Pubdate: Sat, 19 Apr 2014
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2014 Star Advertiser
Contact:
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press

MARIJUANA PLAYS ROLE IN EASTER MESSAGES

Some Churches See "420" As A Means To Spread The Gospel

LOS ANGELES - Social media has been buzzing for weeks with jokes about
how Easter shares the calendar this year with the pot lover's highest
holiday: April 20, or 420 in stoner lingo. Pot smokers have long
celebrated on the date by lighting up for reasons not quite clear.

Yet amid the online cracks about worshipping a "higher" power,
tutorials on how to make a joint shaped like a cross and photos of
Easter baskets piled with pot-filled eggs, a handful of churches
nationwide are using the coincidence to make much bigger points.

In the Highland Park (no kidding) neighborhood of Los Angeles, a
church is using medical marijuana imagery and catchy wordplay to
attract new worshippers to an Easter sermon series called "Medicated,"
about seeking fulfillment through God, not drugs.

Across the country, in Mississippi, a church is hosting a massive
concert to denounce marijuana legalization with the title "Reverse
420: God Keeps Me High."

"I was sitting on a plane and I was looking at my calendar, and I
realized that Easter fell on 4/20 and I thought, `Man, half of my
friends, they're going to be doing something else on 4/20. They're not
going to want to come to church,'" said Pastor Justice Coleman,
founder of Freedom Church in Highland Park.

"So, how could we put together a talk or a program that wouldn't
celebrate smoking weed, but would celebrate the idea that there's so
much more to life?" said Coleman, 30. "That's what we're going to be
talking about."

Coleman's mailers and promotional video for the Easter service include
the green cross associated with medical marijuana clinics and a teaser
that recalls Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection: "Celebrate 4/20 with
us because you can't get any higher than risen."

"I think the idea that we supplement our lives with a lot of things, I
think that resonates with a lot of people," he said. "Imagine a life
where you didn't need to do that."

The church events come against the much more irreverent backdrop of
the Internet, where social media has exploded with pictures of bunnies
chomping on marijuana leaves, plastic Easter eggs stuffed with dope
and posts such as "Blaze it and praise it!"

In California many medical marijuana dispensaries have long offered
special promotions to their clients on 4/20, and this year they have
added Easter-themed goods, such as plastic eggs stuffed with
pot-infused chocolate truffles.

The significance of the April 20 date is unclear and shrouded in urban
legend. The most common version maintains that 420 was police scanner
code for "smoking in prog=ADress."

Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press
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