Criminals and Drug Users Reformed

THAT Jehovah’s witnesses have been doing a great deal to help persons to curb and stamp out crime in their lives is well attested to. Recently a United Methodist minister, Dean M. Kelly, noted that, while the traditional churches have been ineffectual in doing this, Jehovah’s witnesses are “redeeming criminals and drug addicts in our society.”

That this is true is evident from the many experiences of former criminals who have changed their lives as a result of their Bible study and association with Jehovah’s witnesses. Just last summer at the “Divine Rulership” District Assemblies of Jehovah’s Witnesses the following experiences were related.

● A youth in Detroit, Michigan, had become deeply involved in drugs. He even sold them at school and in the neighborhood, and he was an experienced thief, having learned to pick locks at an early age. Working as part of a group, he would steal bicycles and change them so that they could not be traced. He was also a leader in rebellious youth movements, influencing changes in clothing styles at school.

Then his mother started to study the Bible with Jehovah’s witnesses. He also agreed to study, as he put it, “strictly for kicks, for something to do, for something different.” In the course of the study, articles from the Watch Tower publications on drug abuse were considered. And about this time he had a particularly bad “trip” on drugs, which caused him to do some serious thinking.

In time he started to attend congregational meetings. He stopped taking drugs. His long hair and “way out” clothes disappeared. At the “Divine Rulership” Assembly in Toledo he was baptized. Now he hopes to spend his full time in teaching others the Bible truths that influenced the dramatic change in his own life.

● Habitual drug use often begins in a seemingly rather innocent way. A Mansfield, Ohio, youth started taking prescription cough syrup. But from this he went on to marijuana, “speed” and LSD. For about four years he was on drugs, and lived a debauched life of carousing and fornication. During this time he married, held wild drug parties in the home, and even became a drug pusher.

Then one day a Witness called on his wife and started a Bible study with her. He was asked to sit in, and he did. But his purpose was to show up and confuse the woman conducting the study, rather than to learn anything.

In time, however, he began to see that he was not leading a useful life. He saw some of his friends, and even his own nephew, go downhill because of their use of drugs. So he started to study the Bible in earnest and to attend the congregation meetings. He reformed his life, and both he and his wife were baptized by Jehovah’s witnesses at the Toledo assembly this past summer.

● The use of drugs can have fearful effects upon a person. A Madison, Wisconsin, youth in his early twenties learned this firsthand. He had become disgusted with this system of things, and so turned to drugs, starting with marijuana and progressing to a number of harder drugs such as LSD. He got to the point where he would hallucinate without taking drugs.

“I could be sitting in a classroom listening to a lecture,” he explained. “Suddenly I would have a hallucination, and then I would come back out of it again. It became very difficult to distinguish between reality and my visionary experiences, and I got into a very confused state of mind.”

His use of drugs resulted in strife with his parents, so he left home and began to travel. His travels eventually took him to Spain, where he met a Spanish missionary of Jehovah’s witnesses who spoke English. For two weeks he studied the Bible with the missionary and even attended congregation meetings, though unable to understand what was being said because he was not familiar with Spanish. He was eager to learn more, and so decided to go to England where he could attend the meetings and understand what was said.

Unable to gain entrance into England temporarily, he spent several weeks in France. “While there,” he explained, “I spent seven or eight hours a day reading and rereading a book that I got from the Witnesses along with the Bible.”

Finally he got into England, where he toured the Bethel home and factory of Jehovah’s witnesses. What he saw and heard, along with the hospitality that he received, greatly impressed him. He rushed back to Madison, Wisconsin, where he immediately contacted the presiding overseer of the local congregation of Jehovah’s witnesses. A Bible study was arranged with him and, nine months later, he was baptized at the “Divine Rulership” Assembly in Madison. Having completely changed his life, he is eagerly looking forward to sharing in the full-time preaching work as soon as circumstances will allow for it.

● Former drug users who become Jehovah’s witnesses often are successful in helping other drug addicts to reform. This is true of a young man who, years ago, had a successful rock ’n’ roll band in South Carolina. After this group broke up, and while he was in Hollywood fulfilling a recording contract, he and his wife started studying the Bible with Jehovah’s witnesses. Both of them recognized that what they were learning was the truth.

As a result, this man turned down attractive employment opportunities, including jobs with famous “rock” groups, in order to be in better position to grow spiritually. His friends in South Carolina were shocked when they heard about this. They were also shocked to learn that he had shaved off his beard. He explains what happened when one of them visited him in California:

“As soon as he entered the door he asked me where he could get the best ‘dope’ in Los Angeles, and where he could find some ‘chicks.’ I told him: ‘I don’t know.’ This was another shock to him . . .

“We started a Bible study with his wife and others, and he would sit on the couch and smirk and go outside and smoke marijuana. But after a few days we would look over and catch him listening a little. Then he read the ‘Awake!’ on the subject, ‘Why the Hippie Movement?’ This started him to asking questions. He then read the Hebrew Scriptures and the book ‘“Then Is Finished the Mystery of God”’ within about a two-week period. He immediately changed his attitude, started attending meetings, eventually shaved, and cut his hair.

“After they attended their first meeting his wife asked me if I had called up all the Witnesses and told them to be especially nice to those ‘freaks’ that I was bringing to the Kingdom Hall. Her husband was dressed in blue jeans with holes in them, a dirty T-shirt; he had an Indian band around his head, beads around his neck and he was barefoot. I told her, ‘Of course not; that is the way Jehovah’s witnesses treat all people, no matter what they look like.’ She was fed up with false religion, and immediately recognized that Jehovah’s witnesses were God’s people and that they had the truth.”

In a short time these reformed hippies and drug users were baptized by Jehovah’s witnesses. During the past year they studied with a number of others with whom they had worked in their rock ’n’ roll band. Several of these persons were baptized at the “Divine Rulership” Assembly last summer in Columbia, South Carolina, and others with whom they are studying are looking forward to becoming Jehovah’s witnesses.

Many persons have turned to crime and the use of drugs because they are disgusted with this corrupt, hypocritical system of things. Religions that support this world, therefore, are abhorrent to such persons. But when they are shown from the Bible how God views this system​—that He, too, abhors it and purposes to destroy it and usher in a righteous new system of things—​they often reform their lives to please this grand God, Jehovah.​—2 Pet. 3:5-7, 13.