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Hawaii Supreme Court Rules Against Religious Marijuana Use
10-1-`07 | Fox News

HONOLULU —
The Hawaii Supreme Court has ruled against a Big Island man who claimed he had to smoke marijuana to practice his religion in what he called the Hawaii Cannabis Ministry.

The court decided that Joseph Sunderland's freedom of religion didn't give him the right to smoke marijuana, but it didn't rule on whether Hawaii's strong privacy protections would have shielded him.

"The law prohibiting possession of marijuana ... applies to everyone," similar to traffic laws, said prosecuting attorney Janet Garcia. "Otherwise, you could have someone who says, 'My religious belief is that I shouldn't have to stop at a stop sign."'

One justice, however, argued in a dissenting opinion that privacy rights guaranteed by the Hawaii Constitution should allow people to smoke marijuana in their homes.

Justice Steven Levinson wrote in the court's split decision Sept. 21 that the framers of Hawaii's constitution intended to limit criminal punishment to cases where people are harmed.

"The issue is whether ... a fundamental right to privacy ... constrains the state from criminalizing mere possession of marijuana for personal use. My thesis is that it does," Levinson wrote in his dissent.

The case started when a Big Island police officer spotted a six-inch pipe on Sunderland's kitchen table in 2003 while the officer was looking for a missing child.

Sunderland told the officer the pipe was his, and he had a right to use it to exercise his religious beliefs. In fact, he said he had smoked marijuana from the pipe that morning.

He showed the officer a card indicating his membership in a religious organization called the "Cannabis Ministry," and he told the officer he had been practicing his religion since he was 16 years old.

Sunderland was charged with promoting a detrimental drug in the third degree for possession of the pipe and the marijuana residue inside.

"I believe that God put the holy herb onto this earth to help mankind to better understand him," Sunderland testified at trial.

He was found guilty and ordered to pay $175 in fines and fees.

His attorney, public defender Deborah Kim, said she will ask the Hawaii Supreme Court to reconsider the privacy issue.

"The court has ducked the question of whether the right to privacy prevents the police from enforcing marijuana laws when someone is using marijuana in their home for religious purposes," Kim said. "The question is still very much open."

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Broliette

Well and what about the Huichol of northern Mexico and the Navajo in the southwestern United States that use peyote as part of the Native American Church?
United States federal law (and many state laws) protect the harvest, possession, consumption and cultivation) of peyote as part of "bonafide religious ceremonies" - wikipedia

So it's ok for the Native American's to use peyote for religious practices but it's not ok for the people of the Cannabis Ministry to use Cannabis in their religion? How about the Rastafari? They have been using Cannabis for spiritual use also so does that mean they should be prosecuted?

But of course I'm sure the anti-marijuana antagonists would just say, "Well if marijuana is allowed under church sanction then everyone will just start joining so they can smoke and all chaos will break out." Which of course is just the act intended to create fear or "terror" perpetrated for an ideological goal - the definition of course of terrorism.

Smells like a terrible double standard to me.

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reggie_the_dog

I hope the supreme court of Hawaii rules that cannabis use is protected by the right to privacy in the state constitution. Cannabis became legal in Alaska and Spain in the same manner.

chadwick

the supreme court was established to uphold the constitution not to blatently throw it aside this is the kind of stuff that realy pisses me off when we have something put in place to protect us and it just bite us in the ass

troublemaker_42

However....those antagonists would be right. look at California, with their loose medical mj laws. Everyone and their dog has a "recommendation" whether they are truely sick or not. Why would this be any different? We get posts from time to time here at Marijuana.com (like this http://www.marijuana.com/420-lounge/...ministry.html: )promoting this church or that as using MJ as a "sacrament" and therfore being protected.....which is bullshit, but some people buy into anything. I GURANTEE you even the some of the most agnostic,athiest, etc would suddenly become regular churchgoers if it meant legal weed for them. The reason most poeple assume the system would be abused is because....well.....it WOULD be.

The Native American Church is different in some respects. You have to be able to prove your bloodlines and whatnot. There are requirements to membership....you can't just sign up on the internet and start injesting peyote at will. Most of the "churches" endorsing cannabis use are nothing more than moneymakers, allowing people to sign up for a fee. Another argument would be that the Natives were practicing this religion long before we took over their land. There is no history of ancient Americans using cannabis as a religious sacrament. Rastafarians are of African descent, and aren't even allowed religious protection in their homeland (Jamaica) let alone the US. Comparing the Native American Chuirch to "THC Ministries" and expecting them to be held to the same standards is almost laughable. there are many distinct differences, primarily that THC Ministries seems to be a moneymaking organization, charging, I believe, a $200 fee for your "membership kit". How many REAL chruches make you pay a membership fee? All in all, while on the surface the two may seem comparable, when you dig into it, you'll see a vast array of differences.


I'm not against legalizing marijuana, but I say we do it across the board, not just for this group or that group, but for everyone.

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Buzzby

There's a major difference between the way peyote is consumed and the way marijuana is consumed. Members of the Native American Church don't wander around all the time nibbling on peyote buttons, i.e. peyote isn't a recreational drug. It is used only in religious ceremonies.

The Hawai'i Cannabis (THC) Ministry promotes itself as a way to avoid getting prosecuted, leading any halfway intelligent person to believe that it's dodge, not a religion. They used to charge $200 for a few pieces of paper identifying you as a minister. Now the website asks you to confer with them about a "donation".

The Rastas certainly have a claim on true religious use of cannabis, but the fact that they smoke it all the time detracts from the position that it's purely a religious sacrament. If you get a sip from a priest, wine's a sacrament. If you're guzzling it out of a paper sack while hanging out on the corner, it's not.

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Broliette

Well there goes all the wind out of my sails.

Incredible points and arguments well taken.

I still think it's a double standard. But bottom line it is what it is. IMO I think Cannabis stands a good chance to be regulated in the same ways they do with the peyote whether it's through religion, medicine, or recreation.