Pope pours cold water on the legalization craze.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis condemned the legalization of recreational drugs as a flawed and failed experiment on Friday, lending his voice to a debate which is raging from the U.S. to Uruguay and beyond.

Francis told delegates to a drug-enforcement conference in Rome that even limited attempts to legalize recreational drugs “are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects.”

Likewise, providing addicts with drugs doesn’t solve the problem and is “rather a veiled means of surrendering to the phenomenon,” he said.

“Let me state this in the clearest terms possible: the problem of drug use is not solved with drugs!”