The following is the text of a pamphlet titled "Marijuana and
The Bible" published by the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church.


                     MARIJUANA AND THE BIBLE
                               by
                The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church



                      OFFERINGS OF DEVOTION

     With offerings of devotion, ships from the isles will meet to
pour the wealth of the nations and bring tribute to his feet.  The
Coptic Church believes fully the teachings of the Bible, and as
such we have our daily obligations, and offer our sacrifices, made
by fire unto our God with chants and Psalms and spiritual hymns,
lifting up holy hands and making melody in our hearts.

     Herb (marijuana) is a Godly creation from the beginning of
the world.  It is known as the weed of wisdom, angel's food, the
tree of life and even the "Wicked Old Ganja Tree."  Its purpose in
creation is as a fiery sacrifice to be offered to our Redeemer
during obligations.  The political worldwide organizations have
framed mischief on it and called it drugs.  To show that it is not
a dangerous drug, let me inform my readers that it is used as food
for mankind, and as a medicinal cure for diverse diseases.  Ganja
is not for commerce; yet because of the oppression of the people,
it was raised up as the only liberator of the people, and the only
peacemaker among the entire generation.  Ganja is the sacramental
rights of every man worldwide and any law against it is only the
organized conspiracy of the United Nations and the political
governments who assist in maintaining this conspiracy.

     The Coptic Church is not politically originated, and this was
firmly expressed when we met with the political directorate of the
land during the period of pre-incorporation.  We support no
political organization, pagan religion, or commercial institution,
seeing that religion, politics, and commerce are the three unclean
spirits which separate the people from their God.  Because of our
non-political stand, the church has received tremendous opposition
from the politicians, who do not want the eyes of the people to be
opened.  Through its agency, the police force, the church has been
severely harassed, victimized, and discriminated.  Our members have
passed through several acts of police brutality, our legal
properties maliciously destroyed, members falsely imprisoned,
divine services broken up and all these atrocities performed upon
the Church, under the name of political laws and their justice.

Walter Wells -- Elder Priest of the
Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church of
Jamaica, West Indies




              THE USE OF MARIJUANA IN ANCIENT TIMES

     The use of marijuana is as old as the history of man and dates
to the prehistoric period.  Marijuana is closely connected with the
history and development of some of the oldest nations on earth.
It has played a significant role in the religions and cultures of
Africa, the Middle East, India, and China

     Richard E. Schultes, a prominent researcher in the field of
psychoactive plants, said in an article he wrote entitled "Man and
Marijuana":

     ". . . that early man experimented with all plant materials that
     he could chew and could not have avoided discovering the
     properties of cannabis (marijuana), for in his quest for seeds
     and oil, he certainly ate the sticky tops of the plant.  Upon
     eating hemp the euphoric, ecstatic and hallucinatory aspects
     may have introduced man to an other-worldly plane from which
     emerged religious beliefs, perhaps even the concept of deity.
     The plant became accepted as a special gift of the gods, a
     sacred medium for communion with the spiritual world and as
     such it has remained in some cultures to the present."

     The effects of marijuana was proof to the ancients that the
spirit and power of the god(s) existed in this plant and that it
was literally a messenger (angel) or actually the Flesh and Blood
and/or Bread of the god(s) and was and continues to be a holy
sacrament.  Considered to be sacred, marijuana has been used in
religious worship from before recorded history.

     According to William A. Embolden in his book Ritual Use of
Cannabis Sativa L, p. 235:

     "Shamanistic traditions of great antiquity in Asia and the
     Near East has as one of their most important elements the
     attempt to find God without a vale of tears; that cannabis
     played a role in this, at least in some areas, is born out in
     the philology surrounding the ritualistic use of the plant.
     Whereas Western religious traditions generally stress sin,
     repentance, and mortification of the flesh, certain older non-
     Western religious cults seem to have employed Cannabis as a
     euphoriant, which allowed the participant a joyous path to the
     Ultimate; hence such appellations as "heavenly guide."

     According to Licit and Illicit Drugs, by the Consumer Union,
pages 397-398:

     "Ashurbanipal lived about 650 B.C., but the cuneiform
     descriptions of marijuana in his library "are generally
     regarded as obvious copies of much older texts.,"  Says Dr.
     Robert P. Walton, an American physician and authority on
     marijuana, "This evidence serves to project the origin of
     hashish back to the earliest beginnings of history."


                 THE USE OF MARIJUANA AS INCENSE


     According to the Encyclopedia Britannica: "Pharmacological
Cults"

     ". . . the ceremonial use of incense in contemporary ritual is
     most likely a relic of the time when the psychoactive
     properties of incense brought the ancient worshipper in touch
     with supernatural forces."

     In the temples of the ancient world, the main sacrifice was
the inhalation of incense.  Incense is defined as the perfume or
smoke from spices and gums when burned in celebrating religious
rites or as an offering to a deity.  Bronze and gold incense
burners were cast very early in history and their forms were often
inspired by cosmological themes representing the harmonious nature
of the universe.

     The following piece was taken from "Licit and Illicit Drugs,"
page 31.

     "In the Judaic world, the vapors from burnt spices and
     aromatic gums were considered part of the pleasurable
     act of worship.  In proverbs (27:9) it is said that
     'Ointment and perfumes rejoice the heart.'  Perfumes were
     widely used in Egyptian worship.  Stone altars have been
     unearthed in Babylon and Palestine, which have been used
     for burning incense made of aromatic wood and spices.
     While the casual readers today may interpret such
     practices as mere satisfaction of the desire for pleasant
     odors, this is almost certainly an error; in many or most
     cases, a psychoactive drug was being inhaled.  In the
     islands of the Mediterranean 2,500 years ago and in
     Africa hundreds of years ago, for example leaves and
     flowers of a particular plant were often thrown upon
     bonfires and the smoke inhaled; the plant was marijuana."
     (Edward Preble and Gabriel V. Laurey, Plastic Cement: The
     Ten Cent Hallucinogen, International Journal of the
     Addictions, 2 (Fall 2967): 271-272.

     "The earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia brewed
     intoxicating beer of barley more than 5,000 years ago;
     is it too much to assume that even earlier cultures
     experienced euphoria, accidentally or deliberately,
     through inhalation of the resinous smoke of Cannabis?"
     (Ritual Use of Cannabis Sativa L, p. 216.)

     "It is said that the Assyrians used hemp (marijuana) as
     incense in the seventh or eighth century before Christ
     and called it 'Qunubu', a term apparently borrowed from
     an old East Iranian word 'Konaba', the same as the
     Scythian name 'cannabis,'"  (Plants of the Gods -- Origin
     of Hallucinogenic Use by Richard E. Schultes and Albert
     Hoffman)

     "It is recorded that the Chinese Taoist recommended the
     addition of cannabis to their incense burners in the 1st
     century as a means of achieving immortality." (Marijuana,
     the First Twelve Thousand Years by Earnest Abel, page 5)

     "There is a classic Greek term, cannabeizein, which means
     to smoke cannabis.  Cannabeizein frequently took the form
     of inhaling vapors from an incense burner in which these
     resins were mixed with other resins, such as myrrh,
     balsam, frankincense, and perfumes." (Ritual Use of
     Cannabis Sativa L)

     "Herodotus in the fifth century B.C. observed the
     Scythians throwing hemp on heated stone to create smoke
     and observed them inhaling this smoke.  Although he does
     not identify them, Herodotus states that when they "have
     parties and sit around a fire, they throw some of it into
     the flames.  As it burns, it smokes like incense, and the
     smell of it makes them drunk, just as wine does us.  As
     more fruit is thrown on, they get more and more
     intoxicated until finally they jump up and start dancing
     and singing." (Herodotus, Histories 1.202.)


       EVIDENCE INDICATING THE SEMITIC ORIGIN OF CANNABIS

     The name cannabis is generally thought to be of Scythian
origin.  Sula Benet in Cannabis and Culture argues that it has a
much earlier origin in Semitic languages like Hebrew, occurring
several times in the Old Testament.  He states that in Exodus 30:23
that God commands Moses to make a holy anointing oil of myrrh,
sweet cinnamon, kaneh bosm, and kassia.  He continues that the word
kaneh bosm is also rendered in the traditional Hebrew as kannabos
or kannabus and that the root "kan" in this construction means
"reed" or "hemp," while "bosm" means "aromatic."  He states that
in the earliest Greek translations of the old testament "kan" was
rendered as "reed," leading to such erroneous English translations
as "sweet calamus" (Exodus 30:23), sweet cane (Isaiah 43:24;
Jeremiah 6:20) and "calamus" (Ezekiel 27:19; Song of Songs 4:14).
Benet argues from the linguistic evidence that cannabis was known
in Old Testament times at least for its aromatic properties and
that the word for it passed from the Semitic language to the
Scythians, i.e. the Ashkenaz of the Old Testament.

     Sara Benetowa of the Institute of Anthropological Sciences in
Warsaw is quoted in the Book of Grass as saying:

     "The astonishing resemblance between the Semitic 'kanbos'
     and the Scythian 'cannabis' leads me to suppose that the
     Scythian word was of Semitic origin.  These etymological
     discussions run parallel to arguments drawn from history.
     The Iranian Scythians were probably related to the Medes,
     who were neighbors of the semites and could easily have
     assimilated the word for hemp.  The Semites could also
     have spread the word during their migrations through Asia
     Minor.

     Taking into account the matriarchal element of Semitic
     culture, one is led to believe that Asia Minor was the
     original point of expansion for both the society based
     on the matriarchal circle and the mass use of hashish."

     The Ancient Israelites were a Semitic people.  Abraham, the
father of the Israelite nation, came from Ur, a city of Babylonia
located in Mesopotamia.  The Israelites migrated throughout Asia
Minor and could easily have spread the religious use of marijuana.


                  THE ISRAELITE USE OF INCENSE

     It was said that Moses, at the direction of Almighty God,
first brought in the use of incense in public worship, and that
the other nations of antiquity copied the practice from him.  It
was however a practice that began with Adam.  The "Book of
Jubilees," an Apocryphal book, (the Apocrypha was considered
canonical by the early church and is to this day by the Ethiopian
Zion Coptic Church) states that "on the day when Adam went forth
from the Garden of Eden, he offered as a sweet savour an offering
of frankincense, galbanum, and stacte, and spices, in the morning
with the rising of the sun, from the day when he covered his
shame."  And of Enoch we read that "he burnt the incense of the
sanctuary, even sweet spices, acceptable before the Lord, on the
Mount."

     Incense was assigned miraculous powers by the Israelites.  It
was burned in golden bowls or cauldrons placed on or beside the
altar.  It was also burned in hand-held censers.  In the Blessing
of Moses, a poem belonging to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and
written about 760 B.C., the sacrificial smoke is offered to the God
of Israel.

     Let them teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law;
     Let them offer sacrificial smoke to thy nostrils, and
     whole burnt sacrifice upon thy altar.

     Throughout the Bible the ancient patriarchs were brought into
communion with God through smoking incense and at Mt. Sinai God
talked to Moses out of a bush that burned with fire (Exodus 3:1-
12).  After Moses brought the Israelite people out of Egypt he
returned to Mt. Sinai at which time God made a covenant with Moses
in which the Ten Commandments were revealed.  Exodus 19:8 describes
the conditions at the time of this covenant.

     Exodus 19:8 "And Mount Sinai was altogether on smoke,
     because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke
     thereof ascended as smoke of a furnace, and the whole
     mount quaked greatly.

     The Mysterious smoke mentioned in the covenant on Mt. Sinai
is also referred to as a cloud.

     Exodus 24:15 "And Moses went up into the mount, and a
     cloud covered the mount.  16 And the glory of the Lord
     abode upon Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six
     days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of
     the midst of the cloud.

     Scriptures make it abundantly clear that the clouds and the
smoke are related to the burning of incense.  Exodus 40:26
describes Moses burning incense, a cloud covering the tent of the
congregation and the glory of the Lord filling the tabernacle.
Leviticus 16:2-13 describes how God appeared in a cloud and refers
to it as the clouds of incense.  Numbers 16:17-19 describes how
every man of the congregation had a censer full of burning incense
and that the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the congregation.
Isaiah 6:4 describes how Ezekial saw God in a smoke-filled inner
court.  Numbers 11:25 describes how God was revealed to Moses and
the seventy elders in a cloud; that the spirit rested upon them and
that they prophesied and ceased not.

     The Book of Grass by Andrew and Vinkenoog includes a section
on Ancient Scythia and Iran by Mircea Eliade, one of the foremost
experts on the history of religions.  On pages 11 and 12 is the
following:

     "On one document appears to indicate the existence of a
     Getic shamanism:  It is Straho's account of the Myssian
     KAPNOBATAI, a name that has been translated, by analogy
     with Aristophanes' AEROBATES, as 'those who walk in
     clouds'; but it should be translated as 'those who walk
     in smoke'!  Presumably the smoke is hemp smoke, a
     rudimentary means of ecstasy known to both the Tracians
     and the Scythians. . . ."

     This passage should be carefully noted.  Biblical passages
make it abundantly clear that the ancient Israelites also walked
in clouds and in smoke.  In fact it was in the clouds of smoke that
God was revealed to the ancient Israelites.  The words "smoke" and
"smoking" appear fifty times in the King James Version of the Bible
and two separate times the Bible says of the Lord, "There went up
a smoke out of his nostrils."  II Samuel 22:9, Psalms 18:8.

     There are numerous other places in the Bible that mention the
burning of incense, the mysterious cloud, and smoke.  This common
thread is found throughout the Bible, including the New Testament.

     St. Matthew 24:30 "And then shall appear the sign of the
     Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of
     the Earth morn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming
     in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory."

     Revelations 1:7 "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every
     eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and
     all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.
     Even so, Amen."

     Revelations 8:3 "And another angel came and stood at the
     altar, having a golden censer: and there was given unto
     him much incense, that he should offer it with the