You know that something is bad when the pope comments on it:

“Drugs have inflicted a deep wound on our society and ensnared many people in their web. Many victims have lost their freedom … enslaved by an addiction we could call ‘chemical.’”

Pope Francis spoke these words in a meeting sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in November 2016. The pope’s address included some expected implications about drugs and how they damage human soul by causing “a psychic, social death.”

But the address also offered some statements that seem a little surprising, since they come from a major international religious leader. Pope Francis states, “Clearly there is no single cause of addiction.” Note that he doesn’t say that moral decay or other internal failings cause addiction.

He is not stigmatizing people who use or abuse drugs In fact, he notes that people in the throes of addiction “continue to possess, more than ever, a dignity as children of God.” Far from stigmatizing and criticizing addicts, this statement is inclusive. It acknowledges addicts’ problems and addicts themselves. It says that addicts are like us. It says that addicts deserve help instead of being demonized as others. It says that we shouldn’t condemn them as a faceless, hopeless “them” and shun them because they deserve only criticism.

The address also tackles the roles of other people and entities in drug addiction, including the government. While the pope’s words about addicts and addiction are compassionate and inclusive, he doesn’t appear to share the same kind of sympathy with governments and other agencies of power. He believes that “the issue of drug prevention programmes is continually thwarted by numerous aspects of governmental ineptitude” and states that authorities are often afraid to address drug-related problems because they feel threatened.

Although he is a notable religious figure who often discusses the spiritual, Pope Francis uses this address to describe a very real, very worldly physical problem. His statement acknowledges the damage that drugs can cause, but also realizes that the people who abuse drugs are not immoral monsters but actually just human.