UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS SAY ALL DRUG USE SHOULD BE LEGAL

BOSTON (AP) - Drug use of any kind should be legal, according to the
Unitarian Universalist Association, the first religious denomination to
take the stance, church officials said.

The "Statement of Conscience" passed at the Boston-based association's
general assembly proposes legalizing marijuana and making all currently
illegal drugs available with a prescription.

The statement said the federal government's costly drug war is cruel and
ineffective, and disproportionately affects the poor and minorities. It
added that drug use is widely misunderstood.

"Drug use is erroneously perceived as behavior that is out of control and
harmful to others," the statement reads. "... Yet many people who use both
legal and illegal drugs live productive, functional lives and do no harm to
society."

The statement was approved Saturday by two-thirds of the roughly 1,700
delegates at the General Assembly in Quebec, which wrapped up earlier this
week.

Charles Thomas, the head of Unitarian Universalists for Drug Policy Reform,
said the statement reinforces the denomination's basic theological tenets,
which stress compassion and justice.

He said drug abuse would be better seen as a medical problem, rather than a
crime, and addicts would respond to "the transforming power of love," much
better than incarceration.

"Ideally, people will not use drugs," he said. "We're not pro-drug. We're
pro-choice on drugs, pro-honesty."

Robert Maginnis of the Family Research Council, a Christian public policy
group, said the statement is well-intentioned, but misguided because it
ignores the fact that drugs are harmful, whether they're legal or not.

"We don't want to make it easier for people to use drugs, we want to make
it more difficult because of what they do to themselves," he said. "It's
not the illegality of drugs that's at fault. Drugs are just bad for you."

The small, liberal denomination, with about 150,000 members nationwide, has
a traditionally bucked the mainstream on social issues.

Robert Fuller, a religion professor at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.,
said the Universalists advocated abolition, women's suffrage, and gay
rights years before other liberal denominations followed suit.

"History tends to be on their side," he said.