{"id":620,"date":"2006-02-21T18:09:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-21T18:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=620"},"modified":"2006-02-21T18:09:00","modified_gmt":"2006-02-21T18:09:00","slug":"620","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=620","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Supremes uphold entheogenic church<\/strong><\/p>\n

Earlier post here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court has upheld the right of followers of Uniao do Vegetal<\/a> (UDV), a religion born in Brazil that uses ayahuasca<\/a> as its sacrament, to use ayahuasca in the United States. <\/p>\n

The feds argued that preventing use of a “controlled substance” was more important than religious freedom, as codified in the Religious Freedom Act of 1993. (The Native American Church<\/a>, which uses peyote sacramentally, was a major lobbyist for that act.)<\/p>\n

The court ruled, however, that the federal govenment did not demonstrate a “compelling interest,” in other words, a reason good enough to overrule the established principle of religious freedom. The feds had argued that there was no<\/strong> exception to the Controlled Substances Act, not for a single drop of ayahuasca tea. <\/p>\n

As the court’s opinion stated, “The Government’s argument echoes the classic rejoinder of bureaucrats throughout history: If I make an exception for you, I’ll have to make one for everybody, so no exceptions.”<\/p>\n

A digression. The copy editor working on my book wanted to change every use of “entheogen<\/a>” to “hallucinogen” or “psychedelic.” I am asking him to restore my original wording, for the same reason that prompted Jonathan Ott<\/a> and others to coin the term. When you say “entheogen,” you are saying that these substances can be used as religious sacrements, but when you say “hallucinogen,” you are saying, in effect, that they produce only worthless hallucinations and are worthless, if not dangerous. “Psychedelic” started as a useful term, but in the 1965-1975 period it ended up being applied to music, fashion, automotive paint schemes, and so many things that it became useless in its original sense.<\/p>\n

Can law reflect that distinction? Not with current “drug war” thinking.<\/p>\n

(Hat tip to SCOTUS Blog<\/a>.) <\/p>\n

UPDATE: More comments and links at Get Religion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

Supremes uphold entheogenic church Earlier 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 than religious freedom, […]<\/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-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-620","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":552,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=552","url_meta":{"origin":620,"position":0},"title":"First peyote, now ayahuascaIt took\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 2, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"First peyote, now ayahuascaIt 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\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6313,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6313","url_meta":{"origin":620,"position":1},"title":"Ayahuasca Tourism and Pagan Holidays","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Kira Salak, a writer for National Geographic, has a good article published on her ayahuasca pilgrimage to Peru. But she can't call it a that. It was \"a lark,\" at least the first time: And then there is me, who a year ago came to Peru on a lark to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"entheogens\"","block_context":{"text":"entheogens","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=entheogens"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":980,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=980","url_meta":{"origin":620,"position":2},"title":"The Ayahuasca Diaries","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Two articles on the entheogenic drink ayahuasca, one from National Geographic and one from The Los Angeles Times.The second site requires registration: BugMeNot can give you a password.It's definitely your old-school entheogen:The concoction itself is said to taste so vile that most people fight their gag reflex to swallow it.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"curanderismo\"","block_context":{"text":"curanderismo","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=curanderismo"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13830,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13830","url_meta":{"origin":620,"position":3},"title":"Animal Sacrifice: Are They Doing It Wrong?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 17, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A possible animal sacrifice location in the Howard Beach area. J.C. Rice (New York Post) The New York Post had two articles recently on apparent animal sacrifice in the Jamaica Bay area of Long Island (politically in both Brooklyn and Queens). \"Animal Sacrifices on the Rise in Queens with Chickens,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"African religion\"","block_context":{"text":"African religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=african-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7100,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7100","url_meta":{"origin":620,"position":4},"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":4315,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4315","url_meta":{"origin":620,"position":5},"title":"The Ayahuasca Jungle Village","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A visit to an intentional community devoted to Santo Daime, more often known as the entheogenic drug ayahuasca, complete with authoritarian spiritual leader and chorus of virgins.","rel":"","context":"In \"Brazil\"","block_context":{"text":"Brazil","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=brazil"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","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=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}