Marijuana Legalization In Mexico: Archbishop Norberto Rivera In Favor Of Legal Weed

The Archbishop of Mexico City, Roman Catholic Cardinal Norberto Rivera, shared his opinion on the Supreme Court’s decision to recognize the right of citizens to cultivate, grow and distribute marijuana in Mexico. “Regarding the proposal to allow the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, we have no problem,” he said on Sunday.

Back in October, Mexico’s Supreme Court considered legalizing marijuana for personal use. The ruling considers a petition filed in 2013 that argues on behalf of a pro-marijuana group that laws banning pot infringe in a citizen’s right to free development of personality. The plaintiffs have argued that they should be allowed to put whatever they choose into their brains.

However, Rivera specified that the “consumption of this and other drugs for other than medicinal purposes encourages addictive behavior, and addictions make families unhappy because they end up experiencing a living hell due to all the different types of behaviors the addict begins to show.”

He also argued that the legalization of pot will not, in any way, be enough to terminate organized crime and referred to it as a complicated and extensive phenomenon that also focuses on other illegal activities such as kidnapping and human trafficking.

In addition to revealing the Church’s position on this matter, Rivera added that the church has never had a problem recommending the use of “all elements from nature that can be used to help improve health” and confessed that he was exposed to the benefits of medicinal marihuana when he was a child, so in that case, the proposal is very well received.

Back in August, a federal judge gave the green light in Graciela Elizalde’s case, an 8-year-old girl who suffers from Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a debilitating form of epilepsy. She is now allowed to receive drug treatments for her condition including those derived from marijuana.