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Laws aside, 'no' is still the right answer on drugs
These are just shortcuts to managing our emotions.
By Abdulrahman Bindamnan
July 31, 2023 at 10:45PM
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It surprises many people to learn that cannabis use originated in Arab cultures. As an Arab myself, I was surprised to learn this fact in a class at the University of Miami with a professor who argued that use of the drug first appeared in the Arab world. It is called hashish, a drug people use to calm down.
Consumption of drugs is largely governed by social conditioning and programming. In the Arab world, smoking is very popular and normalized; however, smoking today is highly stigmatized in the United States. Conversely, drinking alcohol is religiously forbidden and culturally frowned upon in Arab cultures; however, drinking is highly normalized in the United States.
Culture comes first; everything else comes second. We are hardwired to follow our social conditioning. The truth of the matter is that the laws governing cannabis, which are changing in Minnesota, come secondary to cultural norms. We see legalization of cannabis in many states largely because society has become increasingly accepting of its consumption.
A major reason why people consume cannabis is social conditioning — peer pressure, cultural norms. That is the external factor. Another major reason people consume cannabis is to cope with their internal emotional states.
Most people struggle to cope with their emotions — and in the modern world, we are socially conditioned to look for quick, external fixes for our discomfort. We are discouraged from looking to inside sources for solutions because they require hard work and patience to master the process of self-transformation.
When we want to alter our mental state (to have fun), we often turn to external sources such as smoking cannabis or drinking alcohol. Regardless of the cultural meaning we attach to that behavior, the fact that we need drugs to change our emotional state suggests a failure on our part to manage our own emotional state. By extension, this suggests that we fail at being effective human beings, who are capable of managing their emotional states from within.
I strongly believe that the most difficult task a human being faces is to learn how to have fun without relying on external aids.
The debate around drugs tends to miss the core point: The question is not whether this or that drug should be regulated, but whether we need to prepare human beings to manage their emotional state internally. That is the hallmark of an effective human being who has reached the enlightened phase of conscious development.
Furthermore, the debate about purely physical effects of drug consumption also misses the more important point. It focuses on the biological effects of consuming this or that drug, while ignoring the spiritual effects.
People consume drugs to fill a spiritual void. When we ask why people consume this or that drug, all the answers can be categorized under one universal principle — to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.
In modern society, we often tend to make the mistake of supposing we do not need spirituality — that we somehow have evolved beyond the need of engaging in personal transformations. This proposition is clearly preposterous given the high rates of misery in modern times, despite our astonishing technological advancements.
Human beings need spiritual nourishment. Unless we take a holistic approach to our challenges, we will miss the core of the matter: When discussing cannabis and its laws, we must remember the fundamental need that drives people to its consumption in the first place.
Discussing the issue from a mere legal perspective is incomplete. We are all on journeys in this life, all hoping to reach self-actualization. If we are consuming this drug or that drug as a shortcut to manage our low emotional state, we are failing to act on our best potential.
Abdulrahman Bindamnan is a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota.
