What are the Bahai teachings regarding the use of alchohol and/or drugs?
Baha’is are forbidden to partake of alcoholic beverages of any kind because “alcohol leadeth the mind astray and causeth the weakening of the body” — Baha’u’llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p 227. Use of alcoholic beverages or drugs is permissable in the treatment of illness when prescribed by a “competent and concientious physician.” The use of drugs is prohibited and condemned in the strongest possible language. ‘Abdu’l Baha writes as follows regarding the use of opium (later expanded to include all manner of habit forming drugs, including peyote, hashish, marijuana, LSD, etc): “As to opium, it is foul and accursed. God protect us from the punishment He inflicteth on the user. According to the explicit Text of the Most Holy Book, it is forbidden, and its use is utterly condemned. Reason showeth that smoking opium is a kind of insanity, and experience attesteth that the user is completely cut off from the human kingdom. May God protect all against the perpetration of an act so hideous as thi
