The whole point of this thread is that I believe fundamentalist Christians have bigger fish to fry, than stoning (no pun intended) innocent people that want to use an herb that the bible says it's ok to use.

I think the american justice system should focus more, on the more hardened criminals, and lighten up on the petty marijuana users. It is nothing but a waste of time and a waste of the tax payers hard earned dollars.

There actually has been a move to that. In Massachusetts this law went into effect on January 2nd of this year.

It's no longer a crime to have one ounce or less of pot. The state's new marijuana decriminalization law, approved by voters in a November referendum, goes into effect today.

Those who are caught with an ounce or less would get a ticket similar to a building code citation. They could appeal the civil infraction in court within 21 days or pay a $100 fine set in the law. Juvenile violators would have to pay the fine and attend a drug abuse counseling course, or have the fine increased to $1,000.

According to the NORML website, there are currently about 13 out of 50 states where marijuana is decriminalized (meaning, a fine for a first offense, but no jail time...and many of the states will suspend your license if convicted...even if you were not driving at the time of incident).

It's a step in the right direction, but still a far cry from national legalization.

Agreed. That is still a long ways off. With Obama in office now, I suspect there might be more of a leaning towards "liberalesque" proposals of this nature.

I am sure that the ones who wrote the bible at its times had plenty of wine and other stimulations to come up with the ideas they did when writing it.

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In any piece of literature you cannot take one sentence as a fundamental for the entire work. You have to take it in its entirety and use the process of elimination to find the absolute message.
Many cults have been formed by taking one verse from the bible or other religious works and making it a fundamental without the rest of the work.
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Well said!

indeed, indeed, indeed!!!

to take one a scripture, and use it to pronounce what another must mean, be the first entering in of personal interpretation, as of course, the personal emotions and experience will shape the meaning, and seems why jesus wisely seen not to dispute what the mind brought to him from the book, but rather to add to it with more wisdom of completed logic of free will???

for there be no law except compromise and common free will sought amongst an equal an intelligent sovereign civilization.......

What about hemlock? What about arsenic? What about cocoa leaves? What about ephedrine extract? What about Amanita phalloides?

Hmm, the bible does not seem to be up to par on all the plants huh?

I do not think looking to the bible for a source of wisdom on the societal harm one way or the other is a good proposal for either criminalizing something, or decriminalizing something.