Marijuana — Menace or Mitzvah?
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
NEWS ITEM: Religious leaders — from Reform to Orthodox — are increasingly supportive of the medical use of marijuana.
Should marijuana be forbid
To everyone who is a Yid?
Is puffing on the suspect weed
Offensive to the Jewish creed?
Or is cannabis kosher now,
On grounds it soothes the fevered brow
And eases torments of the ill
Who can’t be helped by any pill?
(Some brand such pity criminal!)
What patients crave, the law forbids!
(A blow to valid invalids!)
Officials point to drug abuse,
And sad effects of over-use.
(Adjust each dosage! Count each puff!
How many drags comprise “enough”?)
The thorny arguments persist
Twixt gendarme and the activist.
Now many members of the tribe
Would choose to let the docs prescribe.
These questions stimulate debate
O’er what is marijuana’s fate.
In Israel (don’t act surprised)
The weed has long been legalized
If authorized by an M.D.
— Sometimes it is provided free!
It often seems beyond our scope
To keep up with the latest dope.
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— Alyssa Katz, editor-in-chief
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