The Bible does not give a list of rules, but it does give us several principles that help us think wisely. Self-control is one of them. The loss of self-control leads to real harm, and it is striking how often the deliberate aim of drug use is precisely to lose control. 

We live on a drug-taking planet.

Wherever human beings go, drugs go with them. They are used for enjoyment, for performance, and for healing. Caffeine is almost universal. Alcohol and nicotine are widely used. Even marijuana, though illegal in many places, has been tried by a significant proportion of the population.

And yet, there is an uneasiness about all this.

We are drawn to drugs because of what they can do for us. They can lift our mood, dull our pain, sharpen our attention, or intensify our experience of the world. At the same time, we are wary of them because we know how easily they can take hold of a life.

Most of us, if we are honest, recognise something of this tension in ourselves. I used to like a drink, and I could feel the pull of alcohol at the end of a long day’s work. I certainly can’t function in the morning without coffee. I suspect that experience is not unusual.

So it is worth asking what we mean when we speak about drugs.

For this discussion, a drug is any chemical substance, whether natural or synthetic, that alters perception, mood, or another psychological state. That definition includes caffeine and alcohol, prescription medications and illegal substances, socially accepted habits and socially disapproved ones. I am using the word ‘drug’ as distinct from ‘medicine’, whose purpose is healing. The same substance may be used as a ‘drug’ (in the sense I am using it here) and a ‘medicine’.

It is important to keep the definition this broad, because it prevents us from imagining that drug use is someone else’s problem. It is not confined to the young or to any particular social group. It runs across the whole of our society, and it is an issue for Christians as much as for anyone else.

The Bible does not speak directly about most of the substances we have in mind. What it does offer is a way of understanding the world that helps us make sense of them.

To begin with, the Bible insists that the world God made is good. In Genesis, every seed-bearing plant is declared good, and that includes the plants from which many drugs are derived. The New Testament restates the point by saying that everything created by God is good and is to be received with thanksgiving (1 Tim 4:4).

This means that we cannot say that drugs are in themselves evil. They belong to a good creation. They can be used to relieve suffering, to support medical care, and even to enrich human joy. The Bible itself speaks of wine as something that gladdens the human heart. It is hard to think that this refers only to its taste.

So the use of drugs, as such, is not something the Bible simply condemns.

But that is not the whole picture. The same Bible also tells us that something has gone badly wrong with human beings. We have turned away from God and tried to take control of life on our own terms. The result is not the freedom we might have hoped for, but a deep disorder within us.

We find ourselves divided. There is a gap between what we know to be good and what we actually desire. We do things we later regret. We feel a restlessness that we cannot quite satisfy. There is a sense that we are made for more than we are able to grasp.

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