Tony E said (October 11, 2019):

The mind is the only prison where the keys are located inside the prison walls.

Stephen Coleman said (October 11, 2019):

I am aghast regarding this article. Weed is not a cure for anything, it is a temporary reprieve from problems that can easily and permanently be solved using today's modern energy therapies.

The biggest problem with "mental illness" is, people that suffer with it won't listen to reason and are looking for somebody to wave a magic wand or substance to make it go away.

I once offered a free session for 5 individuals on a mental health forum. I received over 40 people clamoring, begging for a free session. of those 40, ZERO bothered to fill their anonymous preliminary questionnaire, thus nobody had a free session.

Honestly, most cases require only one session and lots of willingness to do self-work. But no, most everybody wants the magic wand waved at them and poof all their dreams come true.

Yeah, just take a few puffs on a joint and your life is fixed and your fairy godmother will do the rest.

G said (October 10, 2019):

You sure did take some heat for highlighting the virtues of bud.
Seems there's always been two worlds. The stoned and the straight.
There are a few unusual souls in the middle and I like them a lot.
They're out of the box but not in the big container. Anyway, you were honest. Some will get ya and some will criticize. They're probably scared. You shook up the straight camp. Too bad LGBT stole the word "straight." It used to be a clear description of those who
didn't inhale.

CK said (October 10, 2019):

I know a lot of people who are helped by this.

People forget the greatest medical discovery of the 20th century was the placebo effect. Clearly 70% is mental, only 30% is physical.

The downside to many of these things that are outside the body is they can become addictive or an attachment.

And the "reality" created by these plant-based mind enhancers is just that, it's another reality. Not saying it's good or bad, it's just different

------------

Just read the comments...looks like you hit the hornet's nest with a stick for a few of your readers! ;)

I think this is simple.

The only answer you will find to this question is inside yourself, if you pursue things outside, you will end up with nothing. You have to look inside yourself and as we Falun Gong practitioners say "to follow the Fa (law), you have to be inside the Fa".

However, this is much, much more difficult than it seems. The natural things are of course much better than the big pharma "sorcery".

Robert K said (October 10, 2019):

No one has mentioned that a key element of social control in Huxley's Brave New World was the ready availability of the feel-good drug Soma.

The attempt to avoid our psychological problems by drug-taking has been promoted, and profited from, by the PTB for decades if not much longer. This is an important component of the matrix whereby the PTB is able to continue to alienate society from its cultural heritage (including a capacity for production spectacular beyond imagination) by means of practicing defective monetary accountancy.

Fix the financial system with the goal of establishing every individual in true freedom (not only by eliminating the bugaboo of interest!) and most human problems of insecurity, conflict and crime will simply vanish.

Linde said (October 10, 2019):

First Comment from Linde

There should be room for the natural mind of our human race and its consciousness. All of the medicinal plants that have been used both ritually and for pains of death and severe injury fall into this category. Cannabis Sativa is one of the great plants – the only medicine I know that will relieve the pain of cancer that has gone to the bone and allow the subject to be lucid and think and converse in an ordinary manner.

It is helping millions with industrial levels of stress inflicted upon us through the social engineering of the Communist reconstruction of our society. NB – it must have the THC. For subjects in less demanding situations – it will alter the consciousness in spacious and interesting ways. It is quite an experience to by-pass the filters we have created for our ordinary life in the world.

There is, however, more to heaven and earth than is experienced by the natural mind. I think the inquiry into consciousness and experience of reality that is supernatural to ours is a different subject. Your readers refer to the Christian experience and yet the historical accounts of the life of Jesus that we possess show him speaking and acting in the common-sense reality that many witnessed and wrote about.

There wasn’t any altered consciousness in the debates with the Pharisees: the terms of reference were things like the vineyards, the winepress, the workers, stewards, the owner and the heir; the healing of the lepers occurred in the street, the discourse with the Samaritan woman at a well.

But there is intrinsic interest in the inbreaking of that supernatural reality into a historical time and place: its people, culture, politics and religious establishment. What they made of it all is just as interesting as what we are making of it – even though for the latter group that may not be much at all. Americans in the public schools are for the most part agnostic with regard to historical events.

The Gospel accounts of the miracles of Christ are just as incredible to them as the executive action of Woodrow Wilson sending the marines to defeat the Russian army for the Bolsheviks, not because the miracles of Christ were supernatural events and the executive action was a covert event (even though attested by many witnesses) , but because both happened a long time ago.

G said (October 10, 2019):

I don't think it's "our own minds" that are holding us, prisoners. Plainly put, I think it's the toxic and dangerous leadership forcing us to live in a world where we are threatened with all manner of degradation and demise. For at least a century, no solutions offered, we cannot ever heal. And it is more difficult for those who do see solution but see it blocked at every turn. Frustrating!!

Each is a king and queen with a Bill of Rights that none can take. Each is living potential, charged with moving life forward. What is forward? Is it a subjective pursuit? Or something more universal? Who can say? But if each spoke for him or her self, I'd bet we'd find at the root of that speaking, a true desire to be free and to make one's life one's own.

This would, of course, not preclude connection or cooperation but would assure that none is above another. If the leadership could reflect this glorious, colorblind, unalienable right, I suspect our mental illness can heal. What could be more anxiety-producing than subjugation?

Lorrraine Day said (October 10, 2019):

How could you ever think that the answer to any type of mental distress or mental illness would be to DRUG yourself?

God has told us to “Be anxious for nothing.” Phil 4:6

“I will NEVER leave you or forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 14:27

The Bible calls Drugs (including drug medications) SORCERIES and WITCHCRAFT.

The Greek word for pharmacy (pharmakeia) means SORCERIES (Revelation 18:23)

Drugs are from Satan. They alter your mind. Are you suggesting that God did not make the human mind correctly? And that DRUGS are better than GOD at getting the mind to work properly?

Drugs NEVER cure disease. They only “treat” the symptoms, while the disease continues to progress. That’s why Drugs only change the form or location of the disease, but NEVER cure it.

You’re taking a coward’s way out. You have taken a “Quick Fix” that will come back to bite you! You are playing with fire. And you’re recommending it for other people.

Do you ever study the Bible?

Why don’t you deal with the REAL cause of your mental distress, and that is the dysfunctional lifestyle that is a part of the life of almost every Jew. The only One who can cure that “dysfunctionality" is Jesus Christ.

You need Jesus Christ - NOT marijuana!

Marcos said (October 10, 2019):

The problem I see in this well-intentioned article is that it makes the absence of trouble or distress the main objective in a person's life. It's not. Knowledge, faith, and love are, and most of the times they happen through suffering. Good people suffer and get anxious because suffering is the best way to show our need for God and the sorry state of our human condition. Only then can we surrender to God on His terms (not ours) and find a different kind of peace given by the Holy Spirit by faith in Jesus, one that is more based on trust and faith than the momentary well being and good feelings.

Jesus promised the comfort of the Holy Spirit and not the comfort of a joint. Marijuana is a distraction and a hindrance to the true path, which is narrow and hard. The Spirit will not work and teach someone who chooses an easier remedy. God calls us to "reason together" with Him, not to be anesthetized. Worse, this line of reason leads to drugs like ayahuasca, which often causes suicide, murder, and demonic oppression. It's a slippery slope.

Kevin in Houston said (October 10, 2019):

Today’s column was such a breath of fresh air.

I’ve come to crave your articles about both the need for higher consciousness and the healing powers of cannabis; they reflect much of my own experience, it’s encouraging to see the same realizations occurring in others.

Your column is a daily treat. I hope you keep it up for a good long time

Kathleen said (October 9, 2019):

With respect to your article "We suffer from mental illness," I disagree that the answer is marijuana edibles, or in fact, any created substance: drugs, marijuana, wine, alcohol, etc.

These substances, in moderation, are pleasant, no more and no less. But they are not gateways to the divine; in fact, they are far from that. If we enjoy - again, in moderation - these substances, fine.

But as soon as we elevate these to a passage to God, we are falling into the devil's trap. The only path to the Divine God is the narrow path, the difficult path: prayer, a life of virtue, for those who are Catholic, the sacraments. There are no shortcuts, and in fact, anything that promises to be a shortcut, is, at best,a waste of time and, at worst, a lure of Satan to keep us away from God.

--

Thank you Kathleen for this eloquent reply

While I respect your view, my experience has been different from what you say.

henry

Richard Z (UK) said (October 9, 2019):

I'm a great respecter of your writings and I tend to read your daily post.
Today's post however regarding Cannabis I am rather wary of.
You make it sound like "Cannabis is the way, the truth and the life".
I can't find that in my Bible.
However in John 14:6 we have the very verse that challenged me back in 1983 and then led me to Christ.
The Lord Jesus Christ says:-
"I am the way, the truth and the life"
And in Acts 4:12 it says:-
"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name (Jesus Christ) under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
These are exclusive statements which I and millions of other people down through the ages have found to be true.
"For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints." (1 Corinthians 14:33).
Thanks again for all your writings.
Yours in the Saviour Jesus' precious Name,
--

Thanks Richard

I believe I am describing what Christ is talking about.

henry

Scott said (October 9, 2019):

nteresting approach, but legalization is being implemented for two reasons.

#1) The financial elite figured an alternative to money laundering, although we're talking about marijuana and not cocaine and heroin.

#2) Even more importantly, it's basically another Opium War. They want the populace drunk, overweight, under-informed/misinformed, sick, confused, sex-obsessed...and HIGH.

So, people had better exercise extreme caution when something like this is being waved at them.

Mike M said (October 9, 2019):

This is interesting Henry, the holy men down in South and Central America, use LSD like drugs, to enter the spiritual world, and meet divine beings.

Actor Cary Grant swore by LSD, used on him by shrink in 50s, he had crippling anxiety as a youngster, his mom went insane, where he said, he would of went without LSD intervention????

Think, the elites know God has our cures here in Mother Nature, they don't want you to have access too!