Did Bob Marley Quit Smoking Weed?

[TristanCross]

Did Bob Marley quit smoking weed when he joined the Ethiopian Orthodox Church?

[sheenj]

Did Bob Marley quit smoking weed when he joined the Ethiopian Orthodox Church?

Wasn't he baptized on his death bed? I'm not sure how much time he would have had to toke up after that.

[TristanCross]

He was baptized November 4, 1980. He died May 11, 1981.

[TristanCross]

Archbishop Abouna Yesehaq (who baptized Bob):

"Bob was really a good brother, a child of God, regardless of how people
looked at him. He had a desire to be baptised long ago, but there were
people close to him who controlled him and who were aligned to a different
aspect of Rastafari . But he came to Church regularly. I remember once while
I was conducting the Mass, I looked at Bob and tears were streaming down his face...When he toured Los Angeles and New York and England, he preached the Orthodox faith, and many members in those cities came to the Church because of Bob. Many people think he was baptised because he
knew he was dying, but that is not so...he did it when there was no longer
any pressure on him, and when he was baptised, he hugged his family and wept, they all wept together for about half an hour."

[HabteSelassie]

Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Did Bob Marley quit smoking weed when he joined the Ethiopian Orthodox Church?

No, and his Confessor Abune Yesehaq has discussed this quite openly, that His Grace continually mentored brother Bob (berhane selassie) towards moving away from this, but also to a certain degree respected Bob's cultural decision to use cannabis.  Keep in mind Bob wasn't baptized until a few months before his passing, and he was painfully dying of high-stage, metastatic cancer.  Perhaps his Father felt that the pain warranted the continual use, in this situation is cannabis any worse or better than pharmaceuticals?

  In the Tewahedo Church today, because of the predominantly Rastafari membership in missionary parishes in Trinidad (which have been there since 1956) and Jamaica (since 1970) and several smaller Caribbean islands, this is a serious hot button issue.  Some youths in Ethiopia have also picked up aspects of this culture from their interaction with Rastafari folks in Ethiopia who have "repatriated."  The Rastafari membership are the primary supporters of their parishes in the islands financially and actively, and so some of these folks have the wrong idea about smoking at the Church.  In Rastafari in the islands, folks smoke freely behind "their own gates" and since in the Church these folks pay the bills, some feel the parish gates are the same as the Rastafari mansion gates or their homes away from home.  However, in Ethiopian culture this is beyond disrespectful and irreverent, and I do not support this activity, rather I support the many Bishops efforts to quell both this development in the islands and also in Ethiopia proper.  Cannabis is an evolving position, if or when it becomes legal the Church may just have to reevaluate Her policies, however in this meantime, we must ALL adhere, revere, and venerate our holy Tradition and if folks are such inclined to consume Cannabis, it should be entirely left at home and divorced from Church related activities.


By the way I am really risking myself here to share this with y'all, please be polite in your responses to me, I don't feel like being antagonized, vilified, or demonized.  I FULLY support the Tradition of the Church, the Canons, and all the rules, but in regards to individual use of cannabis these matters are for Confessors and their spiritual children, which very much brother Bob and HG Abune Yesehaq surely qualify.

stay blessed,
habte selassie

[JamesR]

I'll just be honest. Why does it matter? I honestly do not think there is anything wrong with weed. The Church does not condemn people for drinking responsibly or smoking tobacco responsibly, so why would it condemn someone for smoking weed responsibly? In fact, most studies indicate that marijuana is actually healthier than alcohol and tobacco. I'm not saying I would smoke it, but I do not see why it is considered bad when things that are even worse like tobacco and alcohol are seen as okay.

[biro]

I'll just be honest. Why does it matter? I honestly do not think there is anything wrong with weed. The Church does not condemn people for drinking responsibly or smoking tobacco responsibly, so why would it condemn someone for smoking weed responsibly? In fact, most studies indicate that marijuana is actually healthier than alcohol and tobacco. I'm not saying I would smoke it, but I do not see why it is considered bad when things that are even worse like tobacco and alcohol are seen as okay.

You do realize Bob Marley died from cancer, when he was about 39?

[Iconodule]

The CIA gave him cancer. At least that's what my Rastafarian friend tried to explain to me.

[biro]

The CIA gave him cancer. At least that's what my Rastafarian friend tried to explain to me.

Wow, then all those hospitals have got it wrong.

[HabteSelassie]

Greetings in that Divine and Most Precious Name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

The CIA gave him cancer. At least that's what my Rastafarian friend tried to explain to me.

By the way, considering how many Rastafari elders and leaders, as well as many other black nationalists during the 1960s and 1970s were assassinated or targeted (Bob had been shot, Rita in the head!! in 1976, Peter Tosh was killed in 1987) this is not entirely unbelievable. Look at what happened relatively recently to the Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, and now even very legitimate concerns about the death of Yasser Arafat.

However, while I wouldn't put it past the CIA or FBI during the controversial Co-Intel-Pro era of history.  However, scientifically speaking, it has been said that Bob Marley died from melanoma skin cancer which had went metastatic and attacked his brain and lungs.  There can indeed be a lot of truth to this, some black folks have scoffed this, but Bob was half white on his father's side, and melanoma is quite literally a European genetic disease.  Only folks of European ancestry can develop melanoma, and melanoma is 90% fatal  because it goes metastatic so fast because of its quick access to the blood stream.  Upwards of 40% of black folks in the Americas and Caribbean have European ancestry, and further, many brown folks from Latin America also have European ancestry, so we find melanoma in these communities, but genetically speaking, it is European in origin and only afflicts folks of European genetic ancestry.

stay blessed,
habte selassie

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