From what I can tell, seems to just be narcotics, but I can't find a transcript.

I agree that narcotics should be illegal. Not pot though, of course.

So the Christian thing to do with drug addicts is to throw them in jail? WWJD?

And I wonder what he'd prefer for penalties.

Isn't the junkie the very symbol of the downtrodden and miserable person that Jesus would have met with love and compassion rather than demanding that the junkie be tossed in jail? It is massively unchristian to support the stupid ass war on drugs.

said anything about tossing the "junkie" in jail?

I somehow don't think Jesus would hand an addict a baggie of crack. Ever hear of rehab?

followed by a trip to a shelter.

I know and have worked to get funding for people who do this kind of heartbreaking frontline work. It requires enormous emotional and spiritual strength to keep at it day after day, night after night.

Plus just about every other drug warrior politician, which would be just about all of them. Criminalization of drug addiction is a greater harm to society than drug addiction itself. The drug warrior idiots who pay lip service to rehab retain the stick of incarceration for users who just won't behave.

Care to point us to someplace other than your imagination where Francis says "Throw the user in jail?"

He wants to continue criminalization of use if all drugs, except of course alcohol tobacco and the vast corporate pharmacopeia, and in many countries, including our own, that means throwing users in jail. If you think he opposes throwing users in jail, please support that claim, as what he said today indicated otherwise.

You made the positive claim that Francis wants users incarcerated. You get to show us where he actually said that.

As you know, users don't usually go to jail unless they're in possession of an amount in excess of a "personal use" quantity, in which case they're assumed to be dealing.
.

I'm seeing a call for opportunity so that people don't turn to drugs in dispair.

Damn straight, your Holiness! Now let's see, what drug are more people addicted to than any other? Could it be... alcohol?

No compromise! Make it illegal, no more wine for masses!

1 Timothy 5:23 - Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.

Isaiah 25:6 - And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.

Proverbs 31:6 - Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.

Psalms 104:15 - And wine [that] maketh glad the heart of man, [and] oil to make [his] face to shine, and bread [which] strengtheneth man's heart.

John 2:10 - And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: [but] thou hast kept the good wine until now.

Proverbs 31 : 7 - Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

Zechariah 9:17 - For how great [is] his goodness, and how great [is] his beauty! corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids.

Joel 2:19 - Yea, the LORD will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen:

It was simply a guide to healthy living.

were submitted for legalization under the same guidelines as other substances today, do you think they'd be approved?

and nicotine probably wouldn't either, although I'd have to hit my textbooks to make sure.

I do know alcohol has medical uses, since it's used to treat certain kinds of antifreeze poisoning, for instance.

as an antiseptic and anaesthetic. We have better options today. I'm not for prohibiting it, by the way That's been tried, and it doesn't work. There's no doubt that it can do great harm when abused, though. The Pope is right: education and prevention.

Nicotine, on the other hand, is a stone-cold killer. The only reason it's not prohibited is the political influence of the corpoations that make their money off it.

has his priorities straight. The arrogance of the man and his organization is staggering.

If he didn't base his position on any Biblical references but deferred to his own instinctive morality, he effectively laid to rest the common but fallacious Christian claim that morals come from the Bible and atheists therefore can't be trusted.

If he wanted to base his position on Christian doctrine then it would have been easy for him say, for example, that "God gave us free will but addictive drugs take it away." I'm just wondering if he did that, or presented his position as simply his own opinion.

oh never mind. Religious morality is complete gobbledy-gook anyway. Whatever the Big Guy said.

Pope appears to not make a distinction between addictive drugs like alcohol tobacco and heroin and non addictive drugs like marijuana.

Wishing don't make it real and making it illegal won't make it disappear.

to a genuine religious experience (see: ayahuasca, peyote). Once that happens, people start asking questions about ritual based religions and that decreases contributions.

This is just more proof that the doctrine of papal infallibility is hooey. They're human. They fail.

...of course he's against drug use, he doesn't like competition.

only when the Pope speaks ex cathedra on a matter of faith and morals. It has been invoked exactly twice.

It has nothing to do with the day to day statements of the Pope or with a his preference for a particular flavor of ice cream.

He's wrong again, unsurprisingly. Decriminalization would go a long way to helping solve our addiction issues, as well as removing the stigma of being an addict, would put it more into the status of alcohol, like the people who drink blood on Sundays and act all smug to the people who use other substances.

but that doesn't mean he shouldn't make his views known.

I think legalization will have positives and negatives. It will be some time before we find out the net result. I can only hope that it is positive.