Mexico’s Catholic Church warns that legalization turns people into weed addicts and “slaves”

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In a move that will surprise few, the Mexican Catholic Church has spread some alarming talking points following the historic July 28 Supreme Court ruling declaring the cannabis ban unconstitutional.

The commentary, published in the church publication Desde la fe [From Faith] am Sonntag compares cannabis use to slavery.

“In order to experience real freedom, it is important, according to our human nature, not to be subject to the passions or vices that bind us and make us slaves,” says the article aimed at the judgment of the court that consumption From cannabis to the constitution of Mexicans falls the right to develop one’s own personality.

“For the Church, laws should protect the development of the person from the development of the personality,” the commentary continued. “If we don’t care about the person, our effects are in vain … and instead we encourage the development of a self-destructive personality.”

The article concluded by calling on lawmakers to “think about the common good and well-being of minors” when working on legalization laws.

According to a 2018 poll by the Pew Research Center, 81 percent of Mexicans identify as Catholic.

This is nowhere near the first time anti-cannabis rhetoric has appeared in Desde la fe. In November, the publication named the Senate’s approval of a draft law on cannabis as “worrying” in an article titled “No to Cultural and Social Degradation”. In March, the decision of the Lower Legislature’s House of Commons to move forward with a draft legalization was welcomed by a comment that also questioned recent advances in marriage equality laws, saying that both were part of a “dangerous agenda.”

While these quotes are likely to generate some chuckles among those familiar with the science of cannabis use, the propaganda of the Mexican Church has likely played an outsize role in swaying the country’s cannabis views. According to recent polls in Mexico, around 60 percent of respondents oppose the legalization of cannabis, only 2.1 percent of those polled managed to use the drug in the last year, and just under 1.2 according to a 2016 poll Percent last month.

If these numbers seem terribly low for a country where cannabis has been grown outdoors year round for centuries, it is possible that we are witnessing the effects of intense religious stigma.

The Catholic Church is hardly the only source of religious criticism of the decriminalization of drugs. In fact, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (or AMLO for short), who voted in the run-up to the midterm elections on 6

The day after the Supreme Court ruling, AMLO proposed taking political action against legalization in various political circumstances.

While there are Catholic officials who have warmed themselves with the social justice aspects of drug decriminalization, on a global scale the Church has held on to Pope Francis’ 2014 words: “Let me put this as clearly as possible: the problem of drug use ”. is not solved with medication! Drug addiction is an evil, and there can be no yielding or compromising with evil. “

Jesus!