Balansag, Jamaica R.

BSF-1

Medical Marijuana: A Church Perspective

The separation of the Church and State is very clear in the constitution Society holds a
common knowledge that the Catholic Church develops a certain point of view and claims the
responsibility as teaching authority. The Catholic Church has the duty to teach her faithful about
morality. According to the Church’s teaching, the most basic principle of the Christian moral life
is the awareness that every person bears the dignity of being made in the image and likeness of
God. God has given man an immortal soul and through the gifts of intelligence and reason he is
able to understand the order of things established in his creation.

Morality encompasses the entirely of human life behavior, practices and even to the
simplest of human acts. In all fields of human endeavor the church should give a careful eye so
as to keep her people in the moral track. In the realm of medicine, morality is an important thing
to take into strict consideration. Medicine has been the human expertise that is often disturbed
with serious moral dilemmas. A moral dilemma arises when a delicate surgical procedure is to be
applied and also when dangerous drugs are to be given to the infirmed patient. This moral issue
has been in the mind of the Church, but still remains unclear with various grey sections that need
to be polished. However, it is a undeniable no matter how beneficial a drus is there will always
be a possible side effects especially when addiction comes into the picture wherein the patient
becomes drug dependent. Today, drug prescription is a serious problem with teens and young
adults. It often leads them to drug abuse where in the use of prescription medication is of
alternative state that is to get high.

In medical field, drugs are those substances used for treating, alleviating or preventing
diseases in man. These substances are, therefore, intended to suppress or miltigate disease. In this
sense, the term “drug” is synonymous to “medicine”. Every human acts involves moral
implications. Thus, the Church is responsible to safeguard the morality of any given act. The
Church in her authority should teach her faithful about the moral dimension of the use of
cannabis. The teaching of the Church on medical cannabis for therapeutic circumstances asserts
that there should be a strict study and careful judgement before giving the prescriptions.