What The Bible Says About Drugs

Depending on the source, you will ultimately hear or read many interesting statements about drugs and drug use. Some youth think drugs are harmless. Some adults feel there is really such a thing as responsible drug use. Some politicians feel all drugs should be legal because each individual has the constitutional right to pursue happiness in any manner or form available to them, regardless the consequences.

Since 1975 I have talked with some one million youth about the dangers of drug use. From the hundreds of letters and notes I've received from youth after visiting their school and sharing these dangers, I believe many of the youth I spoke to got the message: drug use--from alcohol, marijuana and Ecstasy to cocaine, heroin and meth--can hurt you in some way.

In the hey-day of my drug prevention ministry, I spoke at hundreds of California school districts and their schools. Only once in this entire time has a school district changed its mind about allowing me to share drug truths with its students. Prior to speaking at several of its schools, I spoke to parents and adults at a Marin County school district. They didn't like what they heard.

So they cancelled my school presentations in their school district.

Many of those parents and adults smoked marijuana and used other drugs. That's why they didn't want me to tell the truth about what these drugs would eventually do to their kids if they used drugs.

THE GOSPEL TRUTH

In my "Users Are Losers" presentation to youth, I always share what the Bible says about drugs. The Bible doesn't specifically mention marijuana or cocaine or heroin or other types of drugs. These names were unknown back then. But the Bible does use words that include these types of mind-altering and mind-expanding drugs. These three specific Bible words associated with drug use are:

Witchcraft
Sorcery
Sorcerers

These three words actually mean "to poison or intoxicate the mind with drugs; enchantment with drugs," or in today's drug vernacular, "to get high."

The New Testament was written in Greek. The Greek words for the three words above are:

pharmakeia --intoxicate or poison the mind with drugs
pharmakos -- drug user and/or drug dealer
pharmakeus --drug dealer, or mind poisoner and enchanter of drugs

DRUG SORCERERS, PAID PIPERS, CHEMICAL GURUS AND MIND MERCHANTS

Our English words pharmacy, pharmacist and pharmaceutical are derived from the root of the three Greek words above.

There is a difference between good medicines and bad drugs. Pharmacies and pharmacists assist good doctors in prescribing good and beneficial medicines that heal or take away pain. Then there is the self-proclaimed Dr. Feel Good who peddles "medicinal marijuana" and other illicit drugs as medicines. But these are not FDA or DEA approved medicines. These are "get high" medicines.

I am for good and approved medicines that heal and help. I am against drugs that people say they use to treat an illness or a pain when, in actuality, its main use is to get and stay high while under the influence of that drug. All drug addicts and drug users can live a drug-free life by accepting Jesus as their Savior and  trusting Him to break their habits, whether it is an addiction to pot, alcohol, heroin, or any other psychoactive or psychedelic chemical.

The problem is--most drug users and addicts don't really want to stop taking chemicals. It's all about the 'high." That's what they live for...that's what they fight for...and that's what they will die for as well. That's what the drug sorcerers, chemical gurus, paid pipers and mind merchants are banking on.