Interesting piece in the
National Catholic Register. The salient part of it (IMHO) is the following:
After considering the effects of marijuana use, moral theologians said a user’s intention is crucial to determining its morality. Cannabis is not intrinsically evil, so an analysis of the morality of smoking pot is found by determining the object of the act of smoking, said Christian Brugger, a moral theologian and seminary professor in Colorado.
Recreational pot smokers use marijuana to induce themselves into a state of euphoria. So the object is to get “high” and to alter their consciousness.
Yet consciousness is needed to make choices, and to impair the human mind is to impair the ability to make choices, he said. Therefore, if a person is high, it’s more difficult for them to make good choices.
Sacred Scripture doesn’t address getting high, but it is filled with warnings about drunkenness.
“Scriptures are pretty harsh about it,” Brugger said.
In an era when we are moving closer and closer to allowing recreational pot throughout the US, it does raise some questions. Right now, pot smoking goes against the teachings of the Church because it is illegal.
One can drink beer, drink wine, sip whiskey, and so on for the taste…and many (if not most) people do so. It’s been a really, really long time since the 70s, but I sure don’t remember anybody smoking a joint for the taste of it.
