The Long Dark Teatime of a Marginalized Relgion

[Amerist]

The US government is trying to overturn a ruling by the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals made November of last year, which allows the use of a controlled substance in ceremonies by a small Christian sect in New Mexico. This substance, a sacred tea known as hoasca, gains its spiritual effect from dimethyltrptamine (DMT). An examination of the appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn the earlier decision is currently on law.com: High Court Asked to End Religious Teatime

O Centro Espirita was founded in Brazil in 1961. The tea, hoasca, which in the Quechuan Indian language means "vine of the soul," "vine of the dead," and "vision vine," comes from the Amazon rainforest. Members drink the tea at least two times a month during ceremonies. Approximately 130 members of the church reside in the United States, 8,000 in Brazil.

Brazil, a member of the international treaty at issue, has exempted hoasca from its controlled substances list.

But the Bush administration claims that no such exemption should exist in the United States. The administration is arguing that the high court should overturn a November 2004 en banc ruling from the 10th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals that affirmed an earlier injunction prohibiting the administration from enforcing the Controlled Substances Act and the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances.

In short, the decision of the 10th Circuit Court was made on the grounds of a piece of legislation called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (hereto referred to as the RFRA), designed to protect individuals from governmental interference in the exercise of their religions—something that I thought was already protected by something called the 1st Amendment. That said, sometimes the beloved and sacred Constitution of the United States does collide with other legislations such as those which provide the framework for the infamous War on Drugs. A campaign that I believe has driven a great deal of violations of rights directly founded by the Bill of Rights and other highly held documents. So it is always good to have some sort of legislation that can cut through the ever growing clouds of tyranny of the body and mind and highlight once again even such simple passages as the 1st Amendment.

Under the RFRA, the government must show that it has a "compelling governmental interest" in restricting the religious practice and that the interest is fulfilled in the "least restrictive" way. The 10th Circuit ruled that the government had not proved that use of the tea, which contains 25 mg of DMT per typical serving, would lead to adverse health effects or abuse of the drug outside of a religious context.

Not only has the Administration pushing against this decision not proven that this tea is dangerous outside of the context of religious usage (even if it is a Schedule I substance) they haven’t even attempted to adhere worthy legislation to simply control its procurement and storage. Instead, they are attacking the religious expression and its use. If the Administration was actually worried about this substance being sold on the streets and adding to the “Great US Drug Problem” they have chosen the stupidest approach possible. Instead of showing concern for the nation’s welfare, they are instead trying to stomp on a small number of people who live in a country where supposedly their rights to religious expression are protected from this sort of behavior.

"The court of appeals -- unlike every court of appeals before it -- fundamentally disregarded Congress's expert judgment that Schedule I controlled substances have profoundly adverse health effects and an elevated potential for abuse and diversion," Acting Solicitor General Paul Clement writes in the government's brief. Clement also claims that if the injunction stands, "scores if not hundreds of persons, including minors ... [will] continue to put their physical and psychic well-being in serious jeopardy."

Mr. Acting Solicitor General Pual Clement: thou art an ass.

Let me take a moment to examine Congress’s current expert judgment on Schedule I controlled substances and the RFRA. The RFRA came into being in 1993 after a 1990 Supreme Court Case; Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith; determined that a person can be fired from their job because they took peyote in a Native American religious ceremony. The RFRA directly cites the 1990 Supreme Court decision and notes that the government had completely overstepped sensible bounds by making such a decision because it “virtually eliminated the requirement that the government justify burdens on religious exercise imposed by laws neutral toward religion.”

In case anyone doesn’t know this already, the controlled substance in question in that case is mescaline, the psychedelic alkaloid present in peyote. And, it’s a Schedule I substance. Said same substance now permitted by Congress’s expert judgment via a 1994 amendment to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.

Since the 1993 implementation of the RFRA the Congress and the Supreme Court have been at each other’s proverbial throats on the issue. Parts of the RFRA have been struck down by the Supreme Court but many individual states since then had adopted their own miniature versions of the RFRA in their own legislation. I am not enough of a US law scholar to know the current disposition of that legislation, but I think that most of it still stands, especially in reference to the Native American Indian peyote usage.

Control the distribution of the substance, if thou must. Tell the O Centro Espirita that they cannot sell it on the open market, that they can’t pass it out to the general population. Oh wait, that’s already the case, isn’t it? Well then, back off. Until thou can give me an actual legitimate reason for interfering with these people’s US Constitution given right to the free exercise of their religion.

Bush Administration to Stop Religious Tea Ceremony (Apr. 16, 2005) Kyt Dotson