Answer to Black&Golds hub: Hey Dope, Smoking Dope Is Illegal

BLACKANDGOLDJACK has been replying to comments on his hub diligently, but the comments I replied with got longer, and longer.... anyhow, this one I realied became a hub, so I wrote the reply here, rather than clog up BLACKANDGOLDJACK comments box!

The hub which started the whole discussion is here:

http://blackandgoldjack.hubpages.com/hub/Hey-Dope-Smoking-Dope-Is-Illegal

Blacandgodljack wrote:

I had a conversation with my 18-year-old daughter the other day about distracted driving, specifically about cell phones and hanging necklaces from your rearview mirror, which is illegal in PA. We have had this conversation before, but this time I put it strictly in financial terms.

She has around $2,000 in a bank account that is her money. She earned it. I told her that if she has an accident that is her fault, it is going to cost her $2,000 if she wants to keep driving. $500 for the deductible. The insurance premium for her car is around $2,000 a year. With my company, you get surcharged 30% for the first year, 20% for the second year, and 10% for the third year, for one at-fault accident. So that’s another $1,200. Then several hundred dollars for a rental while her car is being repaired. That adds up to around $2,000. No more money in her bank account. How is she going to pay $56 for a hair appointment like she did the other day?

And the point is? Don’t do anything that will adversely affect your ability to safely drive a car. It could cost you big bucks if you do. Of course that includes smoking dope.

I think I’ll change the title of this hub from “Hey Dope, Smoking Dope Is Illegal” to “Hey Dope, Smoking Dope Is Illegal and Could Cost You Big Bucks.”

So I wonder who pays for the car insurance for the 18-year-old stoner I addressed in this hub.

Oh yeah, what will it cost for the lawyer if you get busted for dope and you want to minimize your jail time and possibly prevent the arrest from becoming a permanent part of your “record” I wonder. Big bucks! More on this to follow soon.

B&G, I paid for my sons excess insurance cover when he started driving, and we knew from looking at the interior that he was drinking and smoking, thankfully more smoking than drinking.

In the first year he was driving he had three smashes, we were fully comprehensive, so it just hiked our premium up.

He was LEARNING to drive, just like he was LEARNING to live and make decisions for himself.

He had not seen me smoke or drink since he was 4 years old, so his action was not just following what dad did, in that.

What shook him was when we were on holiday when he was 18, and me showing him how to make a spliff, and smoking it with him, and telling him about my pre Christian life of dope and booze, and that discussion saw a change in him, that a year later, led to him becoming a youth minister with Metro Ministries today, 100% sober, no drink, no drugs and no sex, and ministering to city slum kids in the Bronx, NYC for the last three years.

Nobody stops kids experimenting, the social peer pressure is too great and the inquisitive nature will lead them into trying everything they have been denied or prohibited from trying, until they make their decision on whether they want those things in their lives or not.

For some folk that can be one 'toke' on a joint or cigarette, one sip of strong liquor, and they reject it for life, others push the boundaries a bit.

At one point, before he came to faith and Christ, my son was working in a country rest stop where he worked the bar and tables, and living with co workers who were brother and sister, and they both 'fancied' him.

That troubled me more than he ever knew; because I was not a believer when he was born, indeed I crossed over from the enemies camp to come to faith and Christ, and knew that the enemy had full rights to attack my son, whenever he was no longer under my 'cover'.

Whatever happened during that time, it matters not, today he is a fine, upright, decent young man, who loves God and serves Christ on the mission field and is a committed celibate until he marries.

We need to give people back the right to be wrong, so to speak, and let folk learn rather than be told; that all things are permissible, but not all things are advisable.

Romans 14:19-21

King James Version (KJV)

Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.

For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence.

It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.

I do take note of that last sentence, and try to ensure that what I do does not cause that my "brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak." but instead is strengthened in faith and encouraged to follow what scripture says, no matter how outrageous it may appear, when compared to mens laws and social understanding.

We need to study to be approved, and be Bereans, testing ALL things against scripture, but often scripture can show us things that our teaching and peer pressure has made 'wrong' for us to accept.

That's when we either start coming to the fullness of Christ, or stay safe in Churchianity.

I hope your daughter exercises discretion, wisdom and inner peace and constraint whilst she is at college, and if you have followed the instructions on the packet, and shown her the ways of God whilst she was young, she will exert her Godly influence when she is at college.

We had three of our graduates from the ACE home school we are associated with, come back from their US Universities shocked at what they saw happening in their US 'Christian' counterparts lives.

Living here in Penang, they had never seen the laxity and carelessness that they saw in those American Christian kids, and generally speaking, as we mainly have Asian Christians as our local believers, I can say that Asian believers are very precise in their beliefs, but unlike American Christians, who think denominationally, they think as one body and will challenge any error they see, or change what they think when they see spiritual and scriptural correction, backed by the Holy Spirit they have guiding them.

Our churches here unite easily and fellowship without any problems, in Europe, where I was last involved in a church body, our local bodies never communicated beyond leadership level, and it was hard to get a united night of prayer organised with other churches, once a month.....

I guess I am saying that there are many different tools in Gods Toolbox (another one of my hubs...) and we need to see where we fit in, but when you travel the world, you get more exposure to what God is doing all over, and see the small pockets of sincere believers in even the worse church situation.

We have friends who are with YWAM here, and go into Cambodia and Laos, ministering to those who are refugees.

Other brothers and sisters (Local Charismatic Catholics) go into the Malaysian jungles to reach the unreached, and tend for their needs.

Christ is alive and well here in Asia, and not all that is happening will fit into a denominational box or way of thinking.

We all come to the fullness of Christ we can achieve, having come from the pit we were in when we lived in the world.

My son having crashed my wife's car and damaged virtually every panel on the vehicle, actually gave us a blessing, because we were able to have the car restored to showroom condition, and the excesses we paid were less than a total respray and restoration costs would have been.

Our (then) Pastors wife now has the car, we let her have it at a low price when we came down here two years ago.

So God was able to bless a believer; by showing me to let my son make his own mistakes, always available when he got stuck, but never doing more than advising him on matters (and paying some costs involved) when called upon, and God also got a new born again, dedicated worker from it.

We tend to see the immediate concern in our mind, and I suggest that you are seeing your little girl go away to Uni and like any concerned parent you are trying to infill her with as much advice as you can before she goes, whilst all the time the enemy is whispering in your ear about all the bad things that could happen.

I felt the same when my 19 year old son when of to his 'university', that being Metro Ministries, NYC, Flatbush, Brooklyn, to work with the street kids; children of gang members, prostitutes and drug dealers... where folk are shot almost daily, and his blithe immortality that he felt, was no comfort to me and my wife.

Three years later he is thriving in the work, not been shot, and is well known as a Metro 'good guy' who helps their kids.

Maybe his prior drug experimentation allowed God to use him ministering to folk who want to see you on their doorstep caring for them, for at least a year, before they accept that you may not just be some church member; doing their weeks 'mission' before returning to their comfy homes and other lives.

He lives in their neighbourhood and visits their homes, and cares for their children, bringing Christ to kids who may never have another bible in their presence.

He is a walking bible, and I am spiritually proud of him, and accept that my involvement in his life was ONLY as a custodian for God, and my only right and obligation was to nurture him in the ways of God, and then let God do what He wanted in my sons life.

When he first went, I thought, and realised that my son could be killed in the works he was doing, and his only physical protection was a Metro 'T' shirt, that he told me the gangs recognised and that they left those wearing them alone.

But he still had to stop wearing anything that were gang colours, because that was dangerous.

My fears were unnecessary as he has God watching his back, and there is no better protection.

Now way off topic, but still within context I think?

We can see things however we wish, that is what the walk is all about, seeing things and exploring things that will eventually bring us to the place where God wants us to be, and where He can use us in His schemes.

I only speak into a situation if I see someone who is doing something which I know scripturally will separate them from Gods blessings, or could allow the enemy to gain a foothold in their lives.

Apart from that they must be free to make their mistakes and we must be there to help when requested.

I learned that working with the homeless guys and girls we had around us in Spain, they were mainly speaking you or I with just one disastrous event in our lives, but they had no God to turn to except Jack Daniels and drugs.

We fed them and clothed them and counselled them, got them back home when they were too weak to survive on the streets, and buried a few who did not survive on the street.

They appreciated what we (our body) did, but they really appreciated it when I would sit with them on their beggars patch and chat with them, as a friend, not a minister, seeing the embarrassed looks of passers by as I sat there with them.

It helps when you have a better understanding of what things are sensible and which things are not.

I happen to think that the current drug laws are error and wrong, I do not encourage anyone to break them, but equally I do not tell anyone they are correct, when they are not.

My son would be 'out of business' if you could strop the flow of serious drugs into America, but you cannot stop the flow and you cannot stop the curiosity or despair that leads to usage, until you stop the cause of the problem: stop the perpetrators, not the victims.

I am afraid that the perpetrators are actually the folk who shout the largest about drug usage and keep it prohibited, they are bankers, lawyers, various sections of the police force, CIA and other dark ops folk, Senators and Congressmen; who profit directly or indirectly from these obscenely stupid laws that only cause the problemt o grow in any case.

Prohibition will NEVER work, prohibition never has worked.