Should drug laws make exceptions for spiritual highs?

Jacob Sullum

April 22, 2005

Never mind the vomiting. For members of O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, drinking ayahuasca, a foul-tasting psychedelic tea brewed from two Amazonian plants, involves four hours of recitation, chanting, questions and answers, and religious instruction.

Apr. 20, 2005. 01:00 AM. Trends in Russia `worrying' to Rice. Top Bush official says Putin moves hinder democracy Centralized power, weakened media raise U.S. concern. GLENN KESSLER. SPECIAL TO THE STAR http://tinyurl.com/bt4os

{Excerpts} with comments:

{In his inaugural address this year, U.S. President George W. Bush pledged to confront "every ruler and every nation" about internal repression, but Bush and his aides generally have publicly muted those concerns regarding Russia.}

Will Bush confront himself about his own continued internal repression of medical, spiritual, and social cannabis citizens?

{"The centralization of state power in the presidency at the expense of countervailing institutions like (parliament) or an independent judiciary is clearly very worrying," Rice said. "The absence of an independent media on the electronic side is clearly very worrying."}

As with most products of prohibition, a commercial that makes fun of kids looking at a lava lamp will likely have the unintended consequence of demonstrating yet another positive effect of cannabis use: introspection leading to inspiration and discovery:

http://www.psychedelic-library.org/high_culture11.htm

Certainly, lava lamps are an interesting scientific demonstration of specific gravity, heat and density:

http://tinyurl.com/dq7jv

Furthermore, the lava lamp business story is a classic example of success through perseverance with a great yet seemingly impossible goal:

http://tinyurl.com/co7to

That said, and similarly to cannabis, it's probably a bit dangerous to ingest the product after it's temperature exceeds a certain point:

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/1583/

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Today's tip: Grin. It's good for you, and others!

Mothers and others did peacefully protest alcohol prohibition in the streets:

http://www.sodaknorml.org/prohibcar.htm

I don't like suggesting this, but sometimes I think, if the original founders were here today, they'd encourage us to take up arms and fight the scumbags that have hijacked the US government. Some things are worth fighting for and dying for, and the big pigs are sitting back and laughing all the way to the bank every time we back down from a fight, thinking to themselves, 'well, if they won't take up arms and fight for it, then it must not be that important.'

(Lat. thus, Gr. thumiama), an aromatic substance which is obtained from certain resinous trees and largely employed for purposes of religious worship. The word is also used to signify the smoke or perfume arising from incense when burned.

NATURE

In ancient times incense was furnished by two trees, viz. the Boswellia sacra of Arabia Felix, and the Boswellia papyrifera of India, both of which belong to the Terebinthian family. Mention is made of it in Num., vii, 14; Deut., xxxiii, 10, etc. It was procured from the bark much as gum is obtained at present. To enhance the fragrance and produce a thicker smoke various foreign elements were added (cf. Josephus, "Bella Jud.", V, 5). These ingredients generally numbered four, but sometimes as many as thirteen, and the task of blending them in due proportion was assigned under the Old-Law ordinances to particular families (Cant., iii, 6).

USE

The use of incense was very common. It was employed for profane purposes as an antidote to the lassitude caused by very great heat, as perfumes are now used. Mention of its introduction into pagan worship is made by classical writers (cf. Ovid, "Metamorph.", VI, 14, Virgil, "AEneid", I, 146). Herodotus testifies to its use among the Assyrians and Babylonians, while on Egyptian monumental tablets kings are represented swinging censers. Into the Jewish ritual it entered very extensively, being used especially in connexion with the eucharistic offerings of oil, fruits, and wine, or the unbloody sacrifices (Leviticus, vi, 15). By the command of God Moses built an altar of incense (cf. Ex.. xxx), on which the sweetest spices and gums were burned, and to a special branch of the Levitical tribe was entrusted the office of daily renewal (I Par., ix, 29)...

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By Linda Greenhouse

April 19, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 18 - The Supreme Court added an important new religion case to its docket on Monday, agreeing to decide whether the government can ban the importation of a hallucinogenic tea that is central to the religious rituals of a small Brazil-based church.

The case raises the broader question of how the court will interpret, in the context of an illegal drug, a law that ordinarily requires the federal government to refrain to the maximum extent possible from interfering with religious practices.

The tea, known as hoasca, is made from plants that grow in the Amazon region and that produce a chemical listed by both the federal government and an international narcotics trafficking treaty as a controlled substance. The chemical, dimethyltryptamine, usually known as DMT, can also be produced in a laboratory, but followers of the Uniao Do Vegetal religion use only the naturally occurring version, which does not grow in the United States.

The case is an appeal by the Bush administration of a federal court injunction won by the 130 members of the church's American branch, who brought a lawsuit five years ago to prohibit the government from invoking the Controlled Substances Act to block the importation of their tea and from seizing the sacred drink. The church, which combines elements of Christianity and indigenous Brazilian religion, opened its American branch in Santa Fe, N.M., in 1993.

The Federal District Court in Albuquerque, ruling before trial, issued a preliminary injunction against the government. The order was subsequently affirmed by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver, and last November was affirmed again by the full appeals court by a vote of 8 to 5.

A trial has still not taken place, a fact that would ordinarily pose an obstacle to Supreme Court review. In fact, on Dec. 10 of last year, the justices denied the administration's request for a stay of the Court of Appeals order until the solicitor general's office could prepare a formal petition for Supreme Court review. The denial of a request for a stay in those circumstances is usually a strong signal that the Supreme Court will not consider the eventual appeal to be worthy of its attention.

But in this case, Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal, No. 04-1084, the justices might have been persuaded, at least to let the administration have its say, by the strongly worded appeal filed by Paul D. Clement, the acting solicitor general.

Denouncing the lower courts' handling of the case as "contrary to all precedent," Mr. Clement said that "no court has ever ordered the United States to permit a religious exemption to Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act." Schedule I, on which DMT is listed, along with marijuana and other illicit drugs, is reserved for substances that the government considers to be particularly unsafe and to have no valid medical use.

Both the executive branch and Congress, however, have granted a religious exemption for another Schedule I drug, peyote, which is used in religious ceremonies by the Native American Church.

In an opinion concurring in the 10th Circuit's decision to uphold the injunction, Judge Michael W. McConnell cited the peyote exemption as evidence that the government was free to exercise discretion in such matters.

Rejecting the argument that the district court should have deferred to the other two branches, Judge McConnell said: "If Congress or the executive branch had investigated the religious use of hoasca and had come to an informed conclusion that the health risks or possibility of diversion are sufficient to outweigh the free exercise concerns in this case, that conclusion would be entitled to great weight. But neither branch has done that."

Instead, he said, the government had simply invoked the general principle that controlled substances are dangerous.

Judge McConnell, a leading scholar on questions concerning the free exercise of religion before he became a judge, is widely seen as a possible Bush administration choice for a future Supreme Court vacancy.

In its Supreme Court appeal, the administration is also arguing that the injunction is forcing the government to violate a 1971 international treaty, the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which obliges the 160 nations that have signed it to combat international traffic in illicit drugs. The question of whether the convention applies to hoasca is disputed, because Brazil, an original signatory to the treaty, has exempted the tea, and a recent appellate court ruling in France exempted its religious use.

The lower courts based their ruling on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 federal law that forbids the government to enforce laws in a way that interferes with religious practice unless the interference is justified by a "compelling interest." The Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that Congress lacked authority to apply the law to the states, but the statute remains in effect for the federal government.

The hoasca tea case, which will be argued in the fall, is the third case on the Supreme Court docket that deals with federal drug policy. The court is expected to announce a decision soon in a case argued in November on whether the federal government can block enforcement of California's medical marijuana initiative. And the court recently agreed to hear the Bush administration's challenge to the Oregon law permitting doctors to prescribe lethal doses of federally regulated drugs to assist terminally ill patients in committing suicide.

In other action on Monday, the court accepted an appeal by the State of Georgia on a question of criminal law that has long created confusion among the state courts. The issue in Georgia v. Randolph, No. 04-1067, is whether the police can search a home without a warrant if one occupant gives consent but another occupant objects.

In this case, a woman involved in a domestic dispute called the police to the home she shared with her husband. In the officers' presence, she complained that her husband was using cocaine and told the police that cocaine was in the house.

The husband, Scott F. Randolph, refused to give consent for a search, but his wife led the officers to a bedroom where evidence of cocaine use was apparent.

Mr. Randolph, challenging the legality of the search, won a ruling in the Georgia Supreme Court that since both partners had "common control and authority" over the premises, the consent of both was needed to conduct a search without a warrant.

Copyright: 2005 New York Times

Obviously, Congress is wrong. Cannabis is listed as Schedule one but it is NOT dangerous... unless a bale of it was to fall on one's head. It is the height of ignorance and arrogance to declare someone else's religious practices illegal. If we don't have religious freedom in this country then we have no freedom at all.

THE WAY OUT IS THE WAY IN...

Airport screeners no better than before 9/11, reports say: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050417/NEWS06/504170476/1012/NEWS06

FBI Tells 911 Rescue Worker To 'Shut Up' Over Finding Airplane 'Black Boxes': http://rense.com/general64/fbi.htm

OPERATION NORTHWOODS: US PLANNED FAKE TERROR ATTACKS ON CITIZENS TO CREATE SUPPORT FOR CUBAN WAR: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/northwoods.html

9/11 Was an Inside Job - A Call to All True Patriots: http://www.911sharethetruth.com/

It is the language of the liars. There is not much in this society that does not have the potiential to create social harm. TV can create social harm. My computer can create social harm.

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court, agreeing to take up a religious-freedom clash, will decide whether the Bush administration can block churches from using a hallucinogenic tea that the government says is illegal and dangerous.

The justices today said they will review a federal appeals court decision letting a 130-member New Mexico branch of a Brazilian church import hoasca and use it in religious ceremonies. The court will hear arguments in Washington during its 2005-06 term, which starts in October.

Religious groups say the Bush administration would trample spiritual freedom in its zeal to enforce federal drug laws. The Christian Legal Society, the National Association of Evangelicals and a top U.S. Presbyterian Church official opposed the government at the lower court level.

The church, O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal, says its members are ``upright, law-abiding citizens who simply wish to practice the religion they believe brings them closer to God.'' The church's U.S. branch is based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Hoasca contains dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, a hallucinogenic substance restricted under the U.S. Controlled Substances Act. The Justice Department says that DMT can lead to depression, intense anxiety, disorientation and psychosis and that the drug is a particular danger to children who are church members.

``There can be no doubt that the use of controlled substances and trafficking in those drugs, including DMT, creates social harms of the first magnitude,'' the Justice Department argued in its appeal.

Religious Freedoms

The case will test the strength of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says the federal government can't restrict religious activities except to meet a compelling interest.

The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on an 8- 5 vote, concluded the Justice Department hadn't met its burden under that law. The appeals court upheld a temporary order barring the government from taking action against the church for its religious use of hoasca.

The Supreme Court in December let the order stay in place during the government's appeal.

The Justice Department says the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances bars importation of hoasca, the ingredients of which must be grown in Brazil. The U.S. is among more than 160 signatories to that treaty.

UDV, as the church is known, disputes that contention, saying the treaty allows for exceptions based on domestic law. The church says Brazil, also among the signatories to the treaty, permits use of hoasca for religious purposes.

Other Drugs

UDV mixes Christian theology and indigenous South American beliefs. Founded in 1961 by a rubber tapper, the religion has 8,000 members in Brazil.

The dispute between UDV and the government began in 1999, when U.S. Customs inspectors intercepted a shipment from Brazil of three drums that contained the drug. Authorities later searched the home of Jeffrey Bronfman, the head of the church in the U.S., and seized 30 gallons of hoasca.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that states invoking broad anti-drug laws could outlaw the religious use of peyote, another hallucinogen. That ruling limited the scope of the constitutional clause that protects the free exercise of religion, wiping out the ``compelling interest'' test the high court had previously applied.

The 1990 ruling prompted Congress to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which sought to restore the earlier test. The Supreme Court in 1997 struck down the law as it applied to states, though not to the federal government.

A number of courts have said the federal government may punish people who use marijuana in religious ceremonies. One of the 10th Circuit judges in the majority, Michael McConnell, wrote that hoasca was different because it ``is a relatively uncommon substance used almost exclusively as part of a well-defined religious service.''

The case is Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal, 04-1084.