Superrealist

Met a Rasta (real, Jamaican Rasta) in N. Cal a few years back, who said he'd successfully beaten a posession charge by arguing religious freedom. He said it was "burnt offerings."

Anybody heard of this kind of dubious (or friggin' brilliant) defense? If it's true, maybe we should open a church!

Cassius

Actually, there already are churches (plural, although not many) that have marijuana as a sacrament. Yes, it CAN work as a legal argument -- notice the word "can". It all depends on what judge you get, frankly. Regardless of which judge, though, you're much more likely to successfully use that defense if you have proof or evidence of some kind to show the judge that you are in fact in a religion that uses it as a sacrament. On the other hand, there are judges out there that don't buy stuff like that, and it is within their power to deny your defense, freedom of religion or no freedom of religion. You could then appeal it, of course, and if you REALLY were a practicing member of such a religion and had documentation to prove it, eventually one of your appeals would be successful -- however that is FURTHER legal costs, and the appeal process can get VERY expensive VERY quickly. You are pretty likely to fail with that defense if you don't have legal counsel (a lawyer). And I don't mean a public defender (lawyer appointed by the court) -- you need a real lawyer.

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Buzzby

I don't think a religious defense is gonna fly. I've never heard of it happening in the US.

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Toking Jedi

Theoretically it could work, if you belonged to a religious sect that treated marijuana as religious sacrament. And I bet that could be marijuana's saviour: A minister who proposed the idea of marijuana being a religious sacrament, for contemplation and relaxation in the face of God.

I bet liberal Quakers might agree with that argument, if it were framed correctly... You would have to emphasis that by smoking Cannabis you are communing with nature, because you are integrating combusted plant matter into yourself.

Hey, it makes sense to me; that's not even the most articulate way of saying it. I was thinking in terms of communing with nature. If anyone else gets what I'm saying, maybe you could try and work with that argument. Ah, I was high when I thought of it so it's probably idiosyncratic, anway. Whatever.

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Buzzby

It's been tried. It didn't work. Rastas have always had marijuana as a religious sacrament. They can't use it legally. There's an outfit called The Hawai'i Cannabis Ministry (THC Ministry) that uses cannabis as a sacrament. They can't use it legally either.


Wow! That would get 0.02% of the population firmly behind it!

We need to face prohibition squarely and shoot it down, not come up with a scam to get around it. Claiming that marijuana is "harmless", that it's "not a drug", or that it's a "sacrament" will not be taken seriously by anyone with half a brain. All those things accomplish is to ruin the anti-prohibitionist's credibility. Once people catch you BSing them they're going to write off everything else you say, the same way we tend to disbelieve any statement coming out of the prohibitionist camp.

Cassius

I agree with most of that. But I disagree that it being a sacrament would automatically be dismissed by anyone with half a brain. Religions have been known to use other, sometimes legal, substances as sacrament (not just weed). The legal precedent may be to deny such a claim (I wasn't aware of that but I don't doubt you), however that doesn't mean that there isn't a legitimate use of it as a sacrament, and it is unjust for the courts to make the precedent they did. It may still stand as rule of law at the moment, but I don't think that's reason to say that "anyone with half a brain" would automatically dismiss the argument itself, or else they would have to dismiss any other sacramental use of a substance (not just marijuana) by religions and thus not allow religious exceptions for them... but they do allow those exceptions on certain things. I know that certain religions are allowed to give their children alcohol (wine) in a religious ceremony, despite the legal drinking age being 21, for instance. To not allow religious reasons to override the state's rules would also mean they'd have to get rid of the conscientious objector status for "avoiding" a draft.

I also think that, while "marijuana is harmless" is a ridiculous statement, "marijuana is relatively harmless" is not. I do agree with you on the "it's not a drug" being ridiculous, though.

law420

This is no defense unless your jurisdiction has drug law that allow the sacramental use of canabis. In Employment Division v. Smith, two Native Americans who were fired from their job as rehab counselors tried to argue that peyote was part of their religious ceremonies as members of the Native American Church. They asserted that the Oregon law that probitted sacramental use of illegal drugs violated the free exercise clause. The case went all the way up to the supreme court and the court held that the Free exercise clause cannot be used to challenge a neutral law of general applicability.

LibertyLover

I despise Employment Division v. Smith. It makes my blood boil. I used to think it was the worst SCOTUS decision I've read until they decided that campaign finance law was "constitutional", and that took the cake without a problem.

The single main flaw with Employment Division v. Smtih is that it has never been established that drug prohibition is a "neutral law of general applicability." The rest kind of just makes my head spin.