In Oklahoma where I live, many peoples’ pet dogs have eaten it and died and children have had to be treated in the hospital for it because they make it in gummies that appeal to children. There are 4 pharmacies within a mile of my neighborhood but at least 8 marijuana shops. And we only have “medical” marijuana, but the regulations are so lax that nearly any adult can qualify.

Since it is now legal, people smoke it in crowds and around kids and vape it in public buildings and claim it is healthy since it is a plant, but society is just trading one poison for another.

True. That shouldn’t necessarily translate into punitive legislation, though.

Hold up. Are we talking about *the drug* being the issue behind asthma (a condition I’ve had from childhood) or *the smoke* inhalation (which not all forms of marijuana usage consist of) ? Whether you personally participate in marijuana use or not, it’s not worse than tobacco, and it’s most definitely not worse than snus or alcohol, all of which are legal to sell in the US to people who are of age (despite snus being banned in nearly all of the European Union). There is no reason simple possession should be a jail offense, let alone be something that leads to long-term sentences, and I question the overlap between people who don’t want the US to be an overly restrictive “nanny state” and the people who don’t care about people spending large portions of their lives behind bars for possessing or selling a plant. (If we’re going to be putting people in jail for that, we should be doing the same for tobacco and especially alcohol, both of which I know many professing church-goers who regularly partake in.) We as Christians need to be more concerned about abuses of prescription painkillers and other “technically legal” drugs, because that’s way more devastating than any concentration of marijuana I’ve ever heard of.