{"id":552,"date":"2005-11-02T04:17:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-02T04:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=552"},"modified":"2005-11-02T04:17:00","modified_gmt":"2005-11-02T04:17:00","slug":"552","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=552","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

First peyote, now ayahuasca<\/strong><\/p>\n

It took decades of legal struggle for the Native American Church to receive a highly qualified exemption to federal drug law that permitted its members to use the entheogen<\/a> peyote during the church’s meetings.<\/p>\n

Now the Supreme Court is hearing argument in another case involving religion and an entheogenic substance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The core of the case \u2013 what happens to the First Amendment right to freely exercise religion when it conflicts with federal law \u2013 could change the rules for every religious group in America. A wide variety of religious groups \u2013 from conservative to liberal \u2013 representing millions of members have filed briefs supporting O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal, or UDV as it is known.<\/em><\/p>\n

Although ayahuasca<\/a> has been used in Amazonia for centuries, probably millennia, our government thinks that we have to be protected from it. The Christian Science Monitor<\/em> summarizes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Congress determined that a categorical ban on this hallucinogenic substance was required to help protect the health and safety of Americans, including the followers of UDV, from detrimental effects, government lawyers say. “Religious motivation does not change the science,” writes Solicitor General Paul Clement in his brief to the court.<\/em><\/p>\n

The UDV’s lawyer counters that even as the NAC has its exemption, so UDV should be treated likewise:<\/p>\n

“The government’s successful accommodation of the sacramental use of peyote, also a [banned] Schedule I substance, belies its claim that such substances require a categorical ban, even for religious use,” Nancy Hollander, an Albuquerque lawyer representing the UDV, writes in her brief.<\/p>\n

Ms. Hollander accuses the government of playing fast and loose with the facts in claiming there are adverse health effects to the group’s use of sacramental tea. She says the only study of sacramental tea use “found no significant health concerns.<\/em><\/p>\n

I will try to post more, and I expect that this blog<\/a> will have something too.<\/p>\n

Tags: Ayahuasca<\/a>, UDV<\/a>, Entheogens<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First peyote, now ayahuasca It took decades of legal struggle for the Native American Church to receive a highly qualified exemption to federal drug law that permitted its members to use the entheogen peyote during the church’s meetings. Now the Supreme Court is hearing argument in another case involving religion and an entheogenic substance. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-552","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":269,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=269","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":0},"title":"Peyote progress The Utah Supreme\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 25, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Peyote progress The Utah Supreme Court has decided that Native American Church members may use peyote even if they are not on the rolls of a federally recognized tribe. James Mooney, the NAC leader spectacularly busted a few years ago, is celebrating, but the feds, of course, see peyote as\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":620,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=620","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":1},"title":"Supremes uphold entheogenic churchEarlier post\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Supremes uphold entheogenic churchEarlier post here.The Supreme Court has upheld the right of followers of Uniao do Vegetal (UDV), a religion born in Brazil that uses ayahuasca as its sacrament, to use ayahuasca in the United States. The feds argued that preventing use of a \"controlled substance\" was more important\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7100,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7100","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":2},"title":"Wicca Again as the “Designated Other”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Pasque flowers blooming in a thin layer of pine duff atop a boulder. I love them for their precarious and improbably habitat. Spring is slowly coming to the forest, and within it the offer of new chances, a feeling that you might get it right this time. Travel and editorial\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"pasque flowers","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/pasque-flowers-206x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":449,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=449","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":3},"title":"Ojo de dios","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The new issue, no. 65, of Shaman's Drum reprints a portion of Visions of a Huichol Shaman by the anthropologist Peter Furst.Furst has spent much time among the Huicholes, who live in Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental and who are sometimes considered one of the least-Christianized tribes. Their religious use of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"New Mexico\"","block_context":{"text":"New Mexico","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=new-mexico"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":471,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=471","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":4},"title":"Headstones and bureaucratsNon-Fluffy Wicca posts\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 21, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Headstones and bureaucratsNon-Fluffy Wicca posts about bureaucratic foot-dragging and stonewalling over the issue of headstones for Pagan military service members.Beginning in 1997 with a request by the Aquarian Tabernacle Church of Washington state, various Wiccan groups have requested a pentagram headstone for military cemeteries and been ignored or turned down\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1105,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1105","url_meta":{"origin":552,"position":5},"title":"Pagans are not a Community nor a Tribe — Not Yet","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The lively discussion at The Wild Hunt over \"moving on from Paganism\" should put an end to the notion that Pagans constitute a \"tribe\" or a \"community.\"Not yet, anyway. We are still part of modern society with its cafeteria spirituality.Many Pagans, such as Emma Restall Orr in her book that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}