[Question:]{.underline} What is the morality of the legal use of “illegal“ drugs such as marijuana and ecstasy?
[Answer:]{.underline} It is certainly true that more and more States and countries are now permitting the use of certain forms of marijuana and other soft drugs, either under medical prescription or supposedly for medical uses.
This use of drugs clearly does not become moral and permissible simply because the law permits it, for the immorality of drug use is not because of the determination of civil law but, for reasons that are intrinsic to the drug use itself. There are several reasons why it is always a mortal sin to take even the so-called soft drugs.
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Firstly, because over a period of time they produce untold and permanent harm to the body, to the mind and to the psyche, and we are only stewards of our earthly lives and have no right to abuse them in this way.
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Secondly, because they are physically and psychologically addictive and establish a slavery from which it is very difficult to escape. They weaken the will and undermine character, and this is against reason. It is consequently immoral, to place oneself in such a situation.
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Thirdly, because in general the use of such drugs is associated with bad company-keeping, which leads to other sins.
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Fourthly, because they are a proximate occasion of other sins, such as impurity, drunkenness, theft, dishonesty, and eventually to the taking of hard drugs.
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Fifthly, and most importantly, because they destroy a man’s conscience, that is his judgment as to right or wrong.
It is from this final perspective that we see the fundamental perversity of drug use. Moral actions are directed by reason and towards a goal, ultimately God, the perfect Good. Moral actions that are not directed by reason, but nevertheless not opposed to it, are venial sins. This includes overeating, drinking alcohol to become tipsy, or anything that a man does for pure pleasure without any reason. These actions become mortal sins when they destroy the order of reason altogether, as when a man deliberately breaks a commandment in an important matter. It is similar for the case of drunkenness, which becomes a mortal sin when it deprives man of the use of reason.
The use of drugs does not, in itself, deprive a man of the use of reason, as does the excessive use of alcohol. However, it does worse. It destroys the judgment by which our reason orders our actions to their goal. For drugs are sought after on account of the “high” that they give, a false artificial euphoria, which is nothing other than an escape from reality. It is this escape from reality that destroys the judgment of conscience, as to what is right and wrong, good and bad, or whether there is even right or wrong, or even a Creator, God Himself. In this manner all mind-altering drugs are more wicked and dangerous than even alcohol. They destroy man’s ability to order his acts according to reason through the virtue of prudence. The alcoholic recovers his reason when he sleeps off the alcohol, but the drug addict does not recover his prudence, his judgment as to right and wrong. He continues to long for the fake and artificial high, and loses all contact with the natural law and objective right and wrong, not to mention the demands of divine revelation.
It is for all these reasons that drug use must always be considered a proximate occasion of mortal sin, regardless of whether it is “legal” or not. It is a proximate occasion of all kinds of mortal sin, because it destroys prudence, the virtue by which we judge right and wrong in our conscience, which virtue of prudence governs all the mortal virtues that tell us how to live our lives. The drug addict is incapable of practicing virtue, and cannot long stay out of mortal sin.
Some people justify the use of marijuana on the basis of its medical use. One does not have to be experienced in the practice of medicine to know that there are many regular medications that have much more precise effects, and which are for this reason much more suitable to treat psychological disorders, such as anxiety and depression. It is true that mind-altering drugs such as marijuana do produce some similar effects, but in a much less predictable way, and principally on account of the euphoria and escape from reality. It truly is a grave abuse of medical practice to use them to treat psychological disorders.
Some contest that a controlled, “touristic” use of marijuana by a mature person who takes the occasional “hit” is not a mortal sin, since, they say, there is no proximate occasion of mortal sin. It certainly cannot be denied that it is a deliberate venial, seeking pleasure for pleasure’s seek, simply for the euphoria of it. However, if a person is to maintain that it is not a mortal sin, then he has to establish that there is, for him, no proximate occasion of mortal sin. It seems that this would be impossible to do, for there is always the danger (proximate) of going too far, using too much, becoming dependent upon it. Furthermore, the very fact that a person justifies such drug use, even legal, is the proof that he has lost his sense of reality and his judgment of conscience. He is justifying something that has no reasonable purpose, and that could lead him into deep trouble, and which is at the very least an escape from reality into a life of pleasure and self-indulgence.
Let it be, then, very clear, that drug use destroys the entire supernatural order of grace, hinging as it does on the Cross, our only Hope. By rejecting the sanctification of the reality of human suffering and anguish by the embracing of the Cross, it rejects the judgment of supernatural prudence, it despises the practice of the infused virtues, it turns its back on the supernatural source of peace. It is consequently our duty to do all in our power to put an end to such “legal” use of drugs, which are nothing less than the soma of Huxley’s Brave New World.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.