“Smoking a joint is not a sin. The Church teaches that it’s wrong to get drunk but licit to take a relaxing drink. Now, smoking marijuana is just like drinking with moderation. It is relaxing and does not deprive you of use of reason. So, it does not go against Christian moral principles.”
Someone put this argument to me a couple of years ago. He was not a stoner. He was a Catholic priest.
Surprised? I was.
To be fair, Fr X’s was not advocating “soft drugs”. His argument was academic. He sincerely wondered whether the Church has sound grounds for teaching that any kind of drug use is intrinsically sinful.
The Bible is obviously the first place to look for an answer. However, it gives no direct guidance on drugs. Its silence is even surprising. Drugs existed in the world of its divinely inspired authors. There was some degree of opium use in each of civilizations with which the Chosen People rubbed shoulders: the Egyptians, Sumerians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans. Even so, the Bible never mentions drugs, let alone condemn them explicitly.
However, it does denounce drunkenness repeatedly (Prov 31:4-5; Eccl 31:28; Romans 13:13). Paul even lists drunkenness as one of the “works of the flesh” that prevent one from entering the kingdom of heaven (Gal 5:19-21). On the strength of such passages, the Church has always taught that drunkenness can be sinful, indeed gravely so.
The Bible’s explicit denunciation of drunkenness may extend to drug abuse. To see why, we need to establish what makes drunkenness wrong.
The traditional teaching is that getting drunk is sinful whenever one chooses to drink excessively—to the point of losing use of reason—out of a disordered desire.
You would not be guilty of drunkenness, therefore, if you end up sozzled after someone secretly spikes your soft drink and you do not catch on. It is not your fault. You did not choose to drink the vodka that was slipped into your glass.
Nor is it sinful to get drunk deliberately for a legitimate reason. You might have to down a bottle of Lagavulin as an ersatz anaesthetic for an emergency operation. You know that you will end up plastered. You might even savor each swig of the Scottish elixir. This is not sinful. You are not drinking an excessive but an appropriate amount of alcoholic beverage, given the end at stake, which is not some disordered desire but your health. You are getting drunk to numb the pain and make yourself less resistant to lifesaving surgery. Sustaining one’s health is the raison-d’être of the ingestion of liquids. Under these exceptional circumstances, there is a legitimate reason to down a bottle of Lagavulin.
These considerations bring to light the more general premise that underlies the Bible’s condemnation of sinful drunkenness: it is wrong to voluntarily abuse—take in excess without a legitimate reason—any psychoactive substance, such as alcohol or drugs, that will foreseeably deprive you of your use of reason. Abusing psychoactive substances is a sin against temperance, the moral virtue that regulates our sensitive desires so that we might always act in accord with reason. Ultimately, it goes against the commandment to love oneself. As St. Thomas explains, loving oneself aright consists in choosing what is truly good for one: what is good from the standpoint of reason, not the senses. In so doing, we act in accord with our condition and dignity as creatures made in God’s image.
Full story at Catholic World Report.
CCC2991
The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense.
Does that apply to alcohol too? Cigarettes? Chewing tobacco?
Sorry the above number was wrong. It is 2291. It concludes
Clandestine production of and trafficking in drugs are scandalous practices. They constitute direct co-operation in evil, since they encourage people to practices gravely contrary to the moral law.
2290 says
The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road, at sea, or in the air.
Don’t forget caffeine! It’s the most widely used drug in the world. I guess that’s a sin according to the original poster.
You do not add nor subtract to the Catechism.
If one is at high risk for osteoporosis, and the doctor has told you to only use decaf and you do not, it could be a serious sin if you drink a lot of caffeinated coffee as the overuse does some harm to the bones. While it might not be a sin for someone else — a larger boned person — it might be for a smaller boned person. Decaf can be harmful too if it is not decaffeinated with water but too many chemicals. Folgers used to be water decaffeinated, but now the label does not mention how it is done,
US Catholic had an opinion that smoking pot is a sin for some people and not for others.
I don’t think that is true but they use the same logic that you do.
If it is a sin, it is a sin for everybody.
Temperance is a virtue, so is prudence.
St., Catherine of Siena wrecked her health with too much fasting. She is a saint.
Cd, I do not know for whom you meant your post, but it’s true sometimes that what’s a sin for one person might not be for another. I was not talking about drugs that can get one drunk or cause hallucinations, but caffeine. If one person is allergic to something, it can be a sin for them to indulge, whereas it is not a sin for someone else who has no such allergy. That is common sense and has nothing to do with situation ethics. St. Catherine probably did know the damage she was doing and changed.
I think you are making up your own moral code. Stick to God’s.
The Catholic Church is infallible on matters of faith and morals.
Don’t make stuff up.
In my last post I meant to write St. Catherine probably did NOT know the damage she was doing to her body and probably changed when she did. She might have gotten poor advice also. Many priests have said that we are not to imitate the excesses of the saints, but their virtues.
I am not going to get into an argument over coffee with cd. I only replied to my last post because I made a mistake in the last line. He/she has a right to his/her opinion and I to mine.
I do need to apologize to cd for something, though. When I used the term “you” I really meant it in the plural form (all of us) and did not mean to direct it to cd specifically. I myself am at higher risk of osteoporosis and have to follow my own healthcare providers about caffeine.
Anne TE, I am not trying to argue with you, either. I have never, in all my years as a Catholic, heard anyone from the Church say that drinking coffee is a sin nor eating something one is allergic to.
The catechism says excess is contrary to the virtue of temperance, not that it is a sin.
There are things that are unwise, imprudent, undisciplined, unvirtuous etc that are not sins. Remember, there are imperfections which you want to work on getting rid of, but they are not sins.
This idea that some thing is a sin for one person and not another sounds to me like moral relativism.
I am always open to correction if you or anyone else knows something that I don’t. I prefer to be corrected than ignorant.
https://catholicphilly.com/2014/12/catholic-spirituality/is-abusing-prescription-drugs-a-mortal-sin/
2288 Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good.
Concern for the health of its citizens requires that society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment, and social assistance.