Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precept

Buddhist ethical conduct including the Five Precepts (Pañcasikkhāpada), and Eightfold Ethical Conduct (Aṭṭhasīla).
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Cittasanto
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Re: Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precept

Post by Cittasanto »

danieLion wrote:
Cittasanto wrote:relevant qualification = evidence external to your own opinion
Relevant qualifications aren't deduced from comparing my opinion to other opinions but in interpreting the "total" effect of all relevant opinions, of which mine is one.
I mean facts or data from repeatable experiments not opinion.
as an example it is a fact that the earth is oval(ish), but for most people the evidence is not so obvious on an experiantial level, so we still have people who believe the earth is flat.
Cittasanto wrote:or references showing how you came to such a conclusion.
I've posted several references here, and to post all the ones availible is not practical.
I know.it was more an agreement than a dig :)
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Sambojjhanga
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Re: Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precept

Post by Sambojjhanga »

I'd like to offer a personal opinion regarding this. Marijuana CAN be medicine, just like Morphine CAN be medicine. Both can also be intoxicants. It's all about the intent of one's usage. If you are using Morphine to treat severe pain, and not using it to get high, then it is not a violation of the 5th. precept. If, OTOH, you are using it to get high, you are using it as an intoxicant and it most assuredly is a violation of the 5th. precept. I don't think anyone disagrees with this point.

In a similar light, if Marijuana is being used to treat a medical condition and not to get high, then you're not in violation. If you're using it to get high, you're in violation of the 5th. precept. I don't see what can be more clear.

It's all about INTENT.

Now, anyone who has used Marijuana and hasn't gotten intoxicated, I respectfully submit to that person that you have not been smoking very high quality bud :mrgreen:

I have some small experience in this matter. In fact, I have quit using Marijuana because of the 5th. precept. Again, please note, I was using it to get high, not to treat a medical condition, though I technically was able to obtain it semi-legally (I say semi-legally because no where in the United States with a VERY few exceptions, is Marijuana legal under FEDERAL law.) I do know some people who use Marijuana to treat legitimate medical conditions and a subset of this group is VERY careful about using only enough to treat their condition and not to get high. I'm confident enough in the way they use it to say that if they were Buddhists (they are not) that they would not be in violation of the 5th. precept.

I do know that the human capacity to fool oneself is nearly infinite, so I could lie to myself and say that Marijuana doesn't get me high, I only used it to treat social anxiety, help me sleep and relieve the general aches and pains that most 52 year old's generally experience out of having lived for 52 years! But I would be lying to myself. I used Marijuana to get high. That's why I quit. I do not want to violate the 5th precept. Now, was this easy? Actually, it wasn't hard at all for me to quit because the improvement in my meditation has been absolutely remarkable. I can't speak for anyone else, but Marijuana "messes" with my meditation because it gave me a false sense that I was actually improving in my meditation in a way that I wasn't, naturally. I did experience some mild withdrawals, but nothing that serious. Probably somewhere between quitting coffee and quitting cigarettes. CERTAINLY not to the level of quitting opiates.

Now, to the OP's original question. Having frequented a fair number of SoCal's finest dispensaries, in San Diego, Orange and LA counties, I can count on one hand, nay, one FINGER, the number of shops that were oriented toward the truly ill and not simply fun places to buy pot to get high.

Everyone has to make their own decisions on these things, but I think that anyone who is foolish enough to claim that Marijuana isn't an intoxicant is either smoking really low-grade weed...or is fooling themselves.
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Re: Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precep

Post by lyndon taylor »

Well said!!!!
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

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Re: Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precep

Post by dagon »

Clearly if selling marijuana to those in the limited cases where it is the most effective medication for pain relief and other symptoms, then it is also against the Dhamma to sell chemotherapy medications because they are poisons.
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Re: Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precep

Post by lyndon taylor »

There is no such thing as medical marijuana sellers that only sell to severely ill people with one of the few illnesses helped by marijuana, so its kind of a mute point. For instance you can easily get a medical marijuana permit to buy pot to "help" psychotic type illnesses, something study after study has shown has just the opposite effect; it makes you sicker.
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
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Re: Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precept

Post by Dhammarakkhito »

i am now working off of the 'inebriation' interpretation of fifth precept. because many, many things are intoxicating, not even regarding substances, but they don't make you quite as heedless as alcohol can. the problem i have run into is holding up the 5 precepts in a legalistic way, which has impeded my upholding other virtues; surely, if you obey just those 5 precepts, you can possibly enter heaven or be a stream-winner (correct me if i'm wrong), but you are more likely to uphold those precepts if you look outside of just those 5 for developing virtue.

i recommend listening to yuttadhammo bhikkhu, i think he explains things in a way westerners can understand
"Just as the ocean has a single taste — that of salt — in the same way, this Dhamma-Vinaya has a single taste: that of release."
— Ud 5.5

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Dhammarakkhito
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Re: Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precept

Post by Dhammarakkhito »

yeah, i think the fifth precept only refers to fermented drinks. contemporary translations have obfuscated the issue.
"Just as the ocean has a single taste — that of salt — in the same way, this Dhamma-Vinaya has a single taste: that of release."
— Ud 5.5

https://www.facebook.com/noblebuddhadha ... 34/?type=3

http://seeingthroughthenet.net/
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Aloka
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Re: Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precept

Post by Aloka »

Sovatthika wrote:yeah, i think the fifth precept only refers to fermented drinks. contemporary translations have obfuscated the issue.
Taking or smoking recreational drugs is included in the 5th precept.
5. Suramerayamajja pamadatthana veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami
I undertake the precept to refrain from intoxicating drinks and drugs which lead to carelessness.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dham ... asila.html

:anjali:
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Dhammarakkhito
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Re: Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precept

Post by Dhammarakkhito »

Kare wrote:
The best way of translating this sentence, is to start from the end.

samadiyami = I undertake
sikkhapadam = the training precept
veramani = of abstaining from

Now for the long compound:
suramerayamajjappamadatthana

This is a compound made up from sura + meraya + majja + pamada + thana

sura and meraya are two different alcoholic drinks. Sura may be a kind of beer, and meraya maybe some kind of cider. Anyway, both are alcoholic.

majja = either intoxication or intoxicant drink
pamada = indolence, carelessness, negligence, intoxication

majja and pamada are practically synonyms here

now for the last member of the compound: thana. This word means "condition".

So, suramerayamajjappamadatthana is literally "beer-cider-carelessness-intoxication-condition".

In order to make this into a more idiomatic English, we have to start from the end: "the condition of intoxication and carelessness caused by beer and cider"

So what then does the precept say? It says: I undertake the training precept of abstaining from the condition of intoxication and carelessness caused by beer and cider (or, alcoholic drinks).

This is the literal meaning of the precept. Not to abstain from the drinks, but to abstain from the condition of intoxication.https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?t=2667
"Just as the ocean has a single taste — that of salt — in the same way, this Dhamma-Vinaya has a single taste: that of release."
— Ud 5.5

https://www.facebook.com/noblebuddhadha ... 34/?type=3

http://seeingthroughthenet.net/
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Re: Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precept

Post by ieee23 »

zolek wrote: I've just wondering if people working for a legal marijuana dispensary have violated the 5th precept ? What makes it different from selling alcohol is that alcohol is clearly intoxicants, while in this case it's for medical uses only. What do you think ?
It is more important what you think.

We aren't the keepers of Buddhist morality here on dhammawheel. Many who ask these kind of questions will rationalize their actions back to what their ethics were before they were introduced to Buddhism. So again, it is about what you think.
Whatever a bhikkhu frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of his mind. - MN 19
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manas
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Re: Selling medicine marijuana, is it violate the 5th precept

Post by manas »

Weed increases the pleasure associated with the five senses (intoxicating), clouds one's usual sense of judgement, and reduces the ability to remember and concentrate. It might feel good at the time, but the long term effects are destructive of sati sampajanna. My advice is, don't use or sell it. Don't have anything to do with it, and don't associate with people who do, unless it's to help them stop using. Yes it's an intoxicant. I can't see the point of reducing one's pain in this lifetime, if the means of doing so, risks increasing the pain of the next.

EDIT: upon reflection, this post was a bit extreme. I do agree that intent is key; if it's being used moderately, and for easing or healing a medical condition, maybe it is ok; but as I don't know Pali, I can't tell if the wording of the actual precept is only referring to 'drinks' (ie, alcohol) or to any intoxicant in general. Since weed was around during the Buddha's time, maybe if it was as bad as alcohol, he would have specifically mentioned it...one might ask, why he did not? Still, I would think one ought to be moderate in it's use,if using it medically, as it certainly does increase the pleasure associated with the five senses...just saying, use cautiously, if you are trying to get free from sensual attachment. :anjali:
To the Buddha-refuge i go; to the Dhamma-refuge i go; to the Sangha-refuge i go.
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