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Kosher Racket Expands to Include Marijuana — and Water

menachem_lubinskyMENACHEM Lubinsky (pictured), a spokesman for the kosher food certification “industry” — really a racket that skims many millions of dollars annually from non-Jewish food producers, distributors, and consumers and funnels the money to Jews –is now claiming that non-edible medical marijuana and water will “benefit” from “kosher supervision.”

Lubinsky was a leading defender of Agriprocessors and the Rubashkin family during their repeated humane slaughter scandals. Most of that defense came by fudging the facts – or simply misstating them or ignoring them altogether.

And that is essentially what Lubinsky is doing now with medical marijuana in his Kosher Today column: [emphasis added]

When Coor’s Beer obtained the kosher certification of the Orthodox Union (OU, a Jewish group that will, for a substantial fee, “certify” that food products are “kosher”) many years ago, some immediately argued that beer was inherently kosher and did not require certification. The same argument surfaced with water and many other products that kashrus-observing Jews may have consumed without certification.

The latest controversy is over none other than marijuana which the OU recently certified as kosher for medicinal purposes. Once again there was the argument that if used for medicinal purposes marijuana is no different than any medicine that can be used for a sick person without kosher certification. I have long learned that even the most benign products like water do need certification because of the complexities of modern mass production. Second, in a generation that is seeking to ingest everything kosher, why not offer the kosher certification, especially if the manufacturer seeks and desires the kosher certification as a marketing tool?

Wouldn’t someone who has observed kashrus all their lives and is so sick that they require the marijuana to ease the pain be somewhat comforted in the fact that the marijuana is kosher certified? In recent years, many manufacturers of over the counter medications have opted for kosher certification and wouldn’t it be nice if all medications were kosher as well? [In reality, it is the Jewish groups that push the “supervision” and “certification” on manufacturers as a money-making scheme — which all consumers pay for in the end.]

I wonder whether those whose knee-jerk reaction is to mock the kosher certification of a product that on the surface may not require kosher certification are in fact doing a disservice to kosher as a whole. What is wrong with a kosher certification that simply assures the customer that indeed there is nothing to worry about the kashrus of this product, even if it is water? Perhaps they won’t have to worry of what else was produced on that line at the bottling plant or whether the cleaning agents were indeed treif. . .

Lubinsky:

  1. Fails to tell his readers the medical marijuana in question will be produced in New York State, where all edible medical marijuana is illegal. The products will all be smoked or vaped, and therefore, because no actual eating is involved, there is no reason at all for these products to need kosher supervision even for Orthodox Jews.
  2. Claims unflavored filtered water needs kosher supervision when it doesn’t.
  3. Does not tell his readers that the OU even “supervises” laundry detergent and bleach.

“Kosher medical marijuana” is likely a money-grab meant to enrich the OU and pave the way for various Hasidic businessmen to get licenses to produce “glatt kosher” medical marijuana in New York State and elsewhere, which is likely the only way they would have entry into the business.

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Source: based on an article in Failed Messiah

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Truthweed
Truthweed
20 July, 2019 7:40 pm

Surely the answer is simple – ‘Non-Kosher’ certification, applied without charge.