In Theory: Does religious freedom extend to the use of pot?

A shootout at a Northern California Rastafarian pot farm has brought new focus on the criminal prosecution of religious observers who use marijuana, despite the drug’s recent legalization in the state, an article published in High Times reports.

“Religious organizations throughout California have been growing marijuana for ceremonial purposes for years — and have been losing in court for just as long,” the report says.

Any cultivation of cannabis going forward will have to comply with the rules of a “regulated market” regardless of a group’s religious affiliation, California officials stated.

In contrast, in Indiana, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence in 2015 prompted the founding of the First Church of Cannabis, which when it opened elicited a visit from multiple members of law enforcement, shutting down any use of marijuana.

The church’s “Grand Poobah” Bill Levin filed a civil lawsuit shortly thereafter, with a trial expected in November 2017, which could determine the validity of the church’s claim that religious freedom extends to the use of pot.

Q. Is marijuana use a religious civil right? Are there other activities or positions deemed illegal that you believe infringe on religious freedom?

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In our country freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right. What is not necessarily protected is every possible rite or ritual a given religion chooses to practice. For example, child sacrifices were a common pagan religious practice in Israel’s kingdom years. Nobody would think that’s permissible in America today. Of course, our courts do allow people to take the lives of their children as long as they’re still in the womb. But I digress. Generally speaking, if the law makes something illegal for everyone without an obvious bias against any particular group, then that’s acceptable. Usually. The courts are still open to judge which exceptions should be allowed, and some probably should. So to me, marijuana use as a religious practice should be contingent upon its legality for the general population. Other interesting considerations in this question would be animal sacrifice and polygamy.

The courts have declared it illegal for me to pray “in Jesus’ name” when I’ve been invited to give Burbank City Council meeting invocations. Jesus is the name of my God. I believe this ban is a flagrant violation of both my religious freedom and my freedom of speech. The government is not establishing a religion by letting me practice mine in public. But regardless of the particular issue, when it comes down to it, I believe Peter and the apostles had it right: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

Pastor Jon Barta

Burbank

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Anyone who has ever puzzled over why certain mood-altering substances are legal (alcohol, cigarettes, Oxycontin, soda with high-fructose corn syrup) but others are — mostly — not (cannabis, let’s say), knows the exclusionary logic at work in the world of what we’re allowed to put in our bodies.

Many of my older friends grew up quaffing sacramental wine at Catholic mass, long before drinking age. This sort of thing was OK, whereas late Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in a 1990 Supreme Court decision against the use of peyote in certain Native American rituals, stated, “Leaving accommodation to the political process will place at a relative disadvantage those religious practices that are not widely engaged in ... (the) consequence of democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself.”

It is clear from Scalia’s words that some religions are too big to fail a drug test.

While Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor was talking about something else when he sang “You get me closer to God,” substances have been used in religious rituals for centuries, regardless of which belief system currently has the blessing of the Supreme Court. Peyote, Ayahuasca, wormwood, Jimson Weed, good old alcohol, and hundreds of other herbs and spices are smoked, crushed, wafted, and otherwise ingested to bring adherents closer to God. At issue in the Rastas’ case is whose God.

That said, churches’ use of substances should reflect how those substances are regulated in the outside world. And the more substances are legalized and regulated in the outside world, we won’t just have to rely on “vino” to get the “veritas.”

Marty Barrett, Vice President

Unitarian Universalist Community of the Verdugo Hills (UUVerdugo)

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As it so happens, the shoot-out was caused by a violent ex-con named Sanchez who also had two outstanding warrants. He was not part of the Rastafarian community, but a “trimmigrant” who came looking for work, and it wasn’t the stoned church-members who caused the altercation except to call 911 and report the scary behavior of this man. The rest is history, as two police officers were wounded and Sanchez has permanently gone to his reward. I mention this detail in fairness to the church folk, since readers might get the wrong impression that it was they who caused the violence.

As for whether cannabis should be legal for religious use, I suppose that’s the quandary isn’t it? The Declaration of Independence states that God grants the unalienable rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” yet the latter two come into conflict when government deems illegal something people believe satisfies these rights. Also, the Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Obviously “free exercise” is prohibited if the law forbids a religious sacrament. I don’t mean to imply that I think cannabis is any legitimate sacrament, as I do not believe that Rastafarianism or the Church of Cannabis are true religions (the latter being most idolatrous for its devotion to a weed rather than the God who created it).

Government has a tough job protecting our rights while simultaneously protecting the greater good. Would a Church of LSD be going too far? After all, these marijuana faiths point to the legal use of hallucinogenic cactus pods by Indians attending the Native American Church; why can they freely ingest something far more intense than cannabis as their sacrament? And what about the Appalachian snake-handling, poison drinkers? As well, half the Christian world consumes alcohol for its sacrament, even giving it to those who are not of legal age! Judaism does similarly, so there’s going to have to be a decision here with this one vegetable: Should it be illegal? Perhaps leaving it to individual conscience is a better path, but that will cause problems of its own, just on the flip-side of what we have currently.

Rev. Bryan A. Griem

Tujunga