What’s wrong with weed? Archbishop answers tough questions

Marijuana — “cannabis” to journalists, and “weed” in popular culture — is increasingly taking a central role in American life. In 2024, recreational marijuana will be legal in 24 states.

If you’re like me, this gives you a very uneasy feeling — but you also find it very difficult to argue against. The top 10 reasons to legalize marijuana sound plausible: Regulation will mean more control, and therefore less crime, fewer clogged prisons and court dockets, and less unfair enforcement.

Likewise, it’s hard to answer the moral acceptance of marijuana that most people have: If a couple of glasses of wine are okay, why should marijuana be different? Students at the college where I work tell me that confessors often have a hard time making a moral case against it also.

In November, Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquilla did a great service to the Church in writing “That They May Have Life,” a compelling pastoral letter about marijuana. Here is what I most want to share with college students who struggle with this issue.
1: No, marijuana and alcohol are not the same.

2: Marijuana is shown to do great harm to users.

3: But isn’t legal cannabis enriching states, enabling them to do more?

4: But at least legal marijuana means that casual users are no longer enmeshed in a criminal underworld — right?

5: Tragically, all of this hurts the most vulnerable in society the most.

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