SPECIAL REPORT - POPE FRANCIS SPEAKS OUT AGAINST THE LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA

SPECIAL REPORT

POPE FRANCIS

Dear All,

This week, citizens across world witnessed Pope Francis speak loudly and clearly against the legalization of marijuana during his speech at the International Drug Enforcement Conference in Rome. 

As the Archbishop of Buenos Aires in Argentina, Pope Francis often dealt with the issue of drug abuse and addicts:

Pope Francis Speaks Out Against Legalizationof Marijuana and Other Drugs :

[Excerpt] "Pope Francis has spoken out against drug legalization in the past, and has visited with addicts both as Pope and when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires."

PopeFrancis condemns the ‘evil’ of legalizing drugs :

[Excerpt] "It is not the first time that the pope has spoken out against what he calls the “scourge of drug use”; he met crack cocaine addicts in Rio de Janeiro on his first official visit to Brazil last year."

Pope's View on Legalizing Drugs: Just Say No :

[Excerpt-1] "Francis has years of personal experience ministering to addicts in the drug-laden slums of the Argentine capital, and he frequently has railed against drug abuse and the drug traffickers who fuel the market."

[Excerpt-2] "But Francis believes just the opposite. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he had his priests open drug rehab centers in the Buenos Aires slums where "paco" addiction was rampant, and he famously washed the feet of recovering paco addicts during at least two Holy Thursday services."

Pope Francis’ comments also included:

• “Legalizing marijuana and other so-called “recreational drugs” has never curbed drug addiction rates and has had little impact on drug trafficking organizations trafficking drugs around the world”.

• "The scourge of drug use continues to spread inexorably, fed by a deplorable commerce which transcends national and continental borders,"

• “The problem of drug use is not solved with drugs”

• "Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there can be no yielding or compromise."

• Allowing addicts to use narcotics or offering them "substitute drugs," he said, is not a treatment, "but rather a veiled means of surrendering to the phenomenon."

• And, he said, "attempts, however limited, to legalize so-called 'recreational drugs,' are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects."

• Allowing addicts to use narcotics or offering them "substitute drugs," he said, is not a treatment, "but rather a veiled means of surrendering to the phenomenon."

• "Here I would reaffirm what I have stated on another occasion: No to every type of drug use. It is as simple as that," he said.

• "'yes' to life, 'yes' to love, 'yes' to others, 'yes' to education, 'yes' to greater job opportunities".

• "If we say 'yes' to all these things, there will be no room for illicit drugs, for alcohol abuse, for other forms of addiction,"

• “Let me state this in the clearest terms possible: the problem of drug use is not solved with drugs! Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there can be no yielding or compromise,”

• "Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there can be no yielding or compromise. To think that harm can be reduced by permitting drug addicts to use narcotics in no way resolves the problem,"

• To reject illegal drugs, he said, "one has to say 'yes' to life, 'yes' to love, 'yes' to others, 'yes' to education, 'yes' to greater job opportunities.

• If we say 'yes' to all these things, there will be no room for illicit drugs, for alcohol abuse, for other forms of addiction."

• Pope Francis on Friday condemned the legalization of recreational drugs as a failed experiment.