My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, 

“What You Aren’t Hearing About Marijuana’s Health Effects.” That is the title of an article by Allysia Finley in the May 11, 2024, print edition of The Wall Street Journal. In it, she writes, “Young people who smoked marijuana in the 1960s were seen as part of the counterculture. Now the cannabis culture is mainstream. A 2022 survey sponsored by the National Institutes of Health found that 28.8% of Americans age 19 to 30 had used marijuana in the preceding 30 days — more than three times as many as smoked cigarettes. Among those 35 to 50, 17.3% had used weed in the previous month, versus 12.2% for cigarettes.”

There’s a certain irony in that since years ago smoking cigarettes was considered chic and smoking pot was seen as boorish. Now cigarette smoking is widely scorned as bad for your health while smoking marijuana is promoted not only for medicinal purposes but for recreational use as well.

Although marijuana use remains a federal crime, at least for now, 24 states have legalized it and another 14 permit it for medical purposes. Illinois legalized medical marijuana for qualified medical patients in 2014, while recreational marijuana became legal in early 2020. Ours is the 11^th state to legalize recreational cannabis and the first to do so by an act of legislation instead of a ballot initiative. The legislation, known as the Illinois Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, was sponsored as HB 1438 by Sen. Heather Steans and Rep. Kelly Cassidy. It was approved by both houses of the Illinois General Assembly on May 31, 2019. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who ran for Governor of Illinois in 2018 on a platform to legalize cannabis, among other issues, signed the Cannabis Regulation and Taxation Act on June 25, 2019. It took effect on Jan. 1, 2020. 

The Catholic bishops of the six dioceses in Illinois had issued a statement on Feb. 4, 2019, urging state lawmakers to vote “no” on the proposed upcoming legislation to legalize marijuana for recreational use, saying, “Legislation that would legalize marijuana for recreational use will be considered in the Illinois General Assembly. The Catholic bishops of Illinois are committed to the common good, and therefore advise against legalization” of marijuana for recreational use. “Data collected by government agencies and public-interest groups document that drug use is rampant in modern society. Just a few years ago, we heard too many stories of children turned into orphans after their parents overdosed on heroin. Today, we hear of the opioid crisis and the lives it claims. If marijuana is legalized, it will only add to the problem.”

Unfortunately, the Catholic bishops were not heeded and now the problems of marijuana use are becoming evident. Bertha Madras is a psychobiology professor at Harvard Medical School and one of the foremost experts on marijuana. In 2015 the World Health Organization asked her to do a detailed review of cannabis and its medical uses. According to the article cited above in The Wall Street Journal, “The 41-page report documented scant evidence of marijuana’s medicinal benefits and reams of research on its harms, from cognitive impairment and psychosis to car accidents.” 

Comparing alcohol consumption to marijuana use, Madras points out that one or two drinks will cause only mild inebriation, while “most people who use marijuana are using it to become intoxicated and to get high.” She adds, “You may wake up after binge drinking in the morning with a headache, but the alcohol is gone.” By contrast, “marijuana just sits there and sits there and promotes brain adaptation. … My lab showed unequivocally that blood levels and brain levels don’t correspond at all — that brain levels are much higher than blood levels. They’re two to three times higher, and they persist once blood levels go way down.” Even if people quit using pot, “it can persist in their brain for a while.”

According to Mayo Clinic, “Marijuana use impairs attention, judgement and coordination. Don’t drive or operate machinery when using marijuana. … Marijuana use might worsen manic symptoms in people who have bipolar disorder. If used frequently, marijuana might increase the risk of depression or worsen depression symptoms. Research suggests that marijuana use increases the risk of psychosis in people who have schizophrenia. Smoking marijuana can affect your memory and cognitive function and cause harmful cardiovascular effects, such as high blood pressure. Long-term marijuana use can worsen respiratory conditions.”

While the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not mention marijuana specifically, paragraph 2291 states, “The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense. 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.”

In 2016, Pope Francis said, “Drugs are a wound in our society. A wound that traps many people in the networks. They are … a new form of slavery.”

In November 2023, Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver released a pastoral letter, “That They Might Have Life,” on the Church’s teaching on recreational drugs, with a particular focus on marijuana, in which he wrote, “The most important thing we can do as Christians in response to a drug culture is to proclaim the Gospel. It is through the love, mercy, meaning, and hope found in Christ that people will be deterred from drug use or inspired to break free of its influence. … By leaning on Christ, we can be a source of strength and hope for others as we ‘rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer’ (Romans 12:12).”

It would do well for us to heed these wise words of warning and prudence.

May God give us this grace. Amen.