'Cannabis and the Christian: What the Bible Says about Marijuana ' with Todd Miles

00;00;01;09 - 00;00;27;19
Dave Quak
Welcome to Sunburnt Souls. I'm Dave Quak and on this show we explore life and faith and our mental well-being as a pastor that struggles with mental illness. I get to chat to people like me, people that love Jesus and follow the way of Christ while dealing with the messiness and brokenness of lives. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode.

00;00;27;21 - 00;00;48;15
Dave Quak
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Sunburned Souls this morning. We are very blessed to have Todd Miles joining us. He is the author of a book on cannabis and The Christian Anomaly. Read out the bio, but let's talk through your bio just for a bit of fun. Okay, so you firstly are a professor of theology. What does that look like in your world, brother?

00;00;48;18 - 00;01;14;13
Dr Todd Miles
Well, I teach at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. I've done it. This is my 20. Finished my 21st year. I teach theology, biblical theology, hermeneutic, which is the Bible interpretation class. I do all the church history as well. And and so it's a, you know, it's a seminary. So it's graduate, education and then I also serve as pastor of teaching, I think is my title at the, at my, at the local church.

00;01;14;13 - 00;01;25;00
Dr Todd Miles
So I, I'm in the church office one day a week and do about half the preaching and, and then kind of function as a lay elder. Outside of that. So.

00;01;25;00 - 00;01;31;12
Dave Quak
Oh, what a blessing. You'll see. You pastor must be feeling pretty lucky to have someone on staff who volunteers does. How's the preaching?

00;01;31;12 - 00;01;40;07
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah. Yeah, well, I, I love it, I love it. It's a great arrangement. I it's working fabulously, I think so I'm. I'm really blessed.

00;01;40;10 - 00;01;42;20
Dave Quak
And you did your master's of divinity at Western.

00;01;42;20 - 00;01;43;01
Dr Todd Miles
I did.

00;01;43;02 - 00;01;44;27
Dave Quak
Is it the same campus that you all are at now.

00;01;44;28 - 00;01;45;19
Dr Todd Miles
Exactly.

00;01;45;19 - 00;01;55;12
Dave Quak
And PhD from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Yeah, I look, I'm a Baptist, okay? I'm an Aussie Baptist, but you Southern Baptist, you guys a Baptist? Baptist?

00;01;55;16 - 00;01;55;23
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah.

00;01;55;24 - 00;02;00;08
Dave Quak
Apparently you, the next level. Baptist. You are where it's at. What was that like, you PhD?

00;02;00;14 - 00;02;21;15
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah, a lot of work. The the PhD is is oppressive. It takes up all your thought space. The Lord. It was very kind that I didn't just ruin my family as. Yes. During that study time, but, it was it was a fantastic experience. The the three years we spent in Louisville were, were excellent. Louisville, Kentucky.

00;02;21;18 - 00;02;24;04
Dr Todd Miles
So it was it was a cross-country trip for us, for sure.

00;02;24;08 - 00;02;30;07
Dave Quak
Oh, yeah. In Kentucky. And now you're in Portland. What's Portland like? What's it like living there? Lots of coffee shops. I know that much.

00;02;31;04 - 00;02;52;10
Dr Todd Miles
Lots of coffee shops, lots of craft beer, lots of marijuana dispensaries. Yeah. The the motto of the city, I think, is keep Portland weird. And I, I'm not a supporter of keeping Portland weird. I'd like a little more normalcy. I actually live outside of Portland now at this point. But I used to live right in the very heart of Southeast Portland.

00;02;52;12 - 00;03;15;02
Dr Todd Miles
Well, Portland is is very, very, very progressive, I think would be the the most charitable way to describe it. It made news during the whole Black Lives Matter movement for 100 straight nights of they called it peaceful protesting. But if you know anything about what that looked like in America, it was it always devolved into a riot every single night.

00;03;15;08 - 00;03;16;01
Dr Todd Miles
So yeah.

00;03;16;07 - 00;03;30;00
Dave Quak
Yeah. And they really like, championed the fact that they are the most progressive, you know, like that's like Portland. Yes. You know that. You know, they're known for being leading the way on anything fringy, very less centered. And all of that. Hey, interesting place to have your, Bible college.

00;03;30;00 - 00;03;50;05
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah, it is, it is if you ever watch the TV show Portlandia. It was a comedy show. It was almost nothing in that show was just made up out of whole cloth. It was always rooted in some Portland reality. It was, but maybe that show didn't make it big. But, people always ask, Is Portland as strange as Portland?

00;03;50;05 - 00;03;52;14
Dr Todd Miles
It makes it out to be. And I say, yeah, absolutely.

00;03;52;14 - 00;04;00;10
Dave Quak
Yeah, yeah. Well, so here in Australia, Todd, we have your progressive as well, but we also have bogans. Do you know what a bogan is?

00;04;00;10 - 00;04;02;12
Dr Todd Miles
I have never heard that term before.

00;04;02;16 - 00;04;10;13
Dave Quak
It's a very Australian thing they call I don't know how to sort of articulate it, but if you can imagine like a mullet haircut, do you know what a mullet haircut is?

00;04;10;16 - 00;04;12;16
Dr Todd Miles
I do I absolutely, yeah.

00;04;12;16 - 00;04;18;05
Dave Quak
It's a mullet haircut, utility car. So like I think you guys call them pickup trucks.

00;04;18;05 - 00;04;18;20
Dr Todd Miles
Yep.

00;04;19;08 - 00;04;33;12
Dave Quak
You know, Winfield Blue hanging out of the mouse, kind of like white singlet, short shorts. That kind of vibe is our bogans. And so they're kind of like knockabout Aussies who aren't really into politics.

00;04;33;12 - 00;04;34;18
Dr Todd Miles
Or progressiveness.

00;04;34;18 - 00;05;00;03
Dave Quak
Or anything. So they're keeping us balanced. So we've got progressives and bogans where our country's at, where it comes to marijuana usage is it's not legal yet for recreational okay. But it is starting to really rear its head when it comes to medicinal marijuana usage. And like a lot of people are getting CBD gummies and things. Not legally, but quite easily, and then sort of using them for sleep.

00;05;00;04 - 00;05;06;01
Dave Quak
Yes, purposes or whatever else. What's the culture like in Portland when it comes to marijuana usage?

00;05;06;22 - 00;05;36;00
Dr Todd Miles
Well, there's there are marijuana dispensaries all over the place at, resorts around the, the, the Pacific Northwest. You know, there's all sorts of CBD and THC, treatments, including for pets. So it's it's it's totally, totally and completely mainstream. It feels like, although for those who have always been against marijuana usage, there's still a bit of a stigma attached to its use.

00;05;36;00 - 00;05;59;02
Dr Todd Miles
And so, when, say, family, friends or doctors will recommend the use of either THC or CBD, the the Christians or those who have always been against the use of like mind altering substances like like marijuana, for example. They're not sure what to make of it. And they're looking for answers, guidance, wisdom, that sort of thing.

00;05;59;04 - 00;06;06;15
Dave Quak
So could I, as a visitor, if I went to Portland, go into a dispensary and get any like or do I need a prescription or anything? Oh, how does that.

00;06;06;16 - 00;06;29;14
Dr Todd Miles
Oh no. Yeah. You just walk in as long as you have an ID. Oh then you you are more than encouraged, right? Yeah. They would love to sell you some. There's actually no difference, between medical marijuana and recreational marijuana. You go to a dispensary and you're. You are ordering from the same counter, the same supplies that the whole bill.

00;06;29;15 - 00;06;35;03
Dave Quak
Okay. And is it like a cafe where, you know, you go to a cafe and you've got the cakes or presented? Is it a similar concept?

00;06;35;10 - 00;07;15;09
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah, yeah, I, I've, I've only been to a few but, but yeah, the, the counters are out and you can look and, and see what it is that, that you're buying, you can buy for, for THC concentration or CBD concentration and, and there's, there's the whole gamut. And then, of course, there's, there's like the oils which the THC concentration will be very, very high in that the actual plant, maybe even I can't remember 40, 50% THC, which is very, very high compared to like the 1960s and 1970s marijuana.

00;07;15;11 - 00;07;23;18
Dr Todd Miles
But if you get an oil, you can get like over 90% THC. So, okay, you can buy to, to fit what your desire I suppose.

00;07;23;22 - 00;07;34;09
Dave Quak
So with the THC in the CBD, they, some of the best abbreviations for some of the longest words in history. Could you just give us a little bit of an overview of what each of those mean?

00;07;34;11 - 00;08;15;01
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah, sure. So the the cannabis plant or marijuana as it's often called in in America, is a highly complex plant. It has a number of psychoactive components. The two most significant psychoactive components for what people buy for are THC tetrahydrocannabinol and and CBD cannabidiol CBD is is not intoxicating, but THC is and THC is is that psychoactive component that the people use marijuana for for the most point, or at least at least in the past, it is it is that component that will that will get you high.

00;08;15;03 - 00;08;17;14
Dr Todd Miles
Do you want me to describe a little bit about how it works?

00;08;17;16 - 00;08;26;25
Dave Quak
Yeah, that'd be cool. Okay, I look I mean, you're the doctor here. This is cool having this, but I don't. Yeah, but you're also the weed doctor for that. But this is a this no idea.

00;08;26;25 - 00;08;34;10
Dr Todd Miles
Like, I never in a million years I thought that I would be doing podcasts or interviews or write a book or anything like that.

00;08;34;26 - 00;08;40;07
Dave Quak
Yeah. We're going to get to the, the motivation of the book soon, but yeah, explain that to us. It'll be cool.

00;08;40;08 - 00;09;06;01
Dr Todd Miles
We have in our, in our body, a number of, of what are called cannabinoid receptors. And that's, that's just what we have, how we've been created, what how the Lord made us. And THC is it is an agonist, if you will, that slots into these receptors. That is it. It mimics a biological molecule that our body would release for certain reasons that that activates the receptors.

00;09;06;04 - 00;09;28;20
Dr Todd Miles
The agonist or THC is what we call an agonist because it's it's a molecule that mimics one of these things that our own body would create. And it slots right into these receptors. They're actually called cannabinoid receptors because we understood how marijuana worked, before we understood how that part of our body worked. And so they just named it after the they kind of named it after marijuana.

00;09;28;22 - 00;10;01;24
Dr Todd Miles
In that sense, these cannabinoid receptors operate by so many different parts of, of of what we do, how our digestive system works are our pulmonary systems are like everything having to do with thinking, motor coordination, problem solving skills, memory, basically everything that makes us who we are as humans generally and particular individuals is is controlled by this system.

00;10;01;24 - 00;10;21;23
Dr Todd Miles
And and THC is is one of those components that slots right in and activates these receptors. That gets them either operating really fast or slow them down. So, THC is really complicated because it's it's both a stimulant and a depressant. It just depends on what part of the body it's, it's interacting with.

00;10;21;27 - 00;10;32;06
Dave Quak
Well, that's super interesting. Okay. So you can see why it works. Then if our bodies have got a natural disposition towards receiving it, if I'm understanding that. Right okay. And so that's how that works. What about CBD.

00;10;32;06 - 00;10;55;13
Dr Todd Miles
Then. Well CBD is is another one of these, psychoactive components. So it is psychoactive, but it is not intoxicating. Okay. Caffeine is psychoactive. It it just, slots into different particular receptors and has a different kind of effects on who we are. I'm not. And by that, I'm not not, like, concerned at all about CBD because it's not intoxicating.

00;10;55;15 - 00;11;11;12
Dr Todd Miles
I'm not I often joke with people that that CBD is the essential oil of the cannabis industry. It feels like it. It promises way more than it actually delivers. But yeah, but nevertheless, it's it's very popular right now.

00;11;11;12 - 00;11;13;11
Dave Quak
Yeah. And expensive to say.

00;11;13;13 - 00;11;24;14
Dr Todd Miles
That would be the main concern I would have. Yeah. With it just just the cost. There might be some stewardship issues there. Yeah. Like you're paying a lot of money. Maybe not getting what you think you're going to get from it. Yeah.

00;11;24;14 - 00;11;49;02
Dave Quak
And that can be promoted just because of culture. If you're walking past all these dispensaries, it's going to seem like you're, you know, embracing Portland. If you get on the CBD. What I like about you, Todd, is that when you did your PhD back at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, I imagine you didn't picture in 20 years you'd be the literally the theologian speaking into this, because not many people do, which I think is a bit disturbing.

00;11;49;02 - 00;12;01;04
Dave Quak
Firstly, I think we need to speak about these big issues, but I also like that you must have been executing culture, walking around your streets and thinking someone needs to speak into this. Is that what motivated the book? Yeah.

00;12;01;07 - 00;12;36;11
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah. Well it it was it was totally pastoral. I it certainly wasn't in the abstract. It recreational marijuana was legalized in it went on sale in in Oregon I think in 2015. So so we're about nine years into it right now. It actually was legalized in the state of Washington earlier. And literally the day after it was made legal, one of the members of our church came to the pastors and elders and asked, hey, now that marijuana is legal in Washington, would it be okay if I just crossed the river and and bought some at Portland?

00;12;36;11 - 00;13;02;21
Dr Todd Miles
Is it's right across the Columbia River from from the state of Washington. And we realized that we didn't have at our disposal the answer that was normally given by by Christians regarding marijuana use, the answer was always, no, it's illegal. But we couldn't we couldn't go to that anymore. We had to actually start thinking like disciples of Christ, thinking like Christians and trying to figure out what the Bible had to say on this.

00;13;02;21 - 00;13;21;17
Dr Todd Miles
It's such a significant issue. And I, I'm I'm convinced that the Bible is sufficient for living it. It gives us all the information we need. All, yeah, all the divine words that we need to live faithfully before the Lord. So there has to be biblical wisdom to bring to bear on this. And and so, we talked about it a little bit.

00;13;21;17 - 00;13;33;05
Dr Todd Miles
I went to a pastor's conference and did a seminar for pastors on just trying to equip them with some thoughts on it. And ever since then, I've gotten all these invitations, and I later put it into a book.

00;13;33;07 - 00;13;49;19
Dave Quak
Well, I mean, the invitations, I think you're very generous, even coming on our podcast. I'm not very well known yet, but I look on your profile and through YouTube and you've done lots of interviews, like, people obviously want to speak about it, and it seems like you're selling lots of copies of the book to like, it looks like it's moving.

00;13;50;03 - 00;14;00;21
Dr Todd Miles
I'm not going to get rich off it, but it's it's I've, I have I have two books I like better and it's all it has sold more copies and than that one. Yeah, that's for sure.

00;14;00;27 - 00;14;18;14
Dave Quak
Yeah. And it is all about what the Bible says about marijuana. Could we start there? I actually solicited a few questions from people in our faith community. And that and one of the questions was, you know, did God create marijuana or was it part of the whole, like, let's start right at the start.

00;14;18;16 - 00;14;39;24
Dr Todd Miles
Sure. Yeah, I would I would say that, yeah, God absolutely did create marijuana. I don't think it's, you know, part of the Genesis three curse of, of of weeds and thorns and thistles that Adam was going to be subjected to. It's it's part of God's good creation. And I would go so far as to say that that marijuana is the generous provision of a very good God.

00;14;40;02 - 00;14;53;20
Dr Todd Miles
But like all of God's good gifts, they can be misused. Yeah. Heavens, I think I think arsenic is is the generous provision of a very good God. But there's appropriate ways to to use it.

00;14;53;22 - 00;15;14;11
Dave Quak
Okay. Coming back to an earlier thing, you mentioned that CBD is non intoxicating. My friend asked about marijuana and alcohol usage and asked if that's kind of like the relationship we need to approach it from, like alcohol in and of itself. Not evil, but misuse of it can be.

00;15;14;13 - 00;15;50;24
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah, yeah, I, I would say the same thing about alcohol that it's, it's the generous provision of a very good God. But but clearly from the Bible it can be misused. It I, I have no qualms about binding someone's conscience. Regarding alcohol intoxication, I'm very I, I'm very concerned as a as a pastor and professor, especially as a pastor, by binding people's consciences where the Bible does not or I don't want to go further than the Bible, but but I am convinced that the drunkenness in toxic alcohol intoxication, is is wrong.

00;15;50;24 - 00;16;13;04
Dr Todd Miles
The Bible, I think, is very clear on that. And, and so I think that is helpful for us. But but I tried to do the work to show that you can't just substitute marijuana every time you see the word wine. For example, in the Bible, you have to know a little bit about how alcohol works. You have to know how marijuana functions.

00;16;13;06 - 00;16;34;06
Dr Todd Miles
I think you also need to do a bit of Bible study to figure out why intoxication is forbidden by the Lord. And it what I try to show in the book is, is that the scriptures don't just prohibit drunkenness, but the Bible tells us why, very helpfully. I mean, the Lord could have just said, don't get drunk and that would be that.

00;16;34;08 - 00;17;07;00
Dr Todd Miles
But he tells us why. And as you look at all the different passages that speak of the problems with drunkenness, it's you have diminished cognitive abilities, you have diminished physical abilities, and and you have a loss of moral judgment, which is probably the worst of all the, the problems associated with with drunkenness. And then what I try to show is that marijuana intoxication getting high on marijuana demonstrably does all three of those things to, to varying degrees.

00;17;07;00 - 00;17;35;28
Dr Todd Miles
So so I'm, I am comfortable saying that, that it would be sinful to get high on marijuana. And there might be exceptions to that, like for, for medical purposes, for example. Right. You know, having morphine is is very, very, very mind altering and very addictive. And but I would never condemn someone for using morphine to deal with acute pain issues, you know, like post surgery or something like that.

00;17;35;28 - 00;17;40;10
Dr Todd Miles
That's so there are exceptions to this. But that's the path that I would I would walk down.

00;17;40;17 - 00;17;59;23
Dave Quak
And I think that's also my to redeem the God given generous nature of marijuana is that when used properly, it does have those medicinal benefits. You know, Parkinson's disease and whatever else. Okay, so this is interesting because I like the parallel between that and morphine, because if you use morphine recreationally once again that way you know. Yeah.

00;17;59;26 - 00;18;00;24
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah.

00;18;00;26 - 00;18;15;14
Dave Quak
You know and or any of the opioids and stuff. I don't want to digress, but do you get frustrated by the many, many questions you must get that are kind of like, am I allowed to do this? Almost. It's almost like the question is, how far to the line can I go? Do you get those all the time?

00;18;15;14 - 00;18;40;01
Dr Todd Miles
I often I do, but you know, usually not by people who are actually using it's, it is interesting or at least I don't think they're using it, particularly if they tell me they're not. What I find a lot is, is that the people who are really struggling with marijuana addiction, eventually they'll get very honest and and they'll say, this is a problem.

00;18;40;11 - 00;19;03;28
Dr Todd Miles
And they're no longer trying to justify their use because they know they have a problem with it. I a good example would be I was at a church one time, and I was talking to a group of, of young adults after preaching there, and we were just we were talking about marijuana, and one of them was asking about marijuana for this person's, medical uses.

00;19;04;00 - 00;19;21;03
Dr Todd Miles
And then afterwards, the person came to me and said, I got to be honest with you, I'm not using it just for medical purposes. I get high every night and I know it's wrong. Yeah. I preached at a church one time where I was met at the door by an individual, and he said, I agreed with everything you said.

00;19;21;05 - 00;19;41;16
Dr Todd Miles
How do I stop? Yeah. How do I stop? So. So a lot of the like, like the youth pastor questions, how far is too far? How far can I go up to the line that that youth pastors get all the time? I get those more in the abstract than I get from people who are actually right in the throes of of releasing that they have a problem.

00;19;41;18 - 00;20;02;01
Dave Quak
Yeah, I think that's really good. I haven't shared this with you, Todd, but I used to be addicted to marijuana in my teenage years, for a long time, and it was probably really consume my life from about 16 to 19 years old. Okay. This is probably leading into the next sort of section. Now, I actually really struggle with bipolar.

00;20;02;14 - 00;20;14;00
Dave Quak
And I only have been diagnosed for about 5 or 6 years. I'm 43 now, and so like that. I mean, what do you think about all that, the links between mental illness and other use of marijuana?

00;20;14;00 - 00;20;33;25
Dr Todd Miles
Well, this would be so just to back up just a, just a bit is, is that I think if we're going to think biblically about, about marijuana, one of the things we have to to do is research what's actually going on with it. And, and there would need to be some sort of risk reward evaluation analysis for it.

00;20;33;27 - 00;21;04;14
Dr Todd Miles
And, and one of the deep troubling risks associated with THC, this one component in particular is the evidence is mounting all the time. You're even starting to see it in the mainstream media now, which for a long time was basically functioned as a as a cannabis lobby. Yeah. But but but it's the amount of evidence is so overwhelming linking THC use, especially regular use of THC.

00;21;04;14 - 00;21;27;03
Dr Todd Miles
And most physicians and those who study it would say that that regular use of marijuana would be you're using, 3 to 4 times per week. Okay. So the the link between regular use of marijuana and mental illness of all sorts of kinds is growing stronger and stronger all the time. I don't see how anyone could deny it.

00;21;27;09 - 00;21;54;04
Dr Todd Miles
If they do deny it, they've got their head in the sand. And then what's an even stronger link? Because. Because causation with mental illness is really difficult, right? Yeah. But but there's a strong correlation now between those who probably have some sort of hereditary inclination towards mental illness that marijuana use will actually bring about that mental illness much faster and quicker.

00;21;54;04 - 00;21;56;29
Dr Todd Miles
And again, the evidence for that is overwhelming.

00;21;57;02 - 00;22;05;11
Dave Quak
It really is. You know, in researching this, I was trying to see if it was a 5050 split or, you know, and it's just not like.

00;22;05;16 - 00;22;06;06
Dr Todd Miles
Oh, it's you just.

00;22;06;06 - 00;22;16;21
Dave Quak
Read any credible, like if you start getting on the medical websites and the actual research, it really is got to be 90%, 10%, you know, like it's not 50, 50.

00;22;16;23 - 00;22;40;22
Dr Todd Miles
No. Yeah, I totally agree. I and so I, I tell people if you are if you're a teenager and so there's two big problems and it wouldn't surprise me I can't say that for sure that they're linked. But, but but when is it that thc. Demonstrably it interferes with brain development for for females the female brain is usually fully developed by age 2122.

00;22;41;03 - 00;23;06;26
Dr Todd Miles
For for males, it's 26, 27, 28 years old and, and the the hard part is that you don't get it back, right. It's it's not like you stop and then your brain catches up. You just you just don't get that development back, and then you couple that with these links with mental illness. I, I tell people I boy, if if you have a family history of mental illness, stay away from marijuana.

00;23;06;29 - 00;23;12;25
Dr Todd Miles
And by all means, if you're a teenager, stay away. Just. Yeah. You're not doing yourself any favors at all.

00;23;12;26 - 00;23;31;23
Dave Quak
No. And the catch 22 is when you're struggling with mental illness as a young person, the effects of the bad side of marijuana become appealing because it's that numbing agent, and it's that vicious cycle where you want the numb, and then it's just doing so much damage, and you can see why people get stuck in it. Hey.

00;23;31;26 - 00;23;51;08
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah. And even more insidious is that a lot of well-meaning people will, will, will recommend. Yeah, marijuana use, to people who who struggle with various forms of, of mental illness, even something like, anxiety, even as simple as that. I don't want to minimize anxiety, but absolutely.

00;23;51;14 - 00;24;13;13
Dave Quak
I have a friend who did end up getting marijuana from his GP. And then I went to my GP and said, look, what do you think for me? And he's like, Dave, do not, this is not something that you should use in any form, not even CBD, not even THC. Just stay away. Just because of the disposition plus the triggers, plus everything else that could be going on.

00;24;13;13 - 00;24;17;12
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah. It's that your your doctor was wise, I think.

00;24;17;17 - 00;24;32;19
Dave Quak
Yeah, I like him. He and he's journey with me. Actually he was part of the he helped identify in the early days and help refer me to a psychologist, then a psychiatrist. So he's been on this journey with me the whole time. So, I mean, I'm thankful for good GP's told us. I'm sure you are too.

00;24;32;19 - 00;24;33;23
Dr Todd Miles
Absolutely. Yeah.

00;24;33;23 - 00;24;45;02
Dave Quak
They're such blessings. So when it comes to the use, that's not intoxicating. Then for you mentioned before CBDs nothing really. You don't really mind other than the fact that people are wasting their money.

00;24;45;02 - 00;25;14;10
Dr Todd Miles
Maybe I, I'm concerned they might be I yeah I'm concerned they might be. Although I do have I do have some acquaintances, who are really, really allergic to CBD. So they find it very, very dangerous for them. So, you know, it hasn't been legal all that long. One of the downsides of it not being legal is it's been a little bit more difficult to, to do studies, based on use for it.

00;25;14;10 - 00;25;19;13
Dr Todd Miles
And so, so all of that, our body of evidence is, is starting to grow.

00;25;19;16 - 00;25;30;15
Dave Quak
So within, thc in a non intoxicating form, you know, for like, microdosing for back pain or whatever else are you thinking that's okay. According to biblical.

00;25;30;15 - 00;26;04;07
Dr Todd Miles
Well, I guess so. Here's what I would the downside the warnings that the risks associated with, with THC and marijuana, those still obtain even if you're not, intoxicated. And, and so like the, the link with mental illness, that, that sort of thing is, is you you are still running a risk there. What I do find is that people who micro dose that is that they are using THC for some effect other than in its intoxicating powers.

00;26;04;27 - 00;26;25;01
Dr Todd Miles
They're basically self-medicating and and I'm not against self-medication because I think we all do it all the time. If I have a headache, I reach for the etc.. Yeah, yeah, I get up in the morning, I would like a little bit of caffeine. And, and then sometimes if I'm drinking too much caffeine, then I, I feels like I'm just managing headaches.

00;26;25;01 - 00;26;41;29
Dr Todd Miles
And at that point, I feel like I've created this artificial dependance, that my body has for it. And, and I feel a bit enslaved by that. And so. Yeah, so but the it seems to me that this what I tried to do in the book is, is, is I tried to approach things from a wisdom and discipleship perspective.

00;26;42;09 - 00;27;12;12
Dr Todd Miles
Yes. Rather than just a black white. This is wrong. This is right. And I do think there are different wisdom questions and different discipleship questions for medical use compared to recreational use. I think the evidence is in that there are good medical benefits for THC that I think have been proven and duplicated. We know that THC is a really strong nausea suppressant.

00;27;12;13 - 00;27;42;10
Dr Todd Miles
Okay. It is an appetite stimulant. So we know that. And for some people who are say like you're on chemotherapy or something, having something that creates some appetite in you can be a lifesaver, I suppose. CBD that there there are a number of drugs that have been demonstrated to to have a strong effect on certain kinds of, epilepsy, especially childhood epilepsy, that have been a real blessing.

00;27;42;10 - 00;28;06;07
Dr Todd Miles
Those seem to be very, very, powerful, drugs for that. And so, so I would say that there's some clear medical benefit to THC and CBD. And so you would want to ask different kinds of, of questions, regarding their use. Yeah. You would want to treat it like any other drug. You would want to know what the side effects are.

00;28;06;07 - 00;28;28;20
Dr Todd Miles
You would want to do some sort of cost benefit analysis. You know, I would never recommend to someone that they use morphine, recreationally. The story I, I often tell with this is, is my wife. She had had cancer about five years ago. And when she went through one of the surgeries, she was in incredible pain. And she's lying there in the hospital bed in recovery.

00;28;28;22 - 00;28;51;27
Dr Todd Miles
And of course, they have a little morphine pump that's on a timer for, and it was there was incredible relief to her from that. But but they have the timer on there because the side effects are so strong and the addictive problems associated with morphine are such that they want to regulate it very, very carefully. Now, my wife doesn't like drugs of of any kind.

00;28;51;27 - 00;29;15;24
Dr Todd Miles
And she's a she's a teetotaler. No alcohol, no, no nothing. And yet she was just pounding that morphine pump as soon as she possibly could. And it was, it just made me and my kids laugh to see her there. She did. She was in such pain. It was acute pain, right. Well, I mean, I would have thought anybody who went in and she it was mind altering to is right.

00;29;15;24 - 00;29;40;03
Dr Todd Miles
She was she was not at her, disciple of Jesus Christ. Best. Right. She wasn't thinking, but taking every thought captive in obedience to Christ during this moment. All the things that the Bible tells us we're supposed to do with our minds in, in submission to Christ and, and, but but but I would have thought anyone who would have told me that she was sinning by finding some relief from her acute pain.

00;29;40;03 - 00;30;05;02
Dr Todd Miles
Right. So the context, determines things. I am a bit concerned when people self-medicate. I, I it's oftentimes it's done without accountability. And one of the nice things, I suppose, or it ought to be the case that if you have prescriptions from doctors is there's a little accountability. There, there. It's, it's a third party who's monitoring and regulating your use of something.

00;30;05;03 - 00;30;23;08
Dave Quak
You mentioned one of my favorite words about three minutes ago. And that's discipleship. Let's one thing I really appreciate about your book, Todd, is that things around chapter 5 or 6, we start talking about, okay, how does this look for the brothers and sisters in Christ that we're discipling in faith? And I'm a pastor like you, Todd.

00;30;23;08 - 00;30;45;14
Dave Quak
I care for the brothers and sisters in the faith, and people are mentoring. And this is probably my favorite part that I wanted to get to is like, you know, men and women of God. How does all of this fit into our discipleship? How do we think theologically sound under the redemption of Jesus? About this? And I guess as pastors and people growing in their own faith, what's all this mean for us?

00;30;45;17 - 00;30;46;10
Dave Quak
Well.

00;30;46;12 - 00;31;11;01
Dr Todd Miles
Again, here's this cost benefit analysis for for THC. What? And I'm talking mainly about THC here because it's, it's the intoxicating component to it that people buy it for. Is THC going to get in the way of, of disciples ship and it is possible to become addicted to to thc THC is is mind altering is is my ability to I mentioned take every thought captive in obedience to Christ.

00;31;11;10 - 00;31;30;23
Dr Todd Miles
Is is thc going to enhance that or is it going to diminish it? What about just the biblical call to be sober minded? Yeah. And and being sober minded in the Bible is far more than like not being drunk, right? Yes. True. But. Yeah, but but but it's not less. I would submit it's impossible to be sober minded if you're intoxicated.

00;31;30;27 - 00;31;57;15
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah, it's possibly be sober, but not sober minded, but still. So questions like that. Another one. It makes me laugh, but there have been studies done on the effects of THC on ambition and and of course, the joke associated with marijuana forever was you're living in your parents basement eating chips and fighting over a TV remote, and you have no inclination whatsoever to get a job.

00;31;57;20 - 00;32;28;28
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah, well, they've they've studied it and and they've, like, proven it does have a diminishing effect on ambition. And, and now we actually, from a physiological standpoint, know why THC interferes with our mental ability to assess our current situation and link it with a choice made in the past. And it also interferes with our ability to look at a goal that we might have and where we're at right now, and connect those two things in any meaningful way.

00;32;29;05 - 00;32;33;19
Dr Todd Miles
Past, present, and future are all kind of cut off in our thinking.

00;32;33;19 - 00;32;35;10
Dave Quak
That's super interesting. Todd.

00;32;35;13 - 00;32;54;15
Dr Todd Miles
It's hard to be goal oriented or have ambition. If you have no idea why you're in the situation you're in and no way no clear path for how to get out of it, or even that you want to get out of it. And THC will affect that. There's certainly discipleship problems associated with having too much ambition or selfishness, that sort of thing.

00;32;54;21 - 00;33;16;27
Dr Todd Miles
But the ability to assess your current situation, to make goals and to to mortify the flesh, to to participate in sanctification, those sorts of things. Is THC going to enhance or diminish that? I think there's strong evidence that that it will diminish it. Not not enhance it. Yeah. These are the kind of wisdom choices that I think people ought to make.

00;33;16;27 - 00;33;33;18
Dr Todd Miles
And and again, is just to go back to what we were talking about with self-medication. If, if someone in my church came to me and said, hey, Todd, I just want you to know that that that I have a glass of wine every night just so I can go to sleep at night. That would be concerning to me.

00;33;33;18 - 00;33;37;05
Dr Todd Miles
Is is there a better path than you drinking every night alone?

00;33;37;08 - 00;33;37;27
Dave Quak
Yeah.

00;33;37;29 - 00;33;57;19
Dr Todd Miles
Right. Is that what alcohol is for? I would be concerned about that. And, and I would want to maybe dive into that a little bit with the person and see if we can address some root causes of it rather than, than self-medicating what might be the symptoms rather than the, the cause.

00;33;57;22 - 00;34;19;01
Dave Quak
What I like about that explanation, Todd, it's based in grace. Going back to what you said, it's a cost benefit analysis. Yeah. The person still self-medicating is saved by grace, like all of us, but missing out on the benefit of sanctification and missing out on the benefit of grace and usability in the kingdom and all those great things we get when we are submitted to Christ.

00;34;19;01 - 00;34;42;04
Dave Quak
So, like I you see, that's a positive way to be able to to, not sell this. I don't need to sell this. It's biblical, so we don't have to sell it. But, you know, to promote that to young people is like, it will diminish your best. You'll be an 80% version of yourself or 60 or something. And, Todd, to be completely honest, man, I know that those years cost me, mentally, they cost me in some of my cognitive abilities.

00;34;42;04 - 00;34;49;00
Dave Quak
And what I used to be able to do now is diminishing quickly at 43, which is it's disturbing because it has long term effects.

00;34;49;00 - 00;35;15;03
Dr Todd Miles
Like you said, I appreciate that. I there's there's so much good, that that is found in Christ and why white short sell ourselves. Yeah. The world, the flesh and the devil are our problems. Enough. Why? Why court trouble and, diminishing joy, when we're already battling the world of flesh and the devil?

00;35;15;08 - 00;35;27;11
Dave Quak
I guess that's your pastoral heart coming through in the book as well. Pardon me? Because I didn't know you before. Todd was wondering if would just be this black and white, like, do this. Don't do this. Because that's what you do in Christian circles. Sometimes.

00;35;27;13 - 00;36;03;29
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah, yeah, I try it. I try not to do that because, now I if people are going to read my book looking for justification for using marijuana, they're probably going to walk away disappointed. A lot of people who don't like the book say Todd's against marijuana. Just case closed. But what I, what I tried to do is frame it in terms of discipleship and wisdom, because I know that if we go black and white on on an issue and say more than the Bible says, then eventually someone's going to open their Bible and say, the Bible doesn't actually say what you said it says, and that will be problematic.

00;36;04;17 - 00;36;31;00
Dr Todd Miles
So I don't want to say more than the Bible says. I want people to be able to to read my book, have a Bible open in front of them, make an evaluation for the kind of, of, of, theology I was developing, the applications I was developing and, and, and make a judgment for themselves as to how I did that, but hopefully they won't say, oh, Todd just said way more than the Bible actually says, because I don't think that helps anybody.

00;36;31;00 - 00;36;50;09
Dr Todd Miles
I'm sure you've run pastorally into people who perhaps grew up in strongly legalistic homes. They end up rebelling against that because, because we weren't meant to live that way. And then people, they don't trust the church, they don't trust what people are telling them about scripture. And I don't want to do that.

00;36;50;09 - 00;37;01;15
Dave Quak
That I tell you, you did a great job balancing that today. So we start to wind up, I'm going to put a link to your book on Amazon in the, notes, is there, and is that your preferred way of selling the books?

00;37;01;15 - 00;37;04;00
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's the only way that I know of.

00;37;04;06 - 00;37;09;28
Dave Quak
Okay. Sweet. And if they get their Kindle, they're also, paperbacks as well. Yeah.

00;37;10;01 - 00;37;16;13
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah. It comes on on audio version. I think there's someone who's a better voice actor than I am who who read it.

00;37;16;13 - 00;37;34;18
Dave Quak
So, yeah, it's cool. And I think it's reasonably priced. I don't know what it's cost over in the States, but over here it's only 999 for a Kindle version, which is cheap, man. So thanks for that. And especially because our dollar is terrible compared to yours. Makes it even more sorry about that. Less royalties for you. Sorry, brother.

00;37;35;03 - 00;37;39;20
Dr Todd Miles
No worries. I it's not a yeah, yeah, I.

00;37;39;28 - 00;37;43;08
Dave Quak
Yeah. Do you have anything else in the pipeline? What's the next book?

00;37;43;10 - 00;38;01;23
Dr Todd Miles
Oh, that's a good question. I would love to do a Bible interpretation question. I have a couple things I'm working on this summer. I have a few articles for preaching today. I have I have a couple. And then I'm writing some, some notes for, a study Bible that's coming out. But that's kind of my summer writing project.

00;38;01;23 - 00;38;04;03
Dr Todd Miles
I would love to do a hermeneutics book at some point.

00;38;04;03 - 00;38;11;04
Dave Quak
Well, God bless you and your many children and your many, many grandchildren. How many tell the listeners.

00;38;11;07 - 00;38;23;23
Dr Todd Miles
I have, I have six children. Three of them are still at home. I have five grandchildren. One more on the way next month. Yeah, our third granddaughter will be born. So three grandsons, three.

00;38;23;23 - 00;38;31;22
Dave Quak
Granddaughters, praise God for and a quiver full of arrows. If you feel your children following your example and have six kids each in a month.

00;38;31;25 - 00;38;34;08
Dr Todd Miles
I have a lot of grandkids right?

00;38;34;11 - 00;38;36;27
Dave Quak
And you all you royalties can go to their birthday presents.

00;38;36;27 - 00;38;43;16
Dr Todd Miles
But yeah, yeah, they'll be able to buy a Slurpee for a year off. My royalties will be great.

00;38;43;21 - 00;38;48;08
Dave Quak
Todd. Miles, it's been a pleasure having you, brother. If you could pray for us, that would be fantastic.

00;38;48;11 - 00;39;20;14
Dr Todd Miles
Yeah, I would love to. Father, thanks for David and his ministry. And I do pray for my brothers and sisters, in, in Australia that, you would give them discernment and wisdom a a a commitment to, to loving you, loving your word because it it's what you have given to us. I pray, father, that you would give them hope and and and trust in you that that you have given all that is necessary for life and godliness, that your your word for sure.

00;39;20;14 - 00;39;37;07
Dr Todd Miles
But the church, your spirit, as well, all of these things are good. And I pray, father, that, the churches there would be characterized by by fidelity to Christ, fidelity to, to your word and, and and and a dependance upon the Spirit of God. Bless them. I pray in Jesus name.

00;39;37;14 - 00;39;41;17
Dave Quak
Amen. Amen.

00;39;41;19 - 00;40;05;00
Dave Quak
For more candid conversations on faith and mental well-being, check out some bentos.com. You can subscribe to our podcast on any major provider, or contact us directly to book us to preach or speak. Something at souls is a faith based ministry, and we want to thank everybody so far for their generous support. If you want to get behind us, pray our message reaches the ears of those that need to hear it.

00;40;05;02 - 00;40;14;25
Dave Quak
Feel free to donate financially online, but if you feel obliged or manipulated to give you better off sharing a loved one a coffee instead. I'm Dave Clark from Sunburned Souls.