Murdock

Supreme Court sides with church in dispute over hallucinogenic tea

By Gina Holland

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that a small congregation in New Mexico may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a four-hour ritual intended to connect with God.

Justices, in their first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, moved decisively to keep the government out of a church's religious practice. Federal drug agents should have been barred from confiscating the hoasca tea of the Brazil-based church, Roberts wrote in the decision.

The tea, which contains an illegal drug known as DMT, is considered sacred to members of O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, which has a blend of Christian beliefs and South American traditions. Members believe they can understand God only by drinking the tea, which is consumed twice a month at four-hour ceremonies.



Link

Intresting, perhaps the tide is turning.. I wonder if there's any way that this ruling could crack the door open for ceremonial/religious use of marijuana?

Higher Logic

I saw this on the tube about an hour ago, but it was just a blurb. I figured it was for the peyote church before I realized that they are already legally allowed to do this. So now we have peyote and DMT that are both illegal yet legal for religious folk to do. How come we excuse people for doing things in the name of religion? It should be allowed for anyone, regardless of who you are trying to connect with, whether that you be your god, your self, etc.

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TheNewGuy

I agree with you here HL, but on the other hand, this is really just moving us closer to the lagalization of substances for recreation too, so who cares why they're allowed to do it.

Actually, instead of "religion", why can't you use "spirituality" in the same context, and then also be allowed to use a drug? Thats what I want to know.

Achieving a "higher" (No pun intended, I hate lame drug jokes) state of being is different than "communicating with god" how? In principle, its actually the same thing, and yet if you don't say the word "religion", its automatically grouped with "recreational use".

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"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

Murdock

Honestly, without going tooo far into the offtopicness, I've never used DMT before, but it's my understanding that it's a very very potent hallucinogen.. It's not something that I'd want to see used unless it's in a controled situation.

I do find it a bit hypocritical that the same argument has been rejected by the courts for spiritual/religious use of Marijuana.. I hope that this judgement by the SC will open a door toward legalization of Marijuana.. even if it is under religious/spiritual usages..

Richi

Yea, it makes absolutely no sense that some drugs are exempted from the law when used for religious reasons and some other also illegal drugs are not. Whatever anyone says about mescaline or DMT to make it ok to use it, I could say about marijuana, or any other drug for that matter. Sacrificing humans to gods was also quite popular one day, wonder if I can invent a religion where that is again normal.

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SmokerForPeace

From my experiences with DMT's dipropyl cousin I can assure you that these aren't the kind of drugs kids are going to be doing for fun

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smoking_guru

interesting.. i once started a thread on marijuana interactinng with natural herbs like ginko, and it was close for being off topic. now there is a whole thread on DMT??? and its fine? i dont get it

KWhite

This actually feels like a direct reversal of the way they have been ruling any time the subject of Drugs versus Public Order came up.

The argument has always been that yes, it was a restriction of religious freedom to deny the use of illicit drugs in worship but that that restriction was balanced by the need to not create a loop hole to get around Congressionally passed or approved drug statutes.

Religious freedom had a place subordinate to the laws of the nation.

The example most used was that of Satanists using the precedence to say they needed to harm people to properly worship according to their beliefs. If that got out of hand, one might legalize ritual murder...

This would seem to be a complete turn around, in precedent, the substance ingested hardly matters.

History might, a little; and marijuana has been used across the globe in worship for centuries.

It seems a promising, and very curious, ruling in light of the new judges sitting and who picked them.

Kelly.