Pope Francis Should Rethink His Support for the Drug War

When Pope Francis visits the United States next week, he is expected to meet with prisoners in Philadelphia and to address the criminal justice system in a speech to members of Congress.

Unfortunately, Francis’s past comments in support of the drug war suggest that he will refuse to acknowledge one of the biggest contributors to Americaninjustice and a primary reason why so many people end up in American prisons in the first place: drug prohibition.

 

In my book, After Prohibition, I quote a Catholic clergyman, the Reverend John Clifton Marquis, who wrote:

Drug laws are a moral issue. Fifty years of drug legislation have produced the exact opposite effect of what those laws intended: the laws have created a tantalizingly profitable economic structure for marketing drugs.

When law does not promote the common good, but in face causes it to deteriorate, the law itself becomes bad and

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