Pope Francis condemned the legalization of recreational drugs as a flawed and failed experiment as he lent his voice Friday to a debate that is raging from the United States to Uruguay, according to Reuters.
Francis told delegates attending a Rome drug enforcement conference that even limited steps to legalize recreational drugs "are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects," Reuters reported.
"Let me state this in the clearest terms possible," Francis said, according to Reuters. "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. To think that harm can be reduced by permitting drug addicts to use narcotics in no way resolves the problem," he added, Reuters reported.
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, according to Reuters.
The pope's comments on Friday marked his strongest and clearest yet as pope directed at the movement to legalize recreational pot, which has been gaining ground in recent years, particularly in the U.S. and South America, Reuters reported. Recreational use of marijuana has been legalized in the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington, and Oregon may vote on the issue this year.
In Francis' own homeland of Argentina, personal possession of controlled substances has been decriminalized, and next door in Brazil, authorities don't punish personal drug use, although trafficking and transporting controlled substances is a crime, according to Reuters. In December, neighboring Uruguay became the first nation to approve marijuana legalization and regulation altogether.
In his comments Friday, Francis insisted that drug use cannot be solved by liberalizing laws but by addressing the problems underlying addiction: social inequality and lack of opportunities for the young, Reuters reported.
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," according to Reuters.
Francis did not address the use of medical marijuana and it's unclear if his denunciation of the legalization movement encompasses that therapy, Reuters reported.
