http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...
Medical marijuana may soon be available to Orthodox Jews in New York as rabbis work with companies seeking to sell kosher edibles to Jewish patients in the state.
New York's Orthodox Union is in discussion with companies aiming to provide kosher, edible marijuana products to Jews in the state -- but only those with medical needs, the Jewish Daily Forward reports.
Rabbi Moshe Elefant, COO of the OU’s kosher certification agency, told the Forward that the agency would have no problem certifying medical marijuana because of its clear medical benefits.
Rabbi J. David Bleich, an authority on medical ethics at Yeshiva University in New York, told the Forward that while medical marijuana is 'a perfectly acceptable use of a plant that grows in God’s garden,' recreational use of the drug would be solely for pleasure purposes, and is 'certainly not that to which a Jew should aspire.'
But, he added: 'I can't tell you the 614th mitzvah is thou shalt not smoke pot.'
There are 613 "mitzvahs" or laws in the Old Testament. The Rabbi comments that there is no law prohibiting smoking pot; i.e., there is no 614th mitzvah and it's not one of the 613.
Maybe tell this to the right wing in Congress, because the New Testament didn't add any such law against pot either. So it looks pretty official - it's all ok after all. Biblically.
Anyway to the crucially important medical side - L'chaim!