies of pot addicts that their habit is safe and harmless.
Officials in the state of Colorado have been shocked to see how much marijuana usage has exploded in that state since legalization. This is a warning I guess for people like me who have grave reservations about the effects of the drug war and are somewhat ambivalent about the ongoing system of prohibition in this country. The data shows that pot usage is 2x what was expected, with the vast preponderance of that usage coming from hardcore smokers like my family member. Then there is the tourist trade, with travelers to Colorado apparently indulging quite a bit. Some of the data:
Colorado Is Consuming Way More Pot Than Anyone Ever Believed | TIME// // // //
About 9% of Colorado’s population consumes marijuana, according to a market demand study conducted by the state department of revenue’s Marijuana Enforcement Division and the state’s Marijuana Policy Group. And those users, it’s estimated, will get through about 121.4 metric tons of pot every year.
According to the report, that consumption — calculated through survey results, demographic data and source data — is “31 percent higher than a recent department of revenue assessment, 89 percent higher than a study by the Colorado Futures Center, and 111 percent higher than an older study by the Colorado Center for Law and Policy.”
……According to the study, published Wednesday, the bulk of the demand for the drug comes from the most frequent users. About 21.8% of users report consuming marijuana almost daily, accounting for 66.9% of the total demand in the state. That constitutes a lot of consistent tokers. Across the country, only 17% of American adults consume marijuana that frequently, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
Many of these heavy smokers will (or already have) develop full-blown addiction, and some will transition to harder drugs. Many will first try those harder drugs while high on marijuana.
From the Catholic standpoint, we understand that any substance that degrades our mental faculties or causes us to lose control of the will is sinful. Marijuana certainly falls into both categories. Getting high is a grave sin. And that young man in Colorado I know has been a pretty faithful Catholic, if totally in the Novus Ordo environment, so he may have never even heard that he is committing grave sin while getting high.
Not good. Data like this give me pause, and take away much of that ambivalence I have had for the “war on drugs.” If this is what happens when pot is legalized, what would it be like with meth, heroin, and the rest? Continued prohibition may be entirely necessary.
I expect we will see more of this. A deranged pro-abort attacked some peaceful pro-life protesters outside a public building in Columbus, OH. There have been some follow-up interviews with the attacker in which she makes plain she has absolutely no concept of what constitutes assault, battery, stages of fetal development, the First Amendment, etc. In short, she is a deluded and ignorant woman, who needs many prayers.
Video of the assault below, big language warning, this woman is the definition of unhinged (first f-bomb comes about 2 seconds in):
This woman has so drunk the pro-abort kool-aid. “Clump of cells at 12 weeks,” I’m sure that’s what they told her when she had her abortion(s). Here is what a baby at 12 weeks looks like:
Deceased 12 week old:
My God what a tragedy for a person to believe such demonic lies. In point of fact, a baby stops being a “clump of cells” after just a few days, but even then, it is still a person.
Given all the idiocy she spouts about racism – which seems hilarious, as she is lily white – and “white male privilege,” it’s pretty obvious this fast food worker (with possible advanced degrees in gender studies/queer theory) has drank deeply from the leftist hate-mongering trough.
This assault does raise an interesting question. Does the increasingly radical and militant rhetoric from the pro-abort camp, with constant talk of “war on women,” “if you don’t have a uterus you have no right to talk about it,” and the fear-mongering that the pro-abort left uses, help precipitate attacks like these? We have seen the pro-abort left and militant atheists grow more and more extreme in rhetoric and violent in action in the past few years. I have experienced this personally myself. I am not one to think that broad cultural memes excuse people’s actions at all, but perhaps the converse is true: that extremist baby- and man-hating rhetoric that feminists like this are steeped in causes some of them to act out their rage in more concrete ways.
Her name is Victoria Duran, btw. That makes it easier to pray for her conversion and healing.
A little education for Miss Duran (her father’s name? – what a slave of patriarchy!). Here is what a baby looks like at even 5 weeks:
Hands eyes heart brain……not a clump of cells. It is, in fact, obviously human.
Poor lost souls like this. Each one a tragedy, and there are hundreds of millions of them, worldwide.
This is what comes of the rejection of Christendom and hating God. Just demonic evil.
Sermon given on July 6, Feast day of St. Maria Goretti. Discusses Saint’s family and life, her martyrdom, her great witness, charity, and forgiveness in death, the conversion of her attacker, etc.
St. Maria Goretti’s murderer fell into diabolically disordered lust due to looking at bad books. This led to his unhinged lust which caused him to attack the Saint.
Very edifying sermon. Thanks to Video Sancto for putting this up.
UPDATE: I don’t know why the URL to youtube got messed up! Think it is now finally fault.
I posted a few weeks back about Bishop Michael Olson’s plan to assist in choir at the Fort Worth TLM this Sunday at 5pm. This is at St. Mary of the Assumption parish. Those who regularly assist at this weekly TLM are hoping for a big turnout. They feel confident that a large crowd may help in bringing a regular, daily TLM to Fort Worth. It could lead to an FSSP parish in Cowtown, rather than the current situation of Fraternity priests from Dallas offering Mass weekly there.
I know many local traditional Catholics read this blog. You may have already seen an e-mail on this matter. I know we love our parish in Irving, and we might prefer Mass in the morning, but this is a rare opportunity to take some small action that may help the TLM expand in a neighboring diocese.
Please, in your charity, consider assisting at this Mass!
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