 Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alright, so a little bit about myself. I'm board certified in internal medicine and addiction medicine. I run a consult service at Stanford Hospital treating people with addiction in the hospital, Monday through Friday, all day. And basically what we do is we do interventions on people who come to the hospital with a medical complication of their addiction or their substance use. And we link them to treatment, talk to their families, so on and so forth. I also teach at the faculty of the School of Medicine, so I teach about addiction as well. And cannabis use amongst the youth is an important topic that we should discuss. And I'm so happy to see so many people come out to talk about that. I wanted to start with a story about Zaid, a 14-year-old Zaid. Zaid grew up, he was a good kid. His parents made all the right decisions. Preschool was thought about karate and boy scouts and taking him to the haleqahs. And he was a very respectful and likable kid. As he grew up and started to enter into his teen years, his parents, the relationship evolved. He was a teenager. They felt that their relationship wasn't as transparent as it was before. Sometimes they had a feeling that they didn't really have a pulse of what was going on in Zaid's mind or that that relationship was as open as it was previously. He was a teenager. And then they found out about a friend of his that was smoking cannabis or smoking weed. And they started to get concerned. And on further examination they find that the friend isn't much different than Zaid. So the question arises in their mind. If this could happen to Zaid's friend, couldn't it happen to Zaid? And is Zaid at risk? And then really the real question that I would like to open up and address is what can we do to protect against this and prevent against this? The good news is this has been studied a lot. And what I'm going to start talking about is preventative measures we can take to prevent cannabis use in our youth. So this is basically based on a summary of 60-plus studies and a report by the Department of Health, the United States Department of Health, which looked at how do we prevent cannabis use amongst the youth. And they used a model where they looked at societal factors, community factors, relationship factors, and individual factors. And they took these 60-plus studies which, by the way, the studies followed youth and looked at their cannabis use or lack of cannabis use and looked at what were the features that were involved with them using cannabis and what were the protective factors that were behind people, kids not using cannabis. And so I like the model and I think it would be really helpful to use. So just starting on a societal level. So just starting on a societal level. What they defined as a societal level is culture, laws and policies, media and access. And as we know, especially in our state and the U.S., laws and policies are on cannabis are rapidly evolving. And then the culture in our society has a lot to do with how we perceive cannabis use. So just starting off just looking at the nation as a whole and where we're at. Drug overdose deaths are a national problem and epidemic. We're breaking records every year. Drug overdose deaths are now the leading cause of death in people under 50. So it's younger people, probably typically. And this is from the latest data in 2017 showing that 72,000 people died of drug overdose deaths. A lot of this is obviously driven by harder drugs. But as we know, cannabis marijuana use usually precedes harder drugs. And although you can't overdose, there's no reports of overdose with teens and adults with cannabis. Still something that is very important to think about. And then we look at the United States, the legalization of medical marijuana and now recreational marijuana. If you look at the green states, those are the cannabis states where medical marijuana is legalized. It's kind of surprising to see how many places are actually legalized. And then the bright green states are for recreational use is also legalized in addition to the medical use. If you look at California, it's really green. It's bright green. And we think about what kind of messages our kids are receiving when something like this is legalized. And then they drive down the highway and they see an advertisement like this. Goodbye anxiety. So how does this affect our youth? And how has this affected our youth in the past? Well, we know that when the perceived risk of cannabis or marijuana use goes down, that the use of marijuana goes up. And we know this from our past history in the US. So one example of this is between in the 70s basically, the perceived harm of marijuana decreased, studies showed, and then that was followed by a sharp increase of cannabis use. And then what happened after that is 1979 media started giving a lot of attention towards the increased rates of marijuana use. And then attitudes and beliefs shifted and things improved over the next decade. So good example of how perceived risk changes youth patterns amongst our youth. And obviously legalization sends a strong message toward youth. Another example of this is in the early 90s, perceived risk started to drop again. And then in 1993, there was a sharp increase in youth. And that was parents here about from the state sister that there's some rumors going on around school, or perhaps a parent mentioned to Zade's parent that Zade is a bad influence on their parent, so on and so forth. The scenarios are various. And by the way, this isn't a real person. It's just an example that I'm using. I wouldn't use an example of a real person who confided in me. But it's an example of that's made up of some of the common features that I see amongst Muslim teens that are affected by this. So the question arises again, what can we do to protect this on a practical level in our homes? And when I say protect against this, protect against this, I don't necessarily mean protect against starting cannabis use, but also the progression of cannabis use. So the way we look at the starting of marijuana use to addiction, we look at it like a spectrum. So on one side you have people being exposed to marijuana. And then there's like an experimentation phase where they may try it. And then there's an escalation phase where they're starting to decide that this is something that benefits outweigh the risks in their mind. And then they escalate and then they go to a regular pattern of use. And from a regular pattern of use, we go to a loss of control, which we call addiction. So when I say prevention, this includes preventing our kids from starting this use. This includes once the use has started to prevent escalation of the use and then all the way to a loss of control. So all of this can be used in all these scenarios. So looking at relationship factors that are protective against cannabis use or factors that are socioeconomic use. Relationships with parents, family, peers. So the study looked at frequent family meals and family dinners and found this to be a protective factor for against cannabis use. They also looked at adequate home environments. What this was was the availability of reading materials, frequency of television, watching discipline tactics. And the less adequate homes were at risk, kids from there were at risk of cannabis use. It was a factor associated with cannabis use. And then parental monitoring, being connected with your child, parents' knowledge of child's activity. So it was a good idea to when children come home from school just to touch base and have a conversation and not jump to judgment when we hear something that's a little strange for us or alarming for us so that we can keep that dialogue going on and those lines of communication open. Also they looked at parental closeness and quality and found that that was a protective factor. And this was interesting. This is very interesting. I think very important for us. They looked at parental expectations and they looked at children who are more involved in U.S. culture than their parents. They specifically looked at Hispanic culture and they found that children who are more sort of into American culture than their parents. This was a factor associated with use. And then, so those are home and parents. And this is protective factors amongst peers. It's a front spirituality. And then risk factors are peer substance use and deviant behaviors of peers. And this is kind of common sense. And I know this is a lot of sort of information. So I'm going to wrap this up in about five, ten minutes or so. And then feel free to ask questions. Actually feel free to ask questions now if you'd like. So how do you bring up cannabis use amongst with your kids? It's a difficult conversation to approach and bring up. Superstarters refrain from judgment, having an empathic approach, recognizing their unique situation. And context which they live in is a lot different than the context that we grew up in. Even generationally, if we grew up here in this country, it's very different 30, 40 years ago. And the cannabis is very different. Cannabis in the 70s and 80s is 5% THC. Now it's 25% THC. Now they have synthetic cannabinoids which are like K2 and Spice. And these are hundreds of times stronger than the 25% THC in the strong cannabis we have now. People are having seizures and strokes. This is where you see in the media like zombie-like people and these really strange behaviors. Anyway, recognizing that they're coming from a unique perspective and a unique context and trying to understand that unique context that they're living in. And then here's also a good point that I found helpful in my work as well with kids. There's this questionnaire that's used that the Pediatric Society's recommend. And it's kind of a way to bring this topic up with kids who can be guarded about this. The first question they ask is not have you done cannabis which can be kind of direct. They'll ask something like have you ever driven in a car with somebody who smoked marijuana? And it's good to start with that to sort of slowly ease your way into the conversation. Any friends? Do you have any friends that use marijuana? And chances are they may be a little bit more open about that. And the goal is to assist your child in making better decisions while in forum decisions and keep the dialogue going. Individual protective factors and risk factors. So we went over societal, community, relationships, which we have a lot of control over, optimizing. And then individual risk factors. So belief about positive consequences of cannabis, we touched on already. This is interesting, perceived rejection, bullying, and shyness. Modesty is important. But shyness and not being able to assert ourselves or have the refusal skills. Tobacco use is a risk factor. And this is, I thought, interesting, irregular or no religious participation and importance of religion. I thought it was interesting because they came to the same conclusions that we come to and it wasn't a religious sort of study. But the conclusion that spirituality and importance of religion are factors. I included that table so you knew I wasn't making it up. And I thought it would be a little bit more convincing. So this is the table from the actual summary of findings from the report. And it's a little bit messy. So I'm just going to ask you to forget about the black part and look at the two left columns or rather the highlighted columns, the highlighted column. And those are the protective factors in these studies. And they were looking at the odds of marijuana use, marijuana use, initiation and persistence of marijuana use. And they found in these studies religiosity, religious involvement, importance of religion were all important protective factors. And then risk factors were irregular or no religious participation, so on and so forth. All right. And I wanted to add a little bit about exercise because I think this is important and this is a part of youth experience anyway just to get a little back up to continue doing that. Exercise has been shown to help prevent substance use. High levels of physical activity predict lower levels of illicit drug use as kids grow up. And they did an interesting study where they looked at animals and got them addicted to drugs. Or they started looking at animals drug use when they had laboratory rats, when they had access to drugs and they split them up into two groups. Both of them had access to drugs. They looked at the group, they added a running wheel to one group and they found that the exercising group that had access to drugs initiated drug use slower and escalated slower. So it's interesting because it's just looking at on a biological level the effects of exercise. All right. So this is a lot of sort of data and information. I'm sorry, I'm a doctor. I can't help it. Studies and all these facts. I'm going to try to bring it all together in a few moments and talk about how this was practically implemented. There's the Iceland model of prevention programs and it was very successful. So it's really important to see how they were able to do that. They had a problem with substance use in their youth. So the community came together, all the stakeholders, all the people who could work on this came together and they focused on reducing known risk factors and they strengthened the protective factors. And they included exercise, participation in sports, but they also included strategies to improve parental engagement with their children. And then thirdly, they implemented extracurricular activities that had these protective factors included within them. And what did they find? So if you look at 1998, that's substance use. It's really high amongst green specifically is hashish, marijuana. And if you look, the substance use slowly went down as they implemented these prevention tactics. So they work and I think it's really important for us to use this in our homes and our lives and try to optimize them as much as possible because we are in times where this is becoming more prevalent. Alright, so back to the story. So now he's 17 years old and there was, if you remember, he grew up as a likeable kid. Parents made all the right decisions, all the Islamic gatherings and then as he entered into his teenage years there was less of a connection between parents and child because he's a teenager, less transparency, less communication. And then there was a whiff of an idea of perhaps his friends using cannabis, and then another thought of perhaps him using some cannabis and then now he's 17. And his school performance declines, new set of friends staying out late found using cannabis at school. Or some consequence inevitably happens with regular substance use. There's some loss of control. And then he continues to use it despite being confronted by his parents. There's promises, promises are broken so on and so forth. And then so what we would call that, that loss of control is addiction that can happen with cannabis. And this is maybe a little bit more of a specific problem. So I'll just breeze over this. Essentially treatment for that is a little bit more involved than just sort of containing it at home and focusing on protective factors. Professional help is incredibly important. It's a very complex issue that requires a lot of support and counseling and family therapies. What's been studied the most for adolescent substance use that's getting out of control are heavy. And it's the most studied modality and idea is that family relationships are related to the development or at least the maintenance of substance use and addressing that dynamic and is important with the help of a professional. And then all their forms of therapy and I think we'll end as that. And so back to story time, therapies recommended to the family and the inevitable answer is we don't do therapy or we don't do groups. Cycle continues and the family kind of gets put through the ringer and then they're a little bit more motivated to try professional help. They learn how to set limits, stop enabling substance use and they have the support and guidance of a professional. Zabe gets some structured help, works on himself, mood improves. And one phenomenon that I see in our Muslim population is just regular spiritual transformation often mirrors the recovery from substance use problems. It happens as people start to work on themselves and start to see improvements. They inevitably start incorporating the power and transformative aspect of Islam as well. And Zabe becomes a happy adult, 20 year old and family closer as a result. And that's the end. I think we're going to make a transition between me and Sheikh Haram and then have a discussion after that. Okay. So I'm going to give the similar talk to what I presented to the youth. And what I was asked about was to speak about the Islamic standpoint of marijuana. Now we could easily just say it's Haram, close case, that's it. Don't use it. Don't use it and that's it. But that's simplifying a very complex issue. And the complex issue is the reality that marijuana does exist in our society and it's existed in our societies as Muslims for a long time. The scholars have been dealing with this for about six or seven hundred years. The early Muslims did not have an exposure to marijuana, but the later generations, especially as they went into other lands, had an exposure to marijuana and they named it by different names. But it's the same plant, early versions of what is available today. And so they discussed it. And I want to mention a little bit of what they say. But the point of where they got the prohibition of marijuana is there is no mention of it in the Quran or in the Hadith. But there are other things that are mentioned in the Quran and in the Hadith. And this is where they draw it from. And it's really important to understand it, not just at the level of, okay, this is ruling. There's a Fetua that says it's Haram and then that's it. Because if we as individuals, if we just reduce our Islam to just, oh, the Sheikh said it's Haram and that's it. I don't have to think beyond that. Then you're going to get another person who says, well, I have a Sheikh that said it's Haram. Just out of curiosity, has anybody ever heard of the Fetua that says marijuana is not Haram? Show of hands. One, two, keep them up high. One, two, three, on the sister side. Okay, so we have a few. So they are out there. And this is something that we have to realize that in previous times, maybe some of those obscure Fetua's, they would not have had the impact that they have today. But now, because of the prevalence of marijuana and the ease to access it, our youth who are exposed to it, if they're going to, some people are like, I don't care if it's Haram, I'm going to use it. But then there's other people who are going to try to justify the use of it and they're going to dig up those obscure Fetua's. So as parents, as uncles, as family members, as community members, as youth Haram leaders, we really have to understand what is the reasoning behind any difference that may exist so that we can properly address it. The other thing is that people have misconceptions about marijuana and the effects of marijuana. And so they'll say, well, you know, marijuana is not a drug. Who's heard somebody say that marijuana is not a drug? Show of hands. One, two, three, four. More hands went up in there. So what does that tell you? That rhetoric is amongst the youth, they're saying marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana won't harm you. Marijuana doesn't affect the intellect. Marijuana, you know, is, and as Brother Munir had mentioned at the beginning, you know, there are people that will try to justify the use of marijuana. So we have to go back and say, okay, what is it that Islam or our dean says about marijuana? So when the Muslims were first exposed to marijuana, what do you think their minds went to in the Quran to find an answer? Where did they go? What portion of the Quran? What's that? Intoxication. Intoxication. Thank you, intoxicants. Qamr, right? Qamr, which is mentioned in the Quran. Well, other intoxicants are not mentioned in the Quran. So Qamr, according to the Arabs, was made out of very specific things. They had very specific things that they used to make intoxicant drinks out of. They would make it out of dates, out of grapes, out of pomegranates, out of honey, out of barley, and a few things. So as Muslims from other lands came and started learning about Islam, when they heard Qamr and they understood the definition according to that one group, then they would ask the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, like a group came from Yemen, and they said, we have a drink that's made out of such and such. Some other thing. Is that haram? And then he said in the famous Hadid, كل مسكر حرار. Everything that intoxicates you is haram. So what does this do? What is this teaching us? The reasoning, or the reasons behind the rulings, which is very important, because we're not going to get caught up on just a few words, and then try to wiggle our way out of the ruling. So as an example, Allah SWT has made pork haram in the Quran. But what word does he use in the Quran when he makes pork haram? What does he say? What's that? لحم الخنزير. The flesh of the khazir. So what did some people do? In modern times, I've heard this, they make stew out of, these are of course deviant people who are not really trying to sincerely follow the religion, they're trying to wiggle their way out. They make stews out of pork bones. Like they'll take the bone of the animal and say, well Allah said the flesh of the animal, not the bones. Does that make sense? But you can see where somebody's trying to like, get down to the letter of the law. Well the Prophet SAW had told us about this, that people would be, they had done this even before, and he said, there were people who when the flesh of the khazir, when the pig was made haram, what did they do? They started eating the shahm, the lard. Well that's not meat. And then when that was made prohibited to them, they started selling it and then taking the money and using the money. He said, well it doesn't say anything. But the idea is if that thing is haram, stay away from it. That thing, anything associated with it, anything that falls under that category, and anything that supports it. So when the Prophet SAW instead of made the drinking of alcohol haram prohibited, what else did he make haram? The growing of the grapes, the pressing of the grapes, the carrying of the grapes, the one who makes it into alcohol, the one who sells it, the one who buys it, the one who drinks it, and the one who witnesses the contract. It's like everything associated with this is haram, because this is an intoxicant. Now when other people would bring new types of intoxicants, he said, everything that is a muskir, that is an intoxicant, is haram, to kind of nip it in the bud. The other thing is, and this is also something, well, no pun intended, nip it in the bud. But anyway, the other thing is that some people, and this is a line of reasoning that people will use to start people on marijuana, they will say, oh, just take a puff, it won't hurt you. One puff. Has anybody ever heard, like actually somebody said, don't worry, one puff won't hurt you. Raise of hands. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. A lot more hands went up over there. Again, what is that telling us? They're exposed to it. Just today, I had a high schooler come up to me and he shared with me that he actually asked his parents to take him out of public high school, a public high school here in the Bay Area, to take him out of public high school because every time he went into the bathroom, he always saw people smoking marijuana, using other drugs and offering it to him. Because one of the aspects, one of the elements of using intoxicants is that people don't want to do it alone. They want other people along with them. In fact, the Arabs have specific names for a drinking buddy. Does anybody not happen to know what it is? Al-Munadim. That's a name not only, that's not my friend, that's my drinking buddy. So they would have specific names for that. So people will offer it to him, so hey, don't worry, it's just a puff, it won't hurt you. Well, some people presented this argument to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. What if we just, okay, Khamer is prohibited, but what if we just take a sip, a sip that will not intoxicate us? So he said in the famous Hadid that if a large amount, a large amount, which is a type of measure, and some people say it's about 96 liters, so that's a lot of alcohol. If he says it would take you almost 100 liters of alcohol, a handful is haram. Does that make sense? So what he's doing there is he's cutting off, it's cutting off the gateway into that thing. So the idea is not the khamer that intoxicates you, it's haram because it intoxicates you, but also all the gateway to it is also haram as well. So now, but I don't only want to go into the issue of intoxicants from, the prohibition from the sign of intoxicants, I want to actually read the ayah, because the Arabs, we also have to remember, the Arabs really loved alcohol, they really loved it. And out of curiosity, does anybody in some of the Sahaba, when Islam first began and alcohol was still permitted, some of the Sahaba actually continued to drink. Some of the great Sahaba that we talk about now, and we say, they continued to drink. And then when it became prohibited, they stopped of course. In fact, at one point there were two people, or there were some people carrying containers of alcohol, and when they heard the ayah that prohibited it, they opened their arms, they dropped the containers of alcohol, and they dropped to the floor and broke it. So when the Sharia was being revealed, alcohol was permitted, intoxicants were permitted. Then it was mentioned that just don't come to the Salah, and don't come to the prayer, while you're intoxicated. And then the ayah came and said, Ya Ayyuhul Nadina, amaluh, innama al-Khamr, wal-Masr, wal-ansab, wal-asalam, wal-rijnum, wal-amalil shaitan, fajtanibu, that khamr, intoxicants, and gambling, the various forms of gambling, are evil, are filthy, from filthy works of the Shaitan, so stay away from it. This was the final ayah. But just as an interesting point, Allah SWT mentions gambling and alcohol in the same ayah. What similarities do we see between the two? What's that? Addiction. It's the issue of addiction. And so we have to look at marijuana as it's presented in society, not just hope, that's how I'm staying away from it, but to understand addiction. And that's why it's very important to work that Dr. Ahmad and others like him are doing in the field of addiction within the Muslim community so that we just don't, we don't, when our youth are exposed to it, or to marijuana or any other form of drugs or alcohol, we don't just say, how I'm staying away from it. We have to understand addiction and we have to address it. And so when the prophet SAW, when the ayah talks about the prohibition of khama, it also talks about gambling, which gambling has an addiction, in some cases, that's harder to get rid of than the addiction to heroin. It's a very, very hard and debilitating addiction. When the prophet SAW spoke about the addict, and he actually used the word abd, the slave of khama, he also mentioned two other addictions in that hadith, the abd of dinar, the slave of money. People are sometimes addicted to worldly things. And then he even mentioned the person who was an addict, an addict to clothes. So he was addressing at that time and then in another hadith he talks about the addict of zina, the person who was addicted to zina in all of its forms. So the idea of addiction and the prohibition of these things is also because they're addictive in nature and they tend towards addiction so we should stay away from them. Even if a person might say, oh, one puff is not an issue or it's just one scratcher, right? I'm just gonna have one scratcher. And out of curiosity, has anybody ever heard of a Muslim who plays some of those, oh, I'm just gonna use the nickel slot in Vegas, or I'm gonna just use a scratcher. And if I do win the money, I'm going to, I think it's there. Well, the interesting thing that I found about gambling is that at the time of the sahabah, gambling that Allah is prohibiting, the Quraish, the Arab gamblers, you know what they used to do? They gambled for the love of gambling, not for the money. They would take whatever they win and they'd give it to the poor. That was their gambling. And that's what Allah is saying is hara. So the same idea of, oh, I'll gamble and give it to the poor, that's what the Quraish were doing anyway. They would gamble for the fun of it, for the thrill of it. And then if they did win, they would give it to the poor. So it's important to understand the context of these rulings and where they came from because the same type of logic is repeating itself. So Allah mentions gambling and alcohol in the same ayah. Hadith mentions alcohol along with other types of addiction. So we have to understand the addiction. And then the ayah goes on to say that the shaytan wants to sow between you the seeds of enmity and hate. Does anybody know the... how many murders in the U.S. are committed under the influence of alcohol? 40%. Isn't that what Allah is talking about? The adawa? Sexual assaults and rates under the influence of alcohol? 40%. 40%. Now, again, we're speaking about marijuana, but it's important to understand the reasonings behind why Allah is prohibiting these things. Now, one of the responses to that is that, well, most people, they might commit crimes under the influence of alcohol, but if you smoke it, it's actually going to mellow you out and chill you out and you're not going to commit crimes. But that's not the only reason behind it. There's the issue of addiction. There's the issue of intoxication. Your ability to reason and think. But it does open up other doors. We've heard of stories of many stories of people who went to smoke weed and it led them, it was a gateway to other things, whether it's death or whether it's Zina or whether it's gambling or whatever it might be, it was a gateway leading them to something else. And that's why they refer to, in modern literature, marijuana is a gateway drug. So it opens up the door to things. So there's the issue of intoxication. There's the issue of harm to self. There's plenty of literature, data and research showing through longitudinal studies showing the impact, the harms of marijuana on the self, even though people might want to say, oh, it doesn't harm you. The reality is that it does and it does affect brain development. So when people are being offered marijuana, I think, and I'm not, you don't quote me on this, but I think the average age that people are offered marijuana is about 12 or 13. So what grade is that? Seventh, eighth grade. So just consider that your middle school children, youth, they may be adults by Sharia standards, your middle schoolers have either been offered, have tried, have been exposed to, have heard about people talking about it. Most probably, the reality, that's the reality. It's not, don't think, oh, that's not my son or my daughter. And the other thing is to think about that if a person, like when you want to discuss this with your children, and you should have that, that relationship, that open relationship to be able to discuss it. You should be able to discuss these issues with them and clarify things and not just say, oh, Haram, don't even talk about it. Because what is that going to create if you create this shutdown and you don't allow discussion, it's going to cause a person to hide. Now, one of the things that I recently found out from one of our youth in the community who is struggling with a marijuana addiction, and I didn't know this, is that one of the ways that parents used to be able to tell if there's kids that smoke marijuana is what? The smell, it stinks. In fact, some people, I think they call it stank or dank, you know, like, it stinks. The weed actually stinks. But you know how they've gotten around it now? Now that it's illegal recreationally, they can buy the little pockets and they'll have a 21-year-old person or above because you have to be a 21-year-old boy and they're filtering it down to the young people, each person tax on a few extra dollars, so he's buying it at whatever and you know, trickle down economics and then gives it to the next person. So they could actually be smoking and come into the masjid high or smoking in the parking lot. There was one person who, struggling with addiction, she, sister, and she saw some people, not this masjid, but that masjid and she asked some people or she knew about some of the youth who were smoking it and she asked them not to smoke it around the masjid. So at least she has that, like, she had that idea of like, okay, it's wrong, we shouldn't do it, but definitely not around the masjid. So it is happening and I know the issue is about to start. This is what I'll end on. I wanted to go into the idea of medical marijuana. The doctor, I'm going to speak about medical marijuana. Okay, not much. Well, from the Sharia aspect, the use of intoxicants, whether it's alcohol or other things, was discussed. The Qur'an, what is Allah SWT telling us about alcohol? He says that there is a, there is a, there is harm, but there's also benefit. But the harm outweighs the benefit. So is there, are there medicinal uses for alcohol? Yes. But the Qur'an is saying, don't use it. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam found one of his, one of the companions, one of the mothers of the believers in Salama, she had actually treated her daughter with wine. And when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam found out about it, he was angry about it. And he's, and she said, but it's a treatment. I'm not giving it to her for the intoxication purpose. I'm giving it to her as a treatment for a stomach ailment. And so he said, that Allah, in a famous hadith, that Allah SWT has not placed the Shefa, the healing of our ummah in what Allah has made forbidden, forbidden of it. And so this is the hadith that a lot of the scholars use and say no, that you're going to have to find another healing. And we've been promised by the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that if there is a healing benefit in alcohol, Allah has something else out there that you can get a similar benefit from without having to use the alcohol. So when people talk about medical use of marijuana, they should think about that. With that said, the scholars have approved for use of alcohol, opium, other types of opioids, any type of things that would affect the intellect, anesthesia, doesn't that affect the intellect? Right? You're not going to be able to think reasonably if you get like the gas at the dentist or at the surgery. But those things have been permitted out of necessity. And so there is room for certain things to be permitted for medical use of marijuana. But it would have to, it would have to be analyzed. First of all, make sure that it's only the, if it has the CBD oil, which the majority of the medicinal personesses are in that, that's what the person would have to use. If the doctors and the FDA, and everybody's saying no, there's actually, we found a benefit in the other type, the marijuana with the THD still in it, which is the psychoactive portion of it, then you would have to see if that is actually stands up. If it's doctor recommended, there is, the FDA has approved for certain, for seizure treatment, cancer patients, and it's mostly pain management. So there's the element of pain management and there's also the issue of, of actual treatment. Is it for pain or is it for treatment? That has to be looked at. But it's not that just any person can just say, oh, I have a backache and I'm going to use marijuana so I'm going to get a card and start smoking it. It has to be under the care of a physician who can recommend to this person and who can actually say, I understand your concern, your religious concern that you don't want to use it and so I'm giving you the recommendation based on that. Does that make sense? That it's not a doctor saying, oh yeah, no worry, go ahead and use it. There are doctors like that. There are doctors who will say, just use it. That's fine. No, we have to say, does the medical research show that marijuana, that not the CDD, the THC that will affect the intellect in this specific case and this amount will actually be a treatment and there's no alternative and this is the best, you see, there's a whole process behind that. But these are things that we should be aware of because it might be a tool of justification that people would use for starting to use marijuana and I know it's eight o'clock so it will leave the remainder of the talk till after Isha and have the question and answers and there was, I think that's about it. So Jazakumal O'Fel and we'll have the remainder of the questions after Salafi Naisha. Jazakumal O'Fel So the youth are heading in here right now. We'll have Raazan, just a reminder that we'll stay in this room. The youth will be coming in this room as well and we're going to have a combined session and Dr. Rani will be moderating and Dr. Amir and Sheikh Rami will be here. So Jazakumal O'Fel Waalaikumal O'Fel Assalamu alaikum. I don't need to do what the kids do, right? Assalamu alaikum. All right. Assalamu alaikum. I hope inshallah this has been a beneficial program for everybody that's attended. Thank you so much to Dr. Amir Rahimullah who is my colleague at Stanford and we're really blessed to have him there. He is an internal medicine doctor and an addiction specialist and Sheikh Rami as all of you know who is our youth director here at the MCC and one of our scholars in the Bay Area and also to the Khalil Center who is the youth director here at the MCC and one of our scholars in the Bay Area and also the Khalil Center who is co-sponsoring this event and if those of you who are not familiar with the Khalil Center it is a counseling professional counseling center that is specifically designated to work with the Muslim community and integrates aspects of Islamic spirituality into the counseling process. There is actually a branch of the Khalil Center right here in the MCC as well as in other cities like Santa Clara and Union City. So inshallah I hope you guys benefit from this discussion of the discussions going to be really asking Shahrami Dr. Ahmed their perspectives and talking to both the adults and the youth and then we're going to then have kind of an open form of discussion on really questions to see what kind of discussion happened back and forth and what we can help really solidify in terms of knowledge relating to this topic on addiction and marijuana specifically. I heard actually a series from the youth side and I think there's still room to really make sure we understand this topic fully. I think there's still a little bit of discussion to be done. So I'll start off actually with asking Dr. Ahmed to share with us his perspectives on speaking to both adults and then also the youth and we'll do the same for Shahrami. I found it a very enlightening experience. You know, I look at a lot of numbers and I kind of presented a lot of numbers. So sorry I found it very enlightening to see that be reflected in my conversations with the youth. They're very courageous in speaking up and talking about their experiences and I'll say that what we spoke about with the adults is reflected in what we're seeing when I saw the youth kind of raise their hand about what they're seeing amongst their peers. So I think we should really be vigilant as a problem and recognize that as a Muslim community we're not immune to the problems that exist in the broader community and just like we're not immune to it we should probably protect against it and also engage in the treatments that have been proven to help if it does become a problem. But yeah, there's a lot that they're facing with. I think it's important for us to become aware of it. Even addiction, medicine, doctor, I do this on a daily basis Monday through Friday it was enlightening for me to see. You know, I see things in the news and I read things in papers but when you really hear it from our youth this is my first time at this mosque it's such a very vibrant and endearing youth that we have in this community Masha'Allah may Allah protect us all. It's it's enlightening to see what they're going through and I think yeah, absolutely I think we should start devising ways of how we can protect them against this and be aware of it. Well my reflections are similar to what Dr. Ahmed and we had not coordinated this but the hand raising when I ask questions a lot more went up over there, right? Yeah, so in terms of the, you know, the reasoning behind oh it's okay don't worry, you know, how many have been offered a lot more on the youth side so they're facing that a lot more than than the older generation and but what I what I what really my main reflection is just look around how many people have come out for this event and to me this is really really a healthy sign of the community that the community is interested in having this discussion and I think the perfect place to have this discussion because that's where we're all congregating we're all coming to the message and so we should not shy away from having this discussion in the message there are some people who who might feel like oh it's a problem outside but we should be able to have this conversation here one of the things that I didn't get to mention in my talk on both sides or I mentioned a little bit with the youth but that we should in addressing oh marijuana is haram alcohol is haram just say haram and just stop we have to really address addiction and understand addiction at a deep level and part of that is having these type of events in our faith communities in our masajid but then to not just leave it at this so that we can also take it to the next level and have support for our community in the masajid there's a lot of churches that they have alcohol anonymous they have AA meetings and narcotics anonymous which is the equivalent for addictions to narcotics in the churches now I want to ask you how many of you know of a masjid that has an AA or an NA meeting in the masjid raise your hand if you know there's one in the Bay Area there's a hint it's the masjid in San Francisco under the leadership of Imam Abu Qadir Al-Amin who used to be on death row and he was let out in the one year when California overturned it but he leaves the community out there they have AA program in the masjid there's a lot of hesitations for Muslims to want to bring this into the masjid because oh you know people are going to start talking but it's a real issue people in our communities are experiencing this and we have to be able to have these conversations so I'll just say three things if we do start having them in our masjid and I'm trying to advocate for this masjid MCC to start that to start a support group for people dealing with addictions a peer support group is just that it's a peer so what does that mean somebody who is a Muslim who has overcome addiction has to lead the group and help support in the group we can get the education from the doctors from the shield from people who know about it from a technical side but there's a lived experience of addiction that those peer support groups offer to be able to come forth and say I had an addiction I overcame it I'm willing to help out in a support group that's one thing then we have to have the courage of the youth who are struggling with addictions to be able to say I want to be part of that group or the courage of the youth who may not be struggling with addiction but they know somebody who's struggling with addiction or using it intermittently which it can be classified as an addiction depending on number of factors but to say okay I'm going to be the one who helps that person and then thirdly the families of the people who are struggling with addictions to have support groups for them because it's it's very difficult to go through that now it might not seem relevant to people who are not experiencing that but if you have had a family member go through addiction or somebody who's close to you and I have had both I've had family members and I've had people who are close to me go through addictions and struggle with addiction and it's a very very serious issue but one of the ways that I started working with Dr. Ahmed brother Justin is a Muslim brother who his addiction actually led him eventually and this was a very practicing Muslim it was through our program in the prison and he was Tahajud and reciting Quran and reading but when he got out he fell back into his addiction and it led him he didn't want to reach out and it eventually led him to an attempted suicide because he was so ashamed and did not want to reach out to the Muslim community because he was ashamed I have another family member who actually almost died of alcoholism and one who alcoholism was a serious contributing factor in his early death so I've seen it I've seen I've had students of mine who text me at 2 a.m. in the morning and say, I can't go on like this anymore and I went into the mode of like oh is it a call for help suicide but I come to find out he's just struggling with his alcohol addiction but what made me feel good is I had that open enough of an open connection with him so that he would reach out to me in time of need and then we tried to direct him to services that could help him but the families have to be open we can't shut down and just yelling and screaming and hitting and dealing with addiction it's ha-ram and how can you do this no, we have to understand addiction and deal with it and deal with it in a trained manner having peer support groups for those struggling with addictions the family and friends of those struggling with addictions that are open so I look forward to this as a good sign that this message can take a step forward in that direction and this not just be a one-off discussion that we come we hear about the issue and then we move along thank you both you know Shiframi and Dr. Ahmed both said something really important which is the numbers the numbers of people who are struggling and the numbers of how much this is essentially swept under the rug like so many other topics in our community that seem to be very stigmatized or difficult to speak about but the reality is and probably why the timing of a talk like this coming with around the time of the legalization of marijuana there's been just a lot of confusion in the minds of people if it is something that recreationally is legal and prohibited and allowed why are Muslims prohibiting it onto themselves so there's a discussion of course there's the peer pressure and youth but before we go to that because there's actually some comments and questions that I'm going to pose to both of you but before we go there is really understanding you know once for those of you familiar with the Khalil center the counseling centers that we've opened up here in the Bay Area that are you know all Muslim therapists for Muslims dealing with Islamic spirituality you would be surprised how many how many of the cases have come through that actually have either a direct issue with addictions or a side issue relating to addiction a lot more prevalent in the community than anybody wants to admit Dr. Hamid said something really important right it was as we began and he said just because we are Muslim doesn't mean we're going to be immune to any of the issues that surround the general population around us who are not Muslim the only time we're immune is when we actually follow upon the rulings of the dean and even then we have to be very careful and protect ourselves as he also mentioned so people often are very much in denial of what is going on in the community and I can tell you as the director and supervisor that this act of the center that this is absolutely something that we are dealing with daily multiple times a day all the time so sticking our head in the sand isn't going to solve anything and for those who are wondering why bring something like alcohol discussion and drug discussion into the message space because this should be a place where it's very open and we should be in detail both from the scientific perspective but also from the dean perspective Sheikh Rami said something very important here where he said about the parents and one of the comments that came out of the room when the youth came out one of the things they immediately said was I'm not going out there with the parents why would we want to talk about this with them if we ever said anything about this they'd immediately flip out and I thought the reality is for many of us as parents and for many of the adults in the room almost immediately the reaction to anything related to a topic like this is to just kind of blow your top and because the children know that the youth know that they're just not willing to talk so Sheikh Rami said somebody will text him at 2 o'clock in the morning and we have other of our you know brother and sister Amina some of the others who are around at the message who are trusting they get these kind of messages and text messages all the time too but what I really want to emphasize is the importance of the communication between parents and children like there is nothing that can substitute that aspect and that if it's open enough and you may kind of do something like blow your top and then have to regroup again brush yourself off and try to have the conversation again but if you don't then it's always this black box and the only other information that they get a place where they get information from is essentially your peers who are none the wiser than them right so this is also a reason why it has to be kind of a very open discussion and communication and I can't emphasize that enough and it's not just about marijuana it's not just about alcohol and drinking it's not just about dating it's not just about any really topic that you really feel uncomfortable talking about if you get that feeling about that feeling is to make sure that it's addressed because whatever you're not feeling in someone else's and it's just not helping so I want to now pose a different question to Dr. Ahmed and Jehrami and see what you think one of the other questions was so we understand that one or two puffs you know may not necessarily make somebody addicted but if that's the case why not just try like what's the big deal I don't intend to be someone that I understand I even understand it's hot on but what's one or two puffs so just talking to our Muslim youth I just I'll let I'll let Jehrami kind of address the spiritual and Islamic aspect of that and there's a lot you know that could be said about that but just from the medical side of that anytime we use substances and we experience substance use it makes us a vulnerable to continued substance use and we know that when people use these harder drugs oftentimes the gateway or the substance that precedes it is marijuana or cigarettes and the best way to protect against that is to not engage in these activities and really just kind of understanding what context we're in a drug kind of epidemic as a nation an opioid epidemic which is largely driven by and although you can't overdose of a cannabis there's no reports for teens or adults overdosing on this it's often the substance that precedes these really hard and heavy drugs leading cause of death in people under 50 is a car accident is it guns is it gays no it's drug overdoses drug overdose deaths have exceeded HIV deaths at the peak of its epidemic car accidents at the peak of its epidemic and gun deaths at the peak of its epidemic so we shouldn't snooze on it as a community and cannabis is is it's just not necessary I mean we can feel that feeling of well-being and at peace and that exhilaration through something that not everybody has or maybe your community at school doesn't have and that's that's the dean and that's the everything that comes with that so every reason that people use substances you can put a pros and cons list to it and all the pros that they use substances for you can find that in other things whether that be peer approval whether that be like approval from your friends whether that be a release whether that be relaxation whether that be just letting loose all that can be other things that don't have all the risks and consequences associated with it so you know it's really just about not being duped by all these messages that we're receiving in our society it's really just about that and being able to achieve what other people achieve with cannabis through other other things that aren't going to leave you in the dust what I would say is that I mentioned this in both sessions about the some of the Sahaba asking the question similar question not just the one puff question because marijuana or cannabis wasn't around at that time but they were saying if it was an alcoholic drink that you would only get drunk by drinking a large amount then what did the Prophet say about that that even a handful even a handful would be haram and so somebody might because somebody might think well I'm not going to drink the wine to get drunk I'm just going to swish it around in my taste and try to taste some of those 250 flavor what do they call it flavoroids or flavor compounds which by the way coffee has 800 so if you're looking for that taste taste on the tongue go for coffee but they might say I'll just swish it around and spit it out or I'm just going to drink a little bit just a sip of beer or so forth that was addressed by the Prophet a little bit is haram and one of the reasons why is because it's not only as cannabis or marijuana a gateway drug to other drugs but that one puff is a gateway to the continued use of that and so cutting off the gateways is a big part of our Sharia and the Shaitan realizes this and one of the tricks that he uses is to get people accustomed to something so it's just like people who want to abuse children if they just go straight up to the child and say hey come here I want you to do this of course the child's going to say no but what do they do they groom the person they're going to abuse them here's a piece of candy so a person might say what's wrong with that piece of candy well that's the first step that's leading them to the end result and that's the same exact way that the Shaitan works and they said that the likeness of the Shaitan works is similar to the way the Arabs would cross the desert because they weren't able to go long distances without water so they would hold water back from the horse for one day and then let it have water and get it used today one day off, one day on and then two days off one day on and then three and then four and then five until they got the horse to where it could go six days without water and then they would cross the desert so they said that's the way the Shaitan works he's not going to come up to you and say hey why don't you get drunk and commit this work so he's got to start start small and he has his helpers and he has his logic and he has he places that in so that idea of you know belittling the one puff or the one sip is is part of is part of those tricks and it's part of the stepping stone to something that comes after that so that was a question that actually came out of the room like that was a real question of after we had our first hour of discussion of the one puff was actually something that was still on people's minds so thank you both for kind of clarifying that more before I go on I just want to say do you guys know where the behind you the clipboard for the Clio center sign in and on the sister side do you guys have that can you guys keep passing that around I think it's behind you there because of the I'll explain why towards the end about the programming in tune with it inshallah so we use this for gateway quite a bit a number of times and we called marijuana a gateway drug a number of times meaning that it will open the door potentially to other more its own use at a more extensive level of leading to addiction and potentially to other harder and more difficult drugs to eventually wean off of and so then the question is about the one puff and two puff situation now we have to really understand there is a piece that we missed to that has to be explained that you don't know if you're going to be the person who ends up getting addicted after the one puff or two puffs you simply don't know just like alcohol somebody could drink and drink and drink and drink and it's not until they're drinking like a fish as they say that they finally become an alcoholic and the next person takes one sip or two sips and they're an alcoholic for life you don't know who you are and you won't know until you try so why try so you need to understand this perspective too right for those of you especially are and honestly it's not just the young people in the room I have plenty of adult patients who I'm speaking to constantly about these things as well because again of the legalization of cannabis it's become very much a thing people are using it people are trying it it's very much a recreational thing you go watch the Super Bowl everyone smoking it's like right so when I say this it's not just to young but it's also to old and that's the question you have to ask yourself too do you know if you're going to be someone who very easily becomes addicted you simply don't why take the chance and I think that's what people have to keep in mind too so there's this discussion of Gateway there's a discussion of Purma the Sharia rulings there's also a discussion of you're gambling with your health essentially right so we all know then what happens when the doors continue to open and what comes next so I think at this point it would be very helpful to hear what other questions we have so now that you've heard the discussions both from the Chef Rami's perspective and Dr. Ahmet's perspective my guess is there's probably some more questions out there and we have the mics kind of going around for those questions so let's take a couple of those from the audience so I've had a question from like the doctor's perspective so what if you have a patient that you know that could benefit from marijuana do you take the religious aspect of it or do you take like the aspect of medicine like I do think like for example you gave the example for example you said about the person who has their muscles are really tough so they take like marijuana to like decrease that so what do you think the medical aspect are really in harmony and just looking at it from the medical aspect there are a couple of conditions that have an adequate amount of medical evidence behind it one is chronic pain one is muscle spasticity from specific conditions like multiple sclerosis and the third is is nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy so they're very specific conditions now just because some treatment has evidence for it doesn't mean we use it in the medical community it also has to be weight against the risks associated with it and since we know cannabis has so many risks to the mind to the mental health it's associated with anxiety, depression schizophrenia it's associated with low educational attainment you know inattention and all types of verbal memory it just makes you slow basically and so all these risk factors we don't use it as a first line and if you look at two things I'll bring up before I don't want this to get too long two things I'll bring up is number one all of those conditions have first line medications second line medications and often times third line medications that's number one number two there are synthetic forms of these medications that are FDA approved because by the way cannabis is a schedule one drug which means it's not approved for medical use on the federal level and there's schedule three cannabinoid drugs that are FDA approved to use for nausea, vomiting for pain and so that's number two and then number three when I say evidence it's not so those are what the major synopses of these this the literature say out there but when I say evidence these are small studies I'm sorry not small studies these are short studies so we don't really know what the effect is in the long run and we really have to understand that from our history we've made mistakes as a nation in the past by rushing towards things without really understanding what the effects are like for example nicotine is a prime example in the 40s and 50s you could see doctors advertising and endorsing cigarettes you could see them in prestigious medical journals advertisements for cigarettes and then what happens 10, 20 years later oops and then there's statements put out and now it's the number one leading preventable cause of death we have an opioid epidemic which was you know the short of the story which was kind of prompted by copious amount of opioids prescribed by doctors I don't want to doctors are important I'm a doctor should listen to your doctor but you know we should really understand that we don't want to rush into decisions and the medical community is behind this that there's evidence for these three three issues that there's first line medications to use that there's FDA approved medications to use and then finally the last important point and I'll kind of close this question with this is that when I say evident there's adequate evidence for these conditions what they use in the study are very minuscule amounts of marijuana at most the guidelines say one puff off of a very weak type of marijuana which is about 8 to 9% THC what do we have out now it's 20, 25% THC and all this stuff you see on billboards where cannabis improves anxiety on the billboards on the highway or I don't know wherever else you see it it's we really need to recognize that these aren't messages and ideas that are being promoted by the medical community and then ideas don't gain currency because they're logical or because they're based by science they gain currency because they're advertised well and because there's a lot of money to be made off of it and there's a lot of money to be made off of cannabis we should recognize that and again a lot of this is just not being duped and looking back 10 years from now and saying oh I shouldn't have jumped on that bandwagon other questions this one this one okay so I had an Imam a Bay Area Imam tell me something a while ago that I thought was very interesting and I just wanted to ask you about it if you've heard this and your research or your work with the community as well he said that he's finding more and more young Hufab in the community who believe marijuana is okay to use and they will lead prayers and give hukbas and at the same time think it's okay to smoke marijuana and he said that with many of them the introduction to that whole culture came through the hukka and the shisha culture that environment have you heard that and also Islamically if you can give a little bit of the perspective towards the hukka and shisha culture which a lot of young people are into or you know hanging out with friends yep absolutely so yes in short the answer is yes we have seen this epidemic and a phenomenon like you described exactly so and you would think Hufab really the ones who are leading us and such but remember this is again I'm going to mention the thing about logic it's not always logical like so many people will talk about nicotine in the same way they would talk about like you said the shisha hukka in the same way and saying well it's not really haram so therefore this is a way to socialize and enjoy our time together so how have we seen the phenomenon and is it a phenomenon I would say absolutely it is now I'll leave the discussion of what do you say shut on yeah I'm smiling because I've heard the logic behind that the finding a fetwa you know the fetwa shopping to be able to to start that I will say just as a note on the smoking that is like a gateway to marijuana would be smoking so that's something we have to understand in our communities nationwide and ummawide like smoke a lot one of the first things that during the Iraq embargo along with medicine that America was preventing to go into Iraq was tobacco like they wanted to strangle the nation so they said food, medicine and tobacco we're not sending it in that's how much of a hold it has on the culture so we really have to start pushing away the the smoking culture from our communities because it is a gateway and then the shisha of course now because the some people say oh the bubbles will take away the nicotine and this you know the ice will take away I mean they have all of these urban legends about their wife it's not an issue but it does it's a or it doesn't have nicotine yeah it's a gateway into like normalizing oh like the smoking because one of the issues with shahua in general desires is that once you get used to one thing you want to start something else and that's why confining shahua or desires and halal Allah will put barakah to where a person is content with that desire within within the realms of the halal once a person goes into outside which it even has a different name it's called the hawa the desires that go outside of the sharia Allah doesn't put barakah in that and so the person just has to go keep on keep on until they get something and that's why when people start using drugs and alcohol they have to start using something or where they might be getting and it's interesting you're saying it's from hafaz because they might have some of these discussions like the sharia-based discussions and it's important for us to know this the history behind the fatwas of cannabis or marijuana or hashisha and arabic or benjad had different names but it was introduced later in time so it wasn't at the early time of the sahab of the salaf to where some grand sahabi could say so it was introduced later and so when it first was introduced to the muslims they had they were trying to figure out what's going on to give you an example in some areas when coffee was first introduced to those muslim lands they said it was haram because they would drink coffee or tea so I've seen facts that are old that when they say they drink tea they're like oh this affects he probably got some really strong tea and it started giving him so he's like this is affecting my intellect something's happening what's going on this is haram great scholars great scholarship he was basing the hukam on his understanding of the ruling so the same thing happens when they were introduced to hashisha or marijuana or whatever a bud by any other name is still a bud when they were introduced to this some of them you will find in some of the facts where it works oh there's not a problem with this but the problem is if we stick on the letter of the law ok this fetwa says it's ok this fetwa says it's not ok but what are those two scholars in agreement about they're in agreement that if it intoxicates you if it affects your intellect it is haram it was just they weren't differing on whether or not this actually affects you and so some of the early scholars would say well you know some people say because when you smell incense it kind of relaxes you I would ask anybody Dr. Ahmed is here a specialist in addiction can somebody logically make a connection between incense and marijuana today and be taken seriously in the medical field they're not so even if if somebody comes and says I have a fetwa from 1583 from the great scholar who said cannabis is permissible are we going to say come on you know it's like earlier I was saying that there were people that would well the hadith mentioned that there were earlier generations when the meat the flesh of the swine was made prohibited what do they start doing eating the lard they're like oh well it doesn't say you know well that's the the point of the ruling is that that thing is haram encapsulated understand that what makes something haram is that it's ability to be intoxicated so in any other culture like for example in Mongolia they would drink fermented mares milk they would get the horses milk ferment it and drink it that's that's not common that's not pressed from wine but it's end result is that it can affect you but even those early fetwas that say they allow for it they were just talking about the amount that it would not affect your intellect so they're talking about they were exposed to weed marijuana 600-700 years ago the strains that we have today and the ability to analyze the levels of THC in them their stuff one puff am I right it's going to you want to talk about though yeah absolutely I don't want to cut you up because you're making great points but yeah there's old cannabis and there's new cannabis cannabis in the 70s 80s 5% THC cannabis now is 25% much stronger and then we have these weird synthetic cannabinoids that are 100 times stronger K2 and spicy yeah absolutely and then wine in the olden days and hard liquor relatively in the wine and hard liquor so wine relative to the history of alcohol hard liquor is a new phenomenon so there's newer ways of making these substances and really the new substances although they really don't resemble in a lot of ways in terms of the old substances please go ahead so I'll end on this kind of funny note so I was actually discussing the same point with somebody who was trying to argue with me oh there's not an issue I said there one is not like what's going on there like this dean is you know it's made for intellectual reflection and to see when there's a when there's a clear like lack of congruence and things in balance like we have to we have to understand that if if something does affect the intellect and all of the the literature says that that's that walks like a duck and talks like a duck and sounds like a duck it's a duck right our apologies to the all right so I realize we're coming close to the end of the time of the program and there probably are several more questions I will we'll take one more on the other side a couple more yes there's yes on the other side so I was just hoping you could address what CBD oil how to use what it is and I've heard that it doesn't affect children or under the age of 21 so maybe you could just provide some insight on that just a little bit sure yeah so there's the cannabis plant then there's molecules in the plant it's THC CBD THC is the stuff that is psychoactive and affects the intellect CBD doesn't however it's very hard to extract the CBD from the plant purely and you'll have so in my sort of on the clinical side in my clinical experience we have a lot of patients that come in they go into recovery stop using all substances and they'll use CBD oil and this is probably the most clear evidence but they'll take your drug screens and THC will show up so it's very hard to extract the CBD plant and then we have to recognize that none of this isn't regulated so you're not getting this as a medication FDA approved or from like that's over the counter it's probably at some shop and it's maybe from a source that you really can't verify exactly what's in it or may not be consistent medication but that's not to say that that there aren't some benefits to molecules whether it be CBD THC or what it's just to recognize that we always have to weigh the benefits versus the risks and often times people use this for conditions that they're suffering with and I understand that and people go let's say for example for pain and people undergo a lot of suffering so we have a chronic burden of pain in our nation as well so people undergo a lot of suffering we should understand that and look at their unique perspective and try to educate them medically and see if there's other things that can be used and then also just to point on that with these young Hofa we have to really understand you know there's a lot of shame and stigma around substance use and when the shame and stigma is really compounded we get all these strange justifications and loose justifications in the mind that are sort of retroactively made and you know we got to understand these young people are kind of put on a pedestal from a young age and then they're not allowed to make mistakes and then memorizing Quran is so stressful in itself and reviewing it and it's like you have to keep doing that we should really have a place for them to be able to to open up and talk about this so yeah there's justifications that are made a lot of times it's just a reaction to how they have to make this all fit in their mind My question is obviously there is a technical definition of what an addiction is but what is addiction when we say addicted to XYZ thing what does addiction mean the second part of the question is I've had conversations with many folks who always say that they drink alcohol but they never feel it just because they have a certain high level of tolerance Does that come under addiction or does that even apply to cannabis or any of these things So in my field addiction has a very concrete definition it's based on 11 criteria basically it means a loss of control over people's substance use and continued use despite consequences the main distinction that's made and the main confusion that occurs is there's dependence that your body can have on a medication or a molecule you can become dependent to heart medications you can become dependent on certain antidepressants that doesn't necessarily mean or we don't consider that to be addiction what we consider to be addiction is not a physical dependence on a substance but rather a behavioral maladaptation a behavioral problem which is a result of changes that occur in the brain from prolonged use of drugs and alcohol and these changes that occur in the brain are well documented well established and result into predictable behaviors and that's what we consider addiction so just kind of simplifying it we consider addiction a loss of control and life becomes a manageable continued use despite consequences and just a preoccupation with using substances on the mind and it's a medical problem that has medical treatment and then there's also substance use that people use substances regularly like alcohol or marijuana we don't necessarily call that addiction and they might not be at a place where they would be able to commit to the treatments that are required for people who are addicted because they can be sometimes intensive but they have a regular pattern of substances and there's a lot that can be done for them as well and these two groups are addressed in my world somewhat differently and we have different tools in our toolbox to deal with them I hope they answer and then alcohol yes your body can become dependent on it you can get a tolerance to it to the point where alcohol doesn't affect you as much and alcohol affects different people differently based on their weight and their ability to metabolize it affects men differently women so on and so forth we have a couple more questions and I realize I'm going to be short so I'm going to take and follow those two questions but I want to say in case we don't get the chance before many people start to leave for those who are starting to wonder okay great now what so the now what I think we should address before the couple of questions which is the now what of clearly if yourself your family member a loved one a friend is going through any of these and feels that sense of shame or stigma and not really wanting to get help the Khalil center we have folks who counsel and work on addictions also that doctor amir here is working on a platform for the education of the people who have addiction issues and their families and loved ones on understanding this process more in a support group type fashion and that we're also working with the MCC who's been a fantastic partner to the Khalil center in having a group on site as well so in individual work in group work whether you look at it from the medical perspective or the the dean perspective and I should also mention that Shahrami has religious counseling sessions he offers here too and once you remark to me that so many of the hours you spend in counseling have addiction stories to them so whether it's coming from this perspective or that perspective it's a very much real issue but know that we're insha'Allah to Allah and that's I want to just make that shout out again and know that the sign ups sheets are around for those who want to stay in touch know how to actually get that assistance the Khalil center is here to help and the information is in the back I'm going to take another question from the sister side and we have one more from our youth side as well insha'Allah I'll repeat the question sisters asking is there anything being done about the advertising unfortunately commercializing commercial advertising is included in our constitutional rights like free speech so it's very hard to fight against advertising so once it's become legalized it's very hard to fight against that I mean there's we can start pushing back on where they can advertise and it's not it's no longer about legalization versus not legalization anymore but to really participate in the discussion of exactly how we're going to allow this to be legalized how we're going to allow it to be advertised who it can be advertised to how we're going to tax this where that money goes and all these problems are being thought about by the people who are going to make a lot of money off of this because every decision is going to be millions of dollars for them and it's something that if we have it think about it and fight the power fight against this yeah well I'll just add one more point and then we'll take the question is that this also calls in a greater issue that we should as our families be discussing just marketing and advertising and propaganda and understanding that and pointing out things as their advertise so if if you're watching TV and commercials come on I mean the programming it's not the program the programming is the commercials but then also break that down for your families whether it's the toys whether it's the restaurants whether you see billboards on the side of buses point stuff out because their kids are seeing it but point it out and start understanding the media tricks and what goes on behind that and the power of corporations and start immunizing our families against that okay good thing it works will there ever be like an alternative like a healthier alternative maybe in the future or yeah you mean healthier alternative to marijuana yes and it exists now it's called fulfilling family relationships it's called mindfulness exercise eating healthily so all these things really contribute to us really well marijuana releases a feel-good chemical in your brain in high amounts and that feel-good chemical can be released through a lot of natural ways playing letting loose with friends playing sports participating in a team sports exercise all these things exercise a good one releases these chemicals on demand if we if we all sort of stood up into jumping jacks right now those feel-good chemicals would be pumping so yes it exists and it's in a neighborhood near you I'd also like to add on that point is that there are other solutions and it's important for us to understand addiction like if anybody's interested in one of the things that we've been doing at the playbook foundation because we deal with a lot of people who have addictions who are incarcerated either because of their addictions that they did while under the influence of substances we're working on programs to address addiction and address substance use and abuse and that's actually Mashallah Dr. Ahmad has been gracious with his time in reviewing some of the work that some of our students are producing Muslim students there's Muslims in prison who are at the forefront of leading of creating and facilitating drug awareness group substance abuse therapeutic communities and so forth and so it's forced me to learn a lot about about drug use and about the cycle of behavior around it and addiction in general and I really encourage us as community to understand that and one thing that was one person said he said that the drugs are not it's not the problem it's the solution to the problem it's just the wrong solution so when we look at marijuana we might see that the problem is the marijuana use or the alcohol use or the gambling use but it's actually in response to something else going on in that person's life whether it's a genetic predisposition towards addiction or towards using something or emotional issues or stress like the stressors that Dr. Ahmad was mentioning about in the hit of programs the stressors of trying to maintain a 4.3 which I don't even understand how you get beyond a 4.0 but all of those stressors so understood so peeling back the stressors and trying to understand what is it the root cause that is the problem that is leading this person to use a substance as a solution and so to dig deeper and so their their the encouragement is that we should understand it and then it'll also help us understand just addictions in general we might as believers we know people can be addicted to the dunya and various aspects the pathways and the choices people make to lead towards addiction to substances and addiction to other aspects of the dunya inshallah clearly we're not around when I was in school he doesn't know what a 4.3 is I know what it is I mean 105% of the test it's a good thing you were past that stage alhamdulillah alright we have another question inshallah on the sister side so I have two burning questions the first one is are you able to give us 2-3 signs as parents that would help us to recognize at an early stage that if our user is doing that and the second question is what do you think as parents we should do about the public school system that has failed us because there is nothing they really doing to help this drug problem out of the school system so signs one advice that I heard that I feel is valuable is when kids come home from school just to spend some time talking with them debriefing them and doing it in a non-judgmental warm compassionate way trying to keep a connection and a dialogue going and if something comes up like maybe an interaction or something that may be a little frightening for us as parents because we give up a lot of control when they go to school and they have to make a lot of decisions on their own I wouldn't I wouldn't get too frightened by that or make that a disruption to that those lines of communication because big picture is to keep that dialogue going and those lines of communication open to continue a conversation so that you can help assist them in making decisions and not make decisions for them and a lot of this is just recognizing how little control we have over this this meaning just our children and focusing on the areas we do have control over and signs you could probably find online signs for cannabis use like red eyes and personality changes and changes in friends staying out late things like that and inevitably when substance use kind of gets out of control there will always be some sort of tell life becomes unmanageable and then grades is a big one changes in school performance all those things are indicators that something's out right but the hope is is that there's lines of communication open so we can catch that and we can almost conceptualize it as maybe a missed maybe dropping the ball or if we don't catch that those changes in school performance changes in friends before catching that in our conversations with them as parents and yeah and then public schools you know I couldn't really comment too much on that I just I just don't know but I I would imagine that you know school systems are different public schools are different so I would imagine it wouldn't hurt by just getting involved and getting a pulse for what the schools like and seeing where you can help out and changing things at school and certainly if there's like a drug problem at school then people should come together and think about how to prevent that and create like a prevention program to strengthen factors associated factors that are protective substances and factors that are to reduce factors that are associated with substance reduce factors that are associated with substance use do we have any other questions at this time anything on the side further side Masha'Allah so we want to thank again the MCC very much for putting in what I think is a very Masha'Allah innovative positive good innovation Masha'Allah taking the step to do a program like this to be honest the show that was here tonight I think speaks to the need but also I want to say some years ago another misjid had actually reached out and wanted to do a similar programming and actually called the program the lecture what it is they actually called it drug addiction and one person showed up one so the difference between the numbers tonight and the numbers just even I think this might have been on the order of five years ago not terribly long ago means that A there is more awareness and more willingness to have the discussion which I see as a positive Insha'Allah insight because you can't actually make headway unless you're going to take a discussion head on and tackle it head on and B that there is just more prevalence actually have this discussion particularly with the confusion of what happens with something that's legalized but is still just like alcohol but is still prohibited by the dean so Insha'Allah I hope this was a good discussion launching pad please hear me very much when I say please have these discussions with each other in the home together children and parents youth and adults together because this is the only time that information misinformation can get corrected of course Insha'Allah we are here as resources Dr. Ahmed and myself and also Sheikh Rami so from the position perspective from the spiritual leaders perspective and also from the institutional perspective like as a resource to you so we're around Insha'Allah for any questions and hopefully look out for our programming both on our email lists but also on our social media handles and Insha'Allah you benefit from that kind of work and you may keep