Drug Prohibition

Welcome back again this week, for my lesson number 23 here on Radio 2MR, stars of the new millennium, shining like glittery sparkly bits of fools gold, in the filth ridden gutters of life, attempting to vainly crawl out of their inescapable black holes of drudgery and into the dark satanic mills of the local commercial radio station. I’m Stefan Sojka. It’s good to be here, and it’s good to be heard, and it’s good to be blessed with the immense, insurmountable, incalculable talent that I happen to possess, so that I can speak to the masses and touch their lives in ways they’ve never been touched before.

Tonight is a free form show, so I bring you Sojkadelic Sunday, the weekly current affairs show, where we discuss the social and political issues of the day, with a compass-like non-denominational but nevertheless theological slant. I’m Stefan Sojka.
Tonight we discuss a serious topic, getting a lot of media attention lately with the NSW summit on this week – the topic for tonight’s program – The Christian Cardinal Virtue of temperance - - and our response to pleasure drugs.

We’ve all heard about the cardinal sins, but little seems to have been made of the four cardinal virtues, as spelled out by St Thomas Aquinas - prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude. Somewhere in the dark halls of history, the meaning of these words have been altered or ignored through misuse and bad logic, that the Macquarie dictionary itself gives two contradictory meanings for temperance –1) habitual moderation in the enjoyment of a natural appetite, especially in the drinking of alcohol and 2) Total abstinence from alcohol. This contradiction is a result of the ‘Temperance” era of 1820-1920, where efforts were made to encourage people to control their drinking on religious grounds, to the point where it was deemed impossible to control, and drinking had to be controlled for them by the government.

By the time prohibition came into effect, the “Temperance” advocates had become “abstinence” advocates, and temperance had gained a new meaning, losing it’s original one. Prohibition didn’t last long, after it was seen what devastating effects it had on society, with a boom in organised crime and no real decrease in the use of alcohol, until it was lifted, following the infamous gangland slayings in Chicago USA. Prohibition failed, but along with it, the virtue of temperance had been all but tossed out, alcohol was returned to free enterprise and the temperance advocates began to pick on a new range of pleasure drugs.

So why do we now rely on self-control for alcohol, encouraging responsible drinking, but insist on total abstinence for all other pleasure drugs? The reason is that we are now confused by the past into knowing what temperance is all about.

PLAY SONG – ONE BOURBON

“Seventy-five per cent of our idiots come from intemperate parents; eighty percent of the paupers, eighty-two percent of the crime is committed by men under the influence of liquor; ninety percent of the adult criminals are whisky-made.” - so said the Reverend Billy Sunday back in the early 1900’s. He was actually not far from the truth.

Alcohol is the one pleasure drug commonly known to increase violent behaviour, its reduction of self control causes people to gamble more, thereby making themselves poorer, and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is well known, and is actually far more devastating than the “crack baby” phenomenon that was so hyped in the media – which is really more a problem of malnutrition from mothers paying black market prices for the particular substance they were addicted to, so not being able to afford to eat properly while pregnant..

During prohibition, facts are easy to distort. In the anti-alcohol era, doctors and ex-drunkards swore that drinkers might burst into flames if they breathed on a lighted candle, burn like a torch as alcoholic fumes seeped through their skin, or simply explode like a keg of gunpowder. Now we have people claiming that if anyone goes within five miles of a hit of heroin, their lives will be ruined as the monkey jumps on their back, they sink into addiction. The truth is that heroin is quite difficult to get addicted to – far harder than cigarettes or even alcohol – especially if you are genetically predisposed to alcoholism. It all comes down to moderation. Self control. Temperance. Too much of anything is a bad thing.

SONG – RED RED WINE

There's an interesting commonality between the Temperance-Era activists and those proclaiming the ideal of being "drug-free" today: neither of them are really advocating the Christian virtue of temperance at all. The great Christian apologist C.S. Lewis explained the true meaning of temperance in his book "Mere Christianity":

"[Temperance] now usually means teetotalism. But [originally], it meant nothing of the sort. Temperance referred not specially to drink, but to all pleasures; and it meant not abstaining but going the right length and no further. ... Mohammedanism, not Christianity, is the teetotal religion. ...

The nimble Christian principle of temperance demands abstinence when it's needed: abstinence from pleasure drugs is appropriate for kids and, generally speaking, for expectant mothers; abstinence from anything that impairs skill and judgment is necessary when driving, operating machinery, etc. But for mature adults, there is no logical reason whatsoever to prevent them from enjoying whatever pleasure they care to pursue, so long as they are not endangering others.

The bible says - "[Wine] has been created to make men glad. Wine drunk in season and temperately is rejoicing of heart and gladness of soul. Wine drunk to excess is bitterness of soul, with provocation and stumbling." 

There's no permissive slack here. Approval and rebuke are side by side, just as when a parent trusts a child with a treasured possession saying "use it, but don't break it." This is exactly the attitude that allows the Judaeo-Christian tradition to call a Godly creation "very good" without endorsing human abuses of it.

TRACK – TEQUILA

The real danger of any pleasurable activity is when you take away the right for people to control themselves, take away the assistance for those who can’t, punish those who indulge and create a black market where huge profits can be made, so that crime, violence and even war become the natural outcome – all over something that is completely natural, completely human – the pursuit and enjoyment of pleasure. Nowadays, you can be locked away for ten years for doing nothing more than providing chemical pleasure to people – something a publican does every day, while murderers get out on parole after six months.

That kind of legal logic is completely devoid of prudence and justice, fortitude is nowhere to be seen, as politicians bow to the alcohol-consuming majority even though alcohol kills 50 times more people each year than all illegal pleasure drugs combined.

Still, many people are eager to see drug users and dealers punished. Perhaps Jesus would have confronted this mob like he confronted those who surrounded the woman taken in adultery: 'Let the one among you who has never been drunk and never patronized an alcohol dealer slam the prison door on this druggie.'

Our so-called Judeo Christian society has completely lost the meaning of the cardinal virtues. At first glance, classical Christian temperance seems permissive next to the "drug-free" ideal. But in the end, true temperance is a higher standard, more wholesome and more demanding on our society. It calls for responsible citizens, not obedient subjects. It calls for compassion for those who succumb to addiction of any sort, and it rejoices in the capacity for humans to experience pleasure.

As for those who fail to distinguish the goodness of wine from the evil of drunkenness, St Chrysostom chided them as "the simple ones among our brethren.". "Wine makes not drunkenness; but intemperance produces it. Do not accuse that which is the workmanship of God [wine], but accuse the madness of a fellow mortal. Otherwise you ... are treating [God] with contempt."

The classical Christian virtues hold great promise to heal our planet’s wounds on the pleasure-drug issue: it's time to stop the war that's been inspired by the shallow "drug-free" ideal and act instead on the classical virtues, whose depth and suppleness are equal to the task of controlling addiction without resorting to injustice and folly.

Well, we’ve come to the end of another show here on Sojkadelic Sunday. Join me next week, when we look at the love of Jesus Christ, the holy lamb and it’s implications to bestiality.

Until then, have a safe and pleasant week, see you next Sunday, may your Gods, demons and other assorted spiritual entities smile upon you til next we meet… I’m Stefan Sojka - good night.