Are you a Christian who likes to do illegal or legal drugs for the effect, but you are trying to control this habit to a degree so that you won't suffer any loss of reputation or something even more dear to you? Did you know that an estimated 12.8 million Americans; about 6 percent of the household population aged twelve and older, use illegal drugs on a regular basis (meaning within the past thirty days)?
And too many so called Christians are also caught up in this experimenting with drugs today. Christians have the Answer for this broken world, but too many are too busy getting loaded to even care. It ain't about you here…or about me, It's about knowing and serving Jesus Christ unencumbered. God designed you to serve a Cause that's bigger …other than that of your own self-interests. This drug thing with so called Christians deeply pains God as He watches people damage or destroy their destiny. He loves you and wants His best for you. It's severely crippling of His great fishing endeavor too—world evangelism—which every addict could be involved in, if they would first get right with Him. It destroys their testimony, their effectiveness, their brain cells and their bodies fast. Their decent non-selfish ambition and pure motivation inside just evaporates away.
I'm thankful for skilled doctors and how they've helped me in the past, but the number of Americans treated for abuse of legal painkillers has surged 321 percent from 1995 to 2005 and federal statistics show a trend here. According to federal data, nearly 7 million Americans abused prescription drugs in 2007—more than cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, ecstasy and inhalants such as marijuana combined. That figure is up 80 percent since 2000.
Did you know that the number of TV drug ads have increased forty-fold from 1994 to 2000? Don't you just hate listening to all their gross verbal disclaimers too—all that fine print read at lightening speed. Did you know that since 1999, the average American sees at least nine prescription drug advertisements on television every day? According to statistics from AARP the average American over the age of 75 has more than 11 drugs prescribed yearly.
Ruth Sanchez-Way, the director of the federal Center for Substance Abuse Prevention says many older people are ashamed to admit that they have a drug problem today. Her agency estimates that 17% of Americans age 60 and older abuse prescription drugs or alcohol now. She also says that prescription drug abuse often goes hand in hand with a drinking problem.(1)
Although I'm grateful to God that people are getting prescriptions that really help them like never before in history, and that most patients use their medications properly as directed, abuse of, and addiction to prescription drugs are becoming more and more a public health problem for Americans and so called Christians.
Let me ask you… do you unnecessarily have a drug of choice (or more than one) from the doctor(s) or some druggie-friend like: oxiconton, cannabis, hashish, crack cocaine, paint fumes, meth, or H (heroin)? Do you have a mind altering substance someone you really trusted turned you on to? Have you dropped acid before? Are you one who enjoys wrongly using prescription drugs so that you can at least appear somewhat upright in the community and keep your job?
James warned, "But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death" (Jam. 1:14-15).
A drug of course, is any substance that produces physical, mental, or psychological changes in the body of the user. History is replete with people who have both experimented with drugs to find ways to help other hurting people needing attention medicinally, but also with those trying to escape from problems and the harsh realities of life through the misuse of a drug.
Hundreds of millions of young and old people around the globe today are doing drugs regularly; drugs which range all the way from the gateway type like weed, to drugs that are deeply addictive such as heroin and cocaine. I unfortunately used to use some of these myself to party with along with my friends. But listen, the pleasures of sin are only fun for a short season. They're not worth it, because the wages of sin is flatlining—death. I've never met a happy addict, or one who didn't wish he or she never started with their friends in the first place. As a lost teenager, I'm certainly not proud to say that I used to imbibe in this hideous chalice for pleasure's sake ...that is until I got real sick of it and called out for help… I did until Jesus Christ came in and rescued me out of that sticking pit. And check it out... what He did for me He can do for you (..or for your "baked" Christian buds ..or for your unbelieving pothead friends).
