By Alexander Sharp in
Rhode Island’s Future
Rev. Alexander Sharp, of Clergy for a New
Drug Policy, wrote this open letter to Bishop Thomas
Tobin, the head of the Catholic Church in Rhode Island who recently
asked state legislators in a blog post not
to make marijuana legal.
Dear Bishop Tobin,
On May 10, you asserted in a public commentary that all drug use
is sinful and immoral. You urged state legislators to reject the legalization
of marijuana. As a member of the Protestant clergy, I reach a very different
conclusion.
We read the same Bible, worship the same God, and seek to follow
the teachings of Jesus. What, then, explains where we differ, and why? You
acknowledge that a case, which you do not refute, can be made for the
recreational use of alcohol. Marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol, yet
you do not attempt to justify this double standard.
You then quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The use of
drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life.” You cite the words
of Pope Francis two years ago: “Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there
can be no yielding or compromise.”
The reality is that we live in a drug-using society. Most of us
consume some kind of drug on a regular basis: alcohol, caffeine, tobacco,
prescription drugs, or marijuana. The question that challenges us both, then,
is how to respond to the possibility that drug use can become addictive.
Sadly, your understanding of addiction is incomplete and
outdated.
We can be grateful that medical science today has helped us to
understand more about the complexities of addiction than we did in the era of
Ronald Reagan. In light of current knowledge, the War on Drugs is immoral.
“Just Say No” seems simplistic, even fatuous.
Addiction is far less about the properties of an individual drug
than the inner pain that causes a user to seek temporary relief. This inner
pain is, more often than not, the “gateway” to drug abuse, not any particular
substance. That’s why not just drugs, but certain kinds of behavior, can become
addictive — gambling, sex, the internet, shopping, and even food.
Most people who experiment with drugs move beyond them. You
speak of our youth as ‘immune to reality with their electronics – hoodies on,
heads down, ear buds in…” But most of the “zombie youth” you deride will outgrow
this behavior. It’s this kind of being out-of- touch that leads to youth not
paying attention to adults’ advice in the first place.
In December, I participated in a conference in Providence’s
Gloria Dei Cathedral. Police, physicians, and clergy addressed the impact of
the War on Drugs.
One of the panelists, a former president of the Rhode Island
Medical Society, noted that about 10% of those who use drugs run a serious risk
of addiction. About half of those will avoid addiction through treatment.
It is
the remaining 5% we must worry about.
Medical experts are determining that trauma and profound stress
are the primary, though certainly not only, causes of addiction. Trauma and
stress can take many forms, ranging from sexual abuse to acute loneliness and
isolation. Pope Francis is correct when he notes a connection between addiction
and extreme poverty.
People struggling with addiction are, most often, neither sinful
nor weak, as increasingly outdated moral teachings would have us believe. The
phrase “self-medication” is not an accident. Arresting people with an addiction
is morally wrong and does nothing to alleviate their underlying pain.
My Christian faith also tells me that punishment and “tough
love” are rarely the best way to change behavior. We are most likely to reach
others when we respond to them with care, compassion, mercy, respect, and
honesty. This is what Jesus did. Condemnation was not his instrument of change.
We are living in the dawn of a new drug policy in this country.
It is called harm reduction and is based on the tenets that drugs can never be
completely eliminated and that we should help drug users without insisting on
abstinence. At least 35 states now have needle exchange programs as a
life-saving means of avoiding HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C.
In opposing marijuana legalization, you are complicit in the
failed and immoral War on Drugs. In Rhode Island, which has already
decriminalized marijuana, you are nevertheless supporting fines on poor, most
often young people, who can ill afford to pay them, and may face lifetime
consequences as a result.
You refer derisively to “benign forms” of marijuana: “cookies,
brownies, and mints” in states where it is legal. But isn’t this safer than
leaving our youth to sellers in back alleys who sometimes offer toxic,
adulterated marijuana, and are happy to provide the harder drugs.
Most importantly, in continuing to focus on marijuana
legalization, you are distracting attention and resources from what we both
fear most – the dangers of addiction. We share the common purpose of reducing
the harm of drugs in our society, but we differ on the means. Your commentary
is clever and engaging, but ultimately it is wrong.
Yours in Faith,
Rev. Alexander E. Sharp
Executive Director
Clergy for a New Drug Policy
Clergy for a New Drug Policy