With recreational marijuana just across the salt flats, is Utah going to pot?
With recreational marijuana use now legal in both Colorado and Nevada, Utah has to be feeling a bit like the cream filling in the middle of a great big Oreo sandwich cookie.
And the rest of the country suddenly has the munchies.
Over the weekend, an interesting piece turned up in the Standard-Examiner about how marijuana availability in Nevada will affect us here in Northern Utah. Last November, voters in the Silver State approved recreational marijuana use, meaning it’s now only a matter of time before a legal high is just a short drive across the salt flats.
Oh, sure. Colorado legalized recreational marijuana back in 2014. But Wendover’s a heck of a lot closer — and they have gambling, too. Ah, yes. Always a good idea to combine mind-altering substances with wagering one’s hard-earned paycheck. What could possibly go wrong?
The Wasatch Front’s impending proximity to recreational marijuana shops raises all sorts of questions about what happens when weekend stoners return home to the “Not-In-My-State” State with the drug’s metabolites still coursing through their bloodstreams. And of course, the biggest question in this growing national trend — Is Utah next? (Survey says: Not as long as conservative Mormons make up the lion’s share of the state legislature.)
Still, a number of law enforcement agencies and other organizations in this state are sufficiently nervous enough about cannabis use growing like, well, weeds. In its “Marijuana Position Statement — 2017,” the Utah Sheriffs’ Association takes a hard line against pot, even when used for medical purposes. It lists a host of ills created by marijuana abuse, including crime, domestic problems, lower graduation rates, and impaired motor and cognitive functions.
But regrettably, the recreational marijuana issue — like Utah’s liquor laws — often gets waylaid by the age-old Mormon/non-Mormon debate. A favorite thing in this polarized state is Gentiles blaming Mormons for all the bad stuff that happens around here — a pastime that is second only to Mormons blaming Gentiles for the exact same reasons.
Because of this delicate balance between the two groups, injecting religion into our laws is always a sure-fire recipe for disaster. And yet, even this pot position statement by the Utah Sheriffs’ Association seems to contain religious overtones. In the statement’s penultimate paragraph, the association argues that, “The natural man in all of us is subject to deception and rationalization.”
Oh no they didn’t. Tell me our statewide sheriffs’ organization didn’t just say “the natural man.”
It’s curious they would choose that term. Especially when they could have just as easily said, “People are subject to deception and rationalization.” Or, “We can all be subject to deception and rationalization.” Or even, if you’re particularly attached to the word, “Naturally, we can be subject to deception and rationalization.”
But let’s face it, using the term “the natural man” is coded religious talk among many Christian denominations, a reference to the Apostle Paul’s admonition in the New Testament:
”But the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
And — surprise! — the phrase is even more prevalent among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where there are any number of references to the natural man. The most famous of these LDS scriptures is found in The Book of Mormon in a verse that, at 86 words, may also take the prize for longest run-on sentence:
”For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.”
So, could this “natural man” reference by the Utah Sheriffs’ Association be a veiled allusion to the idea that marijuana use is against the laws of man and God?
Hopefully not, because if you’re trying to use religious justifications for keeping marijuana illegal? Sorry, but you’ve just lost that argument.
Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272 or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Friend him on Facebook at facebook.com/MarkSaal.