THE HOLY HERB

 

THE HOLY HERB

 

GENESIS 1 vs 29

And then God said: “Behold I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all of the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be meat for you.”

When JAH speaks of meat, He is referring to food.  Most meat is cooked over a source of heat, usually a flame or fire, and then consumed through the mouth.

The Rastafari practice of smoking the Holy Herb is really no different to eating meat.  Observing the command to use herbs that bear seed of its kind, the Rastafari Brethren and Sistren, after separating the seeds from the flowers and leaves, put the herb (meat) in a bowl, apply a flame to it (cooking it) and ingest it through the mouth, and this is why you will hear Rasta’s speak about “eating some herb”.

To justify this practice of smoking (eating) the herb, we look to 2 Samuel 22 vs 9

“Smoke poured out of his nostrils, a consuming flame and burning coals from his mouth”, which is repeated again in Psalms 18 verse 8 word for word and again in Job 41 vs 20

“Smoke comes pouring out of his nose, like smoke from weeds burning under a pot”

The fact that smoke came out of JAH’s nostrils and fire from his mouth, suggests that God indeed has a body.  The question is “How did smoke get inside JAH’s body? Our answer is through eating (smoking) the holy herb, and we continue to justify our Biblical defense of eating and smoking herb by insisting that our Holy Herb, Cannabis increases spiritual awareness, and brings us into closer meditation with our creator, JAH Rastafari! It is of course, naturally, the psychedelic properties of THC which creates this spiritual awareness which is experienced by everyone who consumes the Holy Herb, not only followers of Rastafari. Give Thanks!

 

 

Exodus 3 vs 2 -4

“There the angel of the Lord appeared to him as a flame coming from the middle of a bush.  Moses saw that the bush was on fire but that it was not burning up.  ‘This is strange,’ he thought.  ‘Why isn’t the bush burning up?’”.

We believe that this scripture reasons that a conference between man and God is symbolized with a burning bush and we therefore ritually recreate this connection by burning the bush, or herb, Cannabis.  This produces a heightened spiritual awareness, allowing for a closer communion with JAH. 

ROMANS 12 vs 2

“Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind. Then you will be able to know the will of God-what is good and is pleasing to him and is perfect.”

In order to achieve a “complete change of mind” one needs to be “in the Holy Spirit” and we believe that sacred communion with JAH produces spiritual health, which, in turn helps both mental and physical health.  This is the core foundation of Rastafari Livity because Rastafari is much more than a religion or a socio-political movement, Rasta Livity is a lifestyle as ordered by JAH himself through the teachings of Jesus Christ and Haile Selassie I. To live in communion with God through the Holy Spirit and the Holy Herb is one of the ways to achieve this communion which is why it is a sacrament for many religious people around the world.

EZEKIAL 36 vs 26-27

“I will give you a new heart and a new mind. I will take away your stubborn heart of stone and give you an obedient heart.  I will put my spirit in you and I will see to it that you follow my laws and keep all the commands I have given you.”

This practice of eating and smoking the herb during ritual congregation is considered a way of spiritually cleansing ourselves to come before the presence of God.  We regard this practice as an acceptable offering which is acceptable to JAH and made within the temple of our bodies.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 18 reads as follows:

“…Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance...”

This allows us to interpret the Bible and to use the holy herb, Cannabis, accordingly.  It is therefore a massive violation of internationally protected human rights to pass laws that prohibit this activity. It is also a violation to criminalize and incarcerate members of the Rastafari Movement for manifesting their beliefs under Article 18.  In spiritual matters sometimes it is necessary to bear repetition, so please always remember that “sin gets its power from the law”.

This is one of the major obstacles preventing the recognition and acceptance of the Rastafari Movement as a whole.  It should not matter whether the governments share this belief or not, what matters is that the Rastafari Movement has a solid and well-articulated doctrine based on the Biblical scriptures, natural law and international human rights law, which provides an unshakeable foundation for our belief in the use of the Holy Herb as a sacrament and also as an industrial renewable resource, not to even mention the healing properties! JAH! But as Sister Myrtle of the Dagga Couple says these people if they want to control the people they simply take away their sacrament. This is what Babylon did when they brought all those poor Indian people over to Natal South Africa to slave in the sugar plantations, and in order to control them they changed the laws to prohibit only the Indians from consuming Cannabis. In doing so they declared the Holy Herb, their sacrament, illegal.

A very interesting read is the case of Ras Garreth Prince vs The South African Law Society. Brother Garreth is a South African Rastafari Lawyer who was refused to register for Articles as he had previous criminal offences relating to Cannabis.  Brother Garreth is a bona fide Rastafari follower and he truthfully admitted that he would continue to consume Cannabis as his faith requires him to do. 

In the discussions of this case by Babylon they cleverly put together a solid case and were very sensitive with most issues, but this case will give you real insight into the mentality and the attitude of our oppressive opposition.

WHY IS CANNABIS ILLEGAL?

Unlike many other countries abroad, South Africans do not have the power to decide on law at a provincial or national level through policies which have been petitioned and qualified for a public vote.

Instead South Africans have their freedom and liberty defined by politicians who consistently display how out of touch they are and indeed how little they seem to really care about their citizens let alone Mother Earth.

We can debate on and on as to the reasons why Cannabis is illegal and the same old reasons will keep arising. 

The main reason why Cannabis is illegal across the world is that the authorities feel that they have the obligation to protect the public from harmful drugs and Cannabis is classified as a very dangerous drug and has been the centre of mass media anti Cannabis campaigns since prohibition began in the 1930’s.

It is the psychoactive ingredients and in particular THC which was first isolated in 1964 that are of primary concern to the authorities, and which led to Cannabis being described as a “gateway drug”. 

Scientists and researchers are frantically working to produce the perfect synthetic cannabinoid medication minus the psychoactive components.  In Cannabis culture we believe that to this day no one has been able to replicate the purity and potency of herbal marijuana and it seems clearer by the day that cannabinoids simply do not work the same when isolated from each other and are in fact less effective.

Mandatory studies are often considered to be uneconomical, since the profits in the pharmaceutical industry are generated from patents, and since Cannabis is a plant in the public domain, it cannot be patented, although in 2003 US patent number 6630507 was issued to the United States government which is a direct contradiction to their claim that cannabis is a dangerous drug with no medical benefits.

The patent claims that:

“Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties unrelated to NMDA receptor antagosnism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of a wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.  The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimers, Parkinsons, HIV and dementia”.

Big pharma quite literally would have to invent and manufacture a Cannabis product which is firstly non psychoactive and secondly chemically superior to herbal marijuana, and failure to achieve this would effectively mean that the pharmaceutical industry would be forced to compete financially with street marijuana. So in my reasoning the psychedelic effects of Cannabis is the main reason for prohibition and in my personal reasoning this is to prevent mankind from healing themselves and also to prevent us from getting closer to our creator.

The application of smoking is another major deterrent for the authorities as no medicine has ever been prescribed through this type of delivery system, and it seems pretty obvious from the mounting reports from studies all over the world, that cancer patients and even patients with other different medical conditions, mostly all report achieving better results from the smoke inhalation process than through ingestion and they also mostly report that it is easier to control the individual dosage through smoking because the effects are instant, whereas with ingestion the effects can take hours to ‘kick in’.

 

Besides the illicit recreational uses (psychoactive properties) and the seemingly lack of potential future profits, in the absence of effective synthetic Cannabis, there is another aspect to Cannabis prohibition and this involves a large degree of racialism, and in particular the uprising of the socio-political spiritual movement of the Rastafari following, and the crowning of their deity Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie I on 2 November 1930 where no less than 82 countries paid homage at the coronation of His Imperial Majesty where he was amongst other accolades, crowned “King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Elect of God and light of the world, Rightful Ruler of the Earth, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah…”  (You can read more about His Majesty’s Coronation in the post Rastafari Reasoning)

The Rastafari movement claimed the Cannabis plant as their “Holy Herb” to be consumed in Thanks and Praise as a sacrament to worship JAH (GOD). Today there are over 4 million Rastafari followers around the world, sadly too many of them are in prison.  Rastafari is ranked at number 21 on the list of Major Religions of the World, behind Scientology.

Many people around the world will agree that the authorities made the “Holy Herb” illegal for the purpose to control the Rastaman as the “ganga cause the people to rebel”.

International Reggae superstar Bob Marley was once interviewed by a journalist about this matter and when asked by the journalist “they say that the ganja is cause the people to rebel…How you feel about this?”

The King of Reggae humbly responded “Rebel? Rebel against what…?.”

 

 

So there are those of us who also believe that Cannabis is illegal in order to suppress the Rastafari Movement by incarcerating our Brothers for petty Cannabis charges. This leaves our Sisters and children abandoned and forced to take a Babylon king to survive thus removing the JAH lady from society.  By keeping our Holy Herb illegal they suppress our people from freedom to move closer to our JAH.

The main controlling body responsible for drug policy in South Africa is the Central Drug Authority (CDA), which is greatly opposed to decriminalizing Cannabis. In 2009, the online Wikileaks released the CDA report titled The South African Position on Cannabis, which until then had been kept hidden from the South African public by the authorities.

The paper highlighted the official government standpoint that prohibition of Cannabis is necessary to preserve public health.  The paper was also subject to a lot of criticism because its content lacked solid scientific facts.

According to current South African Legislation, Cannabis is a Schedule 1 narcotic making it illegal to possess, purchase, cultivate or prescribe any amount of Cannabis. Cultivation is punishable by up to 25 years imprisonment.

Hemp, like marijuana is of the genus Cannabis, and is also illegal by law.  The Advocate General of the Department of Health has the power to issue cultivation licenses for hemp production.  The only valid license known by the public is that held by Mr Tony Budden of Hemporium.

 

On 11 June 11, 2014 Hemporium issued the following statement via email:

“Our farming partners have harvested the second year of the Commercial Incubation Research Trial and the seed and stalks have been sent for decortication (analysis) and processing.

We are grateful to be part of this process as we are seeing how important research and experience is when it comes to farming on a commercial level and have learned a lot over the past two years.

We are now entering the third and final year of this trial, and we look forward to being able to apply our knowledge to grow hemp commercially in South Africa.”

THE MEDICAL INNOVATION BILL

There was mixed reaction in Parliament on Tuesday 18 February 2014 in Cape Town when The Medical Innovation Bill was introduced by Inkatha Freedom Party Member of Parliament Dr Mario GR Oriani-Ambrosini.

The Medical Innovation Bill is a plea to government for alternative cancer treatments, including medical marijuana and to legalize Cannabis in South Africa for medical, economic and industrial purposes.

In 2013 Dr Mario Oriani-Ambrosini was diagnosed with stage four, inoperable lung cancer.

He publically stated that he was using an “alternative treatment” for his lung cancer, as he had been doing for some time before being diagnosed.  He also said:  “At this point, I shall not speak or vouch for such a treatment, nor discredit it.  My death or survival will do so”.

The introduction of the Medical Innovation Bill sparked a debate in the National Assembly on the effects of cancer on society and governments response to this disease.

"We cannot have a government response, a health response which is based exclusively on the trinity of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. People are dying of cancer, but they are also dying because they are not allowed to have equally effective treatments," Ambrosini told the house.

"We need to create centres where these treatments can be administered under controlled conditions because they are now administered to thousands of people under conditions which are not controlled...We are now facing a situation of thousands of people self-medicating because doctors cannot prescribe these treatments and cannot monitor their effectiveness." he said.

ANC MP Bevan Goqwana said that he believed that Cannabis alleviates the nausea associated with chemotherapy.

"No-one is sure which of the active ingredients does what. What we know the plant can be used orally, rectally or you can smoke it," Goqwana said.

Democratic Alliance MP Sandy Kalyan argued against this by saying there was actually a wealth of knowledge on the Cannabis plant and the active ingredients in it.

"Medical marijuana is not new and the medical community has been writing about it for ages," Kalyan told the house.

"Colleagues, instead of emphasising the side-effects and the abuse of Cannabis, we should be engaging on the beneficial effects of medical marijuana and I hope this debate is the start of that conversation." said Dr Ambrosini.

Freedom Front Plus, MP Pieter Groenewald said his party was not opposed to "strictly controlled" research being conducted. But he emphasised that government would have to ensure that the research procedures count not be abused.

African Christian Democratic Party MP Cheryllyn Dudley said the decriminalisation of dagga for medicinal purposes was a controversial and complex issue.

"We do not and will not endorse the recreational use of Cannabis or any attempt to move in this direction," Dudley said.

"However, we are mindful that presently morphine - a form of heroine used for pain control for terminally ill cancer patients - is toxic and lethal as it actively speeds up the death of the patients."

Dudley also said that her party would support clinical trials, to either "prove or disprove" claims made on the use of Cannabis in cancer treatment.

Millions of people with life-threatening diseases like cancer and HIV are legally denied access to a medicine which they could be growing themselves for free, so it is easy to understand why so many people feel that they are quite literally being legislated out of their own health and well- being without their consent.

These compulsory studies which are required to work towards approval of drugs are governed by rigid laws, even stricter by -laws, heavy fees and loads of red tape making it an expensive and cumbersome task to pursue. No clinical studies can be under taken while Cannabis remains illegal in South Africa, yet somehow pharmaceutical companies are managing to be granted cultivation and research licences under The Medicines and Related Substances Act No 101 of 1965, which hypocritically provides for pharmaceutical research with Cannabis.

Now that more and more scientists are beginning to discover that we all have cannabinoid receptors in the brain and body, there really ought to be a moratorium on government drug policies in respect of Cannabis.

“Making people criminals for taking psychoactive substances is in itself criminal, for one is dealing with, at worst, a vice but not a crime.” – JP van Niekerk, Managing Editor – South African Medical Journal.

So, as long as Cannabis is illegal there will always be a group of people being persecuted for their religious beliefs and as this goes on there will always be oppression and injustice in the world. And if there is injustice there can never be peace.

This is why at the end of the day the Rastafari Movement must and will win the struggle to free the Holy Herb.  Just as water is the softest thing it can still penetrate the mountains and the earth, which demonstrates nicely the principle of softness overcoming hardness and in this same way good- will must always triumph over evil, and it is evil to violate God-given natural human rights.

For us it is very clear what The Bible says that God is give us EVERY seed bearing herb on the face of the earth to be used as meat and to heal the nations.  Yet the people, who run this world, decide to make nature and therefore GOD, illegal.

Ezekiel 34 vs 29

“And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen anymore.”

JAH obviously anticipated some prohibition and warned us of this again in

1 Timothy 4 vs 1 – 5

“The Spirit says clearly that some people will abandon the faith in later times; they will obey lying spirits and follow the teachings of demons.  Such teachings are spread by deceitful liars, whose consciences are dead, as if burnt with a hot iron.  Such people teach that it is wrong to marry and to eat certain foods.  But God created those foods to be eaten, after a prayer of thanks, by those who are believers and have come to know the truth.  Everything that God has created is good; nothing is to be rejected, but everything is to be received with a prayer of thanks, because the word of God and the prayer make it acceptable to God.”

So even in the biblical times, God knew that we would endure prejudice for our consumption of the Holy Herb.

It is interesting to note that no prohibition of Cannabis or any other plant is made in the Ten Commandments. Genesis is very clear that JAH is giving us every seed bearing herb to use for meat (food), and we all know that Cannabis is a seed bearing plant. So therefore, it is clearly JAH-will that we are to consume the herb, and it is Babylon rules which prohibit and persecute us under their unconstitutional laws, for this practice. 

It is also now a known and proven scientific fact that all humans, and most of life on earth even jelly fish, have Cannabinoid receptors throughout our bodies, known as the Endocannabinoid System. A “new” physiological system, identified in the early 1990’s and which got its name from the Cannabis plant.

So, even though now that the whole world knows that we have Cannabis receptors within our bodies; which, really means, that we are supposed to consume Cannabis, we still have to bow down to the unjust laws of the lands which continue to demonize the use of our Holy Herb.

1 Corinthians 15 vs 56—57

“Death gets its power to hurt from sin, and sin gets its power from the Law.  But thanks be to GOD who gives us the victory though our Lord Jesus Christ!”

Only Satan himself would not want peace on Earth. Statistics are proving over and over that people who consume Cannabis are calm and peaceful people as opposed to people who consume alcohol and other dangerous drugs, and become violent when under the influence.  Rastafari is all about peace and love and this is the exact opposite of what we have on Earth today under Babylon law.

The Bible is very clear on this point and this point expresses the freedom which our mighty JAH has promised us but which is denied to us by demonizing our Holy Herb which brings us closer to JAH by opening our hearts and minds to LOVE.

 

 

The Holy anointing oil described in Exodus 30 vs 22 – 25 was created from:

·     500 shekels (about 6 kg) pure myrrh

·     250 shekels (about 3 kg) sweet cinnamon

·     250 shekels (about 3 kg) Kaneh- bosem

·     500 shekels (about 6 kg) Cassia

·     One hin (about four liters) Olive oil

Sources generally agree about the identity of four of the five ingredients of the anointing oil, but the identity of the fifth, that of ‘Kaneh (Qaneh)-bosem was a matter of controversy.

It was only in 1936, that the first solid evidence of the Hebrew use of Cannabis was established by Sula Benet, a Polish etymologist from the Institute of Anthropological Sciences in Warsaw. (He studied the origin of words and how their meanings have changed throughout history)

Sula Benet demonstrated that the word for Cannabis is ‘Kaneh-bosm’, also translated in traditional Hebrew as ‘kaneh’ or ‘kannabus’.

The word appears five times in the Old Testament; in the books of Exodus 30 verse 22—23, The Songs of Songs 4 verse 14, Isaiah 43 verse 23-24, Jeremiah 6 verse 20 and Ezekiel 27 verse 19.

The word ‘kaneh-bosm’ is now accepted as having been mistranslated as ‘calamus’, a common marsh plant with little value, and does not have the properties attributed to ‘kaneh-bosm’. This error occurred in the oldest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and was repeated in the many translations that followed.

In order for mankind and womankind to truly return to God with their whole heart, it is of maximum importance that as individuals we have complete freedom of choice in respect of worship, so as to be able to follow our own conscience and be led by our own God.