Cannabis Legalisation: Is Voting No the Christian Option?

I’m a Christian, and I’m voting for the Cannabis Legalization and Control Bill.

Now, that may surprise you, or it might not. I think there is a perception that as a person of faith I should naturally be against this sort of thing. And I get why that perception is there, as I’ve had conversations with many of my own faith whanau, I’ve had a lot of people tell me that their reason for voting no is because of their faith.

And I get that, equally, my faith informs my view also.

Though personally I hate the boxes, I grew up in what you would probably call a fairly conservative, Christian home. We believed in right and wrong, black and white, and beneath all that was the belief that we as people were called to Love and care for others. Loving others when it came to drug reform, meant standing up and speaking out against the evils of cannabis and other drugs like it. Drugs were wrong, and they had to be resisted. Why would we legalize something that would hurt people, and do damage to our communities? I remember thinking that those Greenie’s advocating for legalization were off their rockers.

Until I began practicing as a Youth Development Worker.

Now, I’ll be honest, my view didn’t change overnight. When I first began my career I would see a young person struggling, wrestling with depression, with anxiety, finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning, and near impossible to get to school, I’d note their use of cannabis, and I’d think, far out this drug’s the worst. Over the years, experience has taught me something different. Healthy people don’t take a puff of cannabis and suddenly become addicted. Addiction is always a symptom of some deeper hurt, a coping mechanism to help someone survive, cope, or make sense of what they are going through. The drug is very rarely the problem, the problem is what lies underneath.

And what lies beneath is often trauma, mental illness, abuse, disconnection, or all of the above.

As I’ve discussed in a previous article, all the harms that are associated with cannabis use exist currently. The key difference between prohibition and legalization, is that under prohibition we are closing our eyes to this reality, while legalization is an attempt to deal with these issues head on.

I’m voting yes, because I believe that the best way to address the harms associated with cannabis is through legalisation and regulation.

But, for some of us there will still be a strong sense that using cannabis is just wrong, and if it is wrong, than surely we have a duty to put a line in the sand and stand for what’s right, regardless of what the outcome might be?

And yet, if we can acknowledge that prohibition isn’t working, that rather than keeping people safe, it is actually exacerbating the harms that already exist, and if we can acknowledge that cannabis already exists, and that our young people, and hey let’s be honest, people in general are using it and have access to it already, and if we can acknowledge that it is the people in our communities who we’ve made most vulnerable who suffer the most as a result of prohibition, than what is left is the feeling that this is wrong, so how can we condone it?

The challenge for those of us within the Christian community is that many of us grew up with a picture of God that was very black and white. There was right, and there was wrong, and God always stood on the side of right. It was clear cut. There was no grey. So, when we come to complex questions like this, questions where the answers essentially exist in the grey, it can be hard for us to navigate.

But, is the Divine really as black and white as we’ve been taught to believe?

In the Christian tradition we see The Divine bending down to accommodate the messiness, and sometimes even evil, cultural reality of his people. He steps into their world, he allows them to see him, experience him, and by doing so, journeys with them to move another step closer to where he is leading them. The ancient Hebrew sacrificial system is a perfect example of this. If you pay attention to the narrative of the scriptures, you will note that it is the people, not the Divine, who first demand animal sacrifice. Within Ancient Near Eastern culture, animal sacrifice was a way of communicating to the gods that made sense to people. It was imperfect, and though later They condemn the sacrificial system as flawed and outside of the Divine’s original plan, we see through the narrative of scripture the Divine stoops down and joins the Hebrews where they are at. The Divine accommodates this cultural reality, and as the story continues, They critique it, and in doing  so also use it to reveal more of Themselves to humanity (I've discussed this in more detail here).

But, what has this to do with drug reform?

We’ve already acknowledged that for people who belong to my faith community, many of us have been conditioned to think of the Divine as a being who deals with the world in absolutes. Black or white, right or wrong, in or out. But, the world isn’t black or white, it is a thousand shades of grey,  and even within our own Scriptures we see this image of the Divine who instead of being removed from the messiness of this world, actually steps into it and becomes intimately involved in every hue.

Right and wrong is not so easy to define in every situation, and sometimes what will do the most good eventually, is complex, and messy, and imperfect.

I believe that legalization and control of cannabis is one of those situations. It’s imperfect, I won’t for one moment argue that there aren’t harms associated with it, yet by keeping it in the shadows we allow those harms to continue unchecked, and the people affected to suffer unsupported. And yet, through regulating, and legalizing cannabis we have an opportunity to wade into the messiness of our communities, and of people’s lives. We have an opportunity to acknowledge the harm that is being inflicted upon our people through prohibition, and through the harms caused by addiction, and meet people where they are, dealing with the world as it is. I see the Divine in this approach, seeking to meet us where we’re at, engaging with us in the imperfect, while moving us a step closer to healing and wholeness.

We have a saying in my team at work, “we deal with the reality”. By that we mean that we face full on the reality of what the people we serve are going through. We Embrace the Messiness of their lives, and in doing so, we embrace them. We commit to not turning a blind eye to their suffering, but to face it head on, no matter how painful, imperfect, or even wrong it may seem to us.

The reality is, that all the harms that have been named in the Say Nope to Dope campaign, are harms that our people are experiencing right now. We either close our eyes and pretend like they don’t exist, or we deal with the reality, and through regulation and control, we seek to find a way to address those harms.

 The world is so much more complex than simple binary answers to complex and difficult questions. And in our own scriptures we see evidence of the Divine operating in the world in a manner which embraces and acknowledges these complexities.

Rev. Chris Huriwai, referring to Tikanga and talking about how Maori engage with Tikanga today made the point in a recent podcast that “we are not our Tupuna”, he went on to say that they are not here, we are. The ways of the past help to guide and direct us for the future, but the questions of today are our questions, and ones we must wrestle with, and find answers for.

I think there is something similar to be said about the Christian Scriptures. To often we look at the Bible as if it’s an instruction manual for today, with answers for today’s questions which can be downloaded at our own convenience. But, the Christian scriptures are far more beautiful that that. In them we see reflected the spiritual journey’s of our ancestor’s, we discover a posture for how to engage in this world, and we learn something about the nature of the Divine. But, our ancestors never had to face the questions we are facing this election. The issue’s we are facing are complex, and if we are going to truly live and walk in the spirit of those who have gone before us, we must do more than look backwards. We must engage with the issues that are in front of us, and drawing on both our shared values, and the traditions we hold to, chart a new course for our future.

As people of faith we are often put into boxes, not just by those outside our own community, but by those within it as well. We are told that there are certain ways that we should vote, and certain ways that we shouldn’t. That we can’t be Christian and support a party who has voted for abortion, or supports euthanasia, or advocates for the legalization of cannabis. And yet, there are Christian’s across the political spectrum, and their vote on each of these issues will be as diverse as they are. The challenge is for us to engage with these issues critically, and to avoid giving simplistic answers, to what are actually very, very complex questions.

If after exploring the issue you believe that the best vote for our people is to vote no, than there is no judgement here. However, if you can agree that the status quo isn’t working, and if you acknowledge the harms that are created, and the people who are being hurt as a result of it, and can see how this Bill could help reduce those harms, and help those people, and only reason you have left to vote no is that you’re a Christian and doing drugs is wrong, than I would ask you to think again.

A.J. Hendry is a Youth Development Worker of almost 10 years. He currently leads a team of Youth Workers who support rangatahi who have experienced homelessness and has extensive expierence supporting rangatahi to heal and recover from addiction.

For more korero on this topic check out our conversation on the podcast with AOD counsellor and youth practitioner Peter Thorburn here.