Marijuana has played a limited role in formal religious experience. Rastafarians believe it is a sacrament; so too does Craig X Rubin, a Jewish convert to Christianity who founded Temple 420 in Hollywood and is being charged with distributing marijuana. And last week The Jewish Journal carried a JTA story that asked, "Is Pot Kosher for Pesach?"

But who knew marijuana had connections to Islam? From the Asia Times:

The issue of substance abuse, intoxicants and Islam rose to the Turkish media's attention recently when police carried out a raid on the home of private citizen Nazif Kamil Orde in Istanbul for the benefit of current-affairs documentary program Arena. They smashed their way into the home of the man newspapers have nicknamed "the junkie teacher" - Esrarc Hoca - a self-styled imam who interspersed his lessons on Islamic philosophy with some strong tokes on a lit joint and encouraged the young followers sitting around his living room to do likewise. He extolled the virtues of cannabis and said no one could make him stop - smoking was his duty to God.

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Generally in orthodox Islam, conservative scholars deem cannabis an intoxicant and therefore, according to the Hadith, it is classified as haram (as is coffee). The Hadith is the book of sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, which states: "If much intoxicates, then even a little is haram." There are dissenting voices, however, who say that the word used in the Koran itself is khamr - which means "fermented grape" - and that this classification doesn't cover use of marijuana. Liberal Muslims believe that opposition to cannabis on religious grounds in Islamic countries has in essence been based on narrow-minded dogma that seeks to regulate all private pleasure in the name of religion.

Certainly some Islamic countries are closely associated with dope smoking and cultivation (Afghanistan, Lebanon, Indonesia, Egypt and Morocco, for example) but its use is often for recreational purposes and largely takes place among the lower classes. In Turkey, while cannabis use is not tolerated by the police or state, there is a smoking culture and a well-known saying, helal ottur, gunah yoktur ("it's a holy weed that carries no sin").