Pope vs. Pot

From a week or so back, CNN reports:

That’s the message Pope Francis seemed to be sending lawmakers Friday, saying the growing worldwide trend toward legalizing recreational drugs is a very, very bad idea. “Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there can be no yielding or compromise,” he told participants at the International Drug Enforcement Conference in Rome. The Pope’s call isn’t shocking. Francis has spoken of the dangers of drug use before.

It’s no surprise at all that the pope is opposed to drug use as a personal choice (that’s a perfectly respectable position to take, and from a pontiff I’d expect nothing else) , but the vigor of the language with he goes on to attack any form of drug legalization is striking.

Reuters has more:

“Here I would reaffirm what I have stated on another occasion: No to every type of drug use. It is as simple as that,” [the pope] 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,” the pope said.

Quite how the pope knows that legalization fails escapes me. Prohibition has not, shall we say, been a great success. Marijuana legalization, by contrast, has barely been tried.

No fear though, Francis has a solution:

Francis, who has spoken out against drug use several times, said that to ensure young people did not fall prey to drugs, society had 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,” he said in remarks to a drug enforcement conference in Rome carried on the website of Vatican radio.

That, I am afraid, is drivel.