Pope Francis opposed to making recreational drugs legal




Courtesy of Fox News



ROME (CNN) -- Are you stoned?

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.

But it lends his voice and the authority of the Catholic Church to the growing worldwide debate over legalizing or at least decriminalizing some recreational drugs, most notably marijuana.

Uruguay passed a law in December to create a regulated marijuana marketplace. Jamaican officials said this month that they plan to modify that nation's laws to decriminalize pot use and possession.

And public opinion has rapidly shifted toward softer policies on marijuana use, particularly.

In January, a CNN/ORC International survey found that 55% of respondents wanted to see marijuana made legal. That's up from 16% in 1987, according to the CNN poll and numbers from the General Social Survey.

But Francis said such policies are "not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects."

"To think that harm can be reduced by permitting drug addicts to use narcotics in no way resolves the problem," he said.