Latter Daze

Not that people turn to Roseanne Barr for religious inspiration, but it’s worth nothing that the comedian/actress was born in Salt Lake City to parents of Jewish ancestry (her family’s original surname of “Borisofsky” was changed to “Barr” by a paternal grandfather). But Barr’s parents were also involved in the LDS church (duh—it’s Utah!) and she herself was president of a Mormon youth group at age 6.

It wasn’t easy being bi-religious, as Barr detailed in her 1989 book Roseanne: My Life as a Woman: “Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning I was a Jew; Sunday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon we were Mormons.” So, with this Mormon element in Barr’s life and the fact that she’s pro legalization, it’s fair to ask what the LDS perspective is on medical cannabis. It doesn’t look good, folks—keep in mind the fact that Utah was the first state in Union to pass a criminal law against cannabis in 1915—22 years before the federal government’s Marihuana Tax Act—and that fact that the LDS church preaches complete abstinence from all inebriants (alcohol, tobacco, tea, etc.). Then there’s Mitt, that crazy guy. He’s hustling to be the Republican nominee for president, he’s Mormon and he made his stance on marijuana quite clear years ago: “If you elect me President, I’m not going to allow legalization of marijuana. I’m going to fight it tooth and nail,” he was quoted in the NY Daily News in 2007. That same year, he was also quoted as saying, “I believe marijuana should be illegal in our country.”

But just so you don’t go away thinking everyone in the John Smith camp is anti-pot, check out the Latter Day Saints For Cannabis Liberation (LDSCL), a Livermore-based group that says “God does not take offense to using things that come from nature, in this case, Cannabis!”