Abdullah Oduro – Iman Cave – The Muslim Marijuana Epidemic

One of my students comes to me with their cousin. She's like 1415

year old girl. And I told her that I really appreciate you coming

here. She was like, Look, I do not find any serenity, any peace in

the prayer. I find peace by smoking weed. I find peace by

rolling one up. Lighten up a spliff, a blunt, you know,

whatever it is. That's why I find my peace. Right?

That is definitely some type of addiction. But she mentioned she

was addicted to it. And she was happily addicted to it wasn't like

she was coming to me like solve my problem, right? No, she was more

like, convinced she was expressing her. Yeah, her happiness. He was

more like convinced me that there's something wrong with this.

I remember when I became Muslim, you know, I can listen, guys like,

look, the wheat is from the earth, bro. Oh, man, I just heard that so

many times, right.

It's not It's nothing. It's worth what's wrong with it? What's

right, we just want to Earth call us my brothers. And let's allow

one day. He actually is only gonna tell us he lit it up. So he lit it

up and he passed it after the prayer immediately, immediately

after. And I remember I'll never forget and I was That's it not to

pray for that. But I was like, Oh, should we be doing this man? And

then one of those like bruises from the earth.

Call you bugging, bugging me? I'm telling you. You bugging. You're

tripping out? You're weird? Yeah. So okay, video games. All this is

a form of, you know, getting that dopamine which brings a sense of

pleasure. And hopefully transferring that dopamine

response to something more euphoric, that deals with the

shitty Avila which Allah has legislated. But like weed man, do

you see that it is prevalent with young men? And how do you counsel

in that? What advice would you give in that regard? It's very

prevalent. There's no doubt it's not most of the Muslims are in the

400% for the Muslims. But if someone is convinced that it's

okay, if they don't want to hear the other side, like this young

woman, then there's not really much we can do about them. In

fact, that's true for any type person coming for counseling.

Right? Okay, so why are you here? Because my mom wanted me to be

here. Okay, okay.

You don't really want to make the changes, it's not really a whole

lot we can do. Right. So the first is recognition. And a lot of times

that's lacking, there's not a recognition, that recognition of

the that, like marijuana is a haram substance, right. So until

that changes, it's very hard to take a step. Now for those that

are it's going to be, it's going to be a process just like any

other type of addiction. It also depends how severe it is. Right?

So somebody smoking every now and then is different. If somebody

lighten it up seven days a week, five times a day, right? That's

different. So if it's less severe, maybe we can get by with less, if

it's very severe, then we may need to take more drastic steps such as

inpatient or outpatient clinics, detox, so on and so forth. I found

anecdotally,

in our communities, it's, it's kind of like a social thing. So a

lot like it's like,

people will stop it when they're not in that environment. Right. So

they're they,

they change, you know, they were all in high school together, they

were smoking. And then after they graduated, like, when's the last

time spoke on that since high school? Right? Oh, like six months

ago. So that's not an addiction, right? That's just, that's just a

bad habit that flares, every literally literally, where's

everything

that lights up every now and then. So it's just kind of depends on

the severity, but if they don't, if they're not going to accept

that this is not something they shouldn't be doing, then it's

gonna be hard, you know, to go anywhere. So what would you say?

What would you say to the brothers that are convinced that it's not

harmful? If Allah subhana wa Dyana told us to do something, there's

benefit if he told us to stay away, there's not benefit, whether

we recognize all that benefit, or recognize all the harm, it doesn't

matter. It's still we still have to follow it. You can find

anything you want, about darn near anything and you can justify

anything and people are doing that with core beliefs and it's not

right and they can do that. So I'm not here to argue with them on

that.

What we're saying is ultimately why why are we refraining from

this because Allah subhanaw taala has given us boundaries and

guidelines to live it right. There's no end to justification

well you know, if I if I protect myself then I can have relations

with with anyone I want. And I can be really I can really protect my

right there's no there's no end to that. So it's just opens up a

slippery slope and doors go back and forth. It's not there's no end

to it. Now it reminds me the verse is versus foundational, you know,

when the last month autism I started when I started Yes. Aluna

kanila how many will make

the people ask you about liquor and gambling? Wolfie, Hema if Moon

kebenaran woman left

earliness he said, tell them that in both of those things are great

sin and benefit there is Yeah. What is the Mahamat act bottlemen.

That's, he said, but the sin is much more than the benefit in

those things. And how who knows the benefit Allah? That's what he

said. We don't you know, if Allah subhanaw has legislated it, that's

what we say submit and well done. It is we hear and we obey. It's

not a condition for our worship to know the reason of the ruling.

Right. Right. And that's the ultimate submission. And that is

where, I humbly feel. That's the transitionary point from that

young boy to being a man,

a Muslim man, a responsible man, a purposeful man, a Transcendent

Man, where he says, oh, Allah is not pleased with this, I'm not

going to do it simply simply because Allah, Allah is not

pleased with it. And I think the challenge is to or they have to be

okay with that. Right. Right. And that is the drip of water. That's

the process, you know, that first day of 5g is going to be, you

know, 90% of the time, he was thinking about that I'm just, I

guess I got to do this.

And that's where it becomes, you know, an unseen force where law

affects your heart. And that's what I want to say about this girl

in my mind, as we talked for, like four or five hours is this this

youngsters like what I was saying, in my mind, just like you said,

it's not my job here to convince you. Like you already seem

convinced. And the attitude of you asking is like, you prove to me

that this is like, we're not gonna go in there. And we know, if

everybody stays, it stays in their lane. Oh, it won't be any what is

it? There won't be any accidents. Everyone stays in their lane.

Right? So let's just make sure that okay, are you coming to get

advice and trying to find out? Firstly, What's your connection

with Allah? What do you think about a lot come to find out?

There was some doubts in Allah in general, right? Before even this

issue? Yeah, this is a byproduct, sometimes the guy's got a little

let a little stress off, man. And that, and that may do it for them.

You know what I'm saying? So there's healthy outlets, and

there's all kinds of ways to let off stress. Exactly. What are some

of them? What are some? What would be a good swap? Because me

personally, I mean, sports is a huge thing. If I'm able, like,

it's literally my drug, I call it my month doesn't mean, you're

gonna play soccer again, it's like almost, you know, 12 a month. If I

don't do this, I'm either gonna just get depressed, or go a

different route. So this is my outlet like this is even if I

don't win, even if I have a horrible match, I get my body gets

that relief. Now I'm able to get her off off of me. And I think I

think Subhanallah it's, it's kind of transferring that dopamine

release, because you find your pleasure. It's euphoric. I mean,

there's nothing like a buzzer beater moment. Yeah. You know, I'm

saying where it the Time is winding down, and you make that

move and then or your teammate makes it and then it's just the

crowds going wild internally, and then externally as well. There's

nothing like that. But then allowing that also to be a buzzer

beater moment within some type of even though that can be bad. Yeah,

it is. It is. Definitely, but to where when it's okay. I had those

alone moments as well. When I'm reading the Quran while I'm

praying or I'm sitting with good companions. They're talking about

good things. Yeah. You know, I think those it's really that

element of transferring that dopamine from smoking weed from

*, which we'll talk about, from, from, you know, from video

games, to where they make that conscious choice to do these

things that they know are better for them.