PotShot

Arizona couple in drug case say marijuana is a sacrament in Zoroastrianism religion
Associated Press | The Daily Dispatch | September 02, 2006

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - A couple from Pima, Ariz., arrested in a car that contained 172 pounds of marijuana say the drug is a sacrament in their religion. The U.S. attorney's office says the pair is trying to use religion as a cover for a drug organization.

Danuel and Mary Quaintance were arrested in February on drug charges in the New Mexican town of Lordsburg near the Arizona state line.

In an August hearing, the Quaintances said they have a right to marijuana as the central focus of the Church of Cognizance, founded by Danuel Quaintance in 1991 and registered as a religious organization in Arizona. The couple say the church has about 130 adherents nationwide.

Danuel Quaintance testified the Church of Cognizance is a form of Zoroastrianism, an ancient religion that holds as sacred a drink made from a mountain plant called haoma.

The Quaintances believe marijuana is haoma.

They are charged with conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute more than 50 kilograms of marijuana found in the car in which they were riding. The driver, another church member, is cooperating with prosecutors.

Jehan Bagli, a retired scientist and Zoroastrian priest, testified for the prosecution at the recent hearing that in current Zoroastrian ritual, mind-altering substances abuse the mind would not be accepted.

Bagli said haoma in the ancient Zoroastrian tradition was a deity and plant that scholars say may have had hallucinogenic properties. But he said scholars don't know what the plant was.

The judge is reviewing written arguments and will decide whether to dismiss the charges.

pyrogarrett

ok, it's one thing to say the marijuana is for your religious purposes. but when you have 172 pounds? That's straight drug dealing there. I'm not saying that's bad, cuz I do the same, but c'mon no sane judge will buy that defense of religious purposes.

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Buzzby

These people run a church. The weight was for the religious purposes of their congregation, not just for themselves. They stated that "couriers", like themselves, supplied the parishioners with their sacramental weed.

The only problem is that their church hasn't received a dispensation to use an otherwise-illegal drug under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as has the Native American Church for peyote and O Centro Espirita Beneficients Uniao Do Vegetal has for hoasca (a tea containing dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, a substance regulated under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act).

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walstmonky

So didn't both of those churches receive their exemptions as the direct result of court actions against them? So perhaps in a few years...

While I am really skeptical of the religious use of cannabis, as an atheist I'm sure I just couldn't understand.

Buzzby

If the Rastafarians can't get an exemption for the religious use of cannabis, I doubt that any upstart church, seemingly created to get around the law, will get an exemption.