Posted on 11/02/2005 6:19:08 PM PST by Angel
Justices lean toward ceremonial use of hallucinogen
Wednesday, November 02, 2005 By Michael McGough, Post-Gazette National Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday reacted with surprising sympathy to the claim by a small religious movement with roots in Brazil that it should be allowed to import a tea containing an illegal hallucinogenic drug for use in its rituals.
Noting that federal law permits 250,000 members of the Native American Church to use the hallucinogen peyote as part of its worship, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked a lawyer for the Bush administration why it wants to prevent 130 U.S. adherents of a faith known as O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal from importing a sacramental tea known as hoasca from Brazil.
Even Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who expressed strong support for federal drug regulation in a recent argument over physician-assisted suicide, suggested that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act might require some concessions to religious groups that used otherwise-banned drugs.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
The SCOTUS should leave it up to the states to allow it, disallow it, control it, or whatever the people in the STATES feel is right for them.
I foresee a new religion coming on strong in the next few years... and a lot of currently non religious people will suddenly become quite convicted.
Oh, and as part of the weekly Friday AND Saturday evening services there will be a little marijuana handed out after the collection plate goes around to offer up as incense.
I agree, what a great reason to become "religous" if you are inclined to drugs.
If he was the Thomas-style originalist we were promised, he'd go even further than that.
Is it better to support any freedom and ignore illegal laws?
I don't see any legitimate way to rule against permitting it -- Catholics were permitted Communion wine when that was illegal, after all.
If one takes originalism to its logical conclusion, there isn't word one in the Constitution about drugs, legal or otherwise.
"...Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr...suggested that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act might require some concessions to religious groups that used otherwise-banned drugs." Since the Founders thought Congress was the most important branch of government, the Chief Justice is correct in at least considering the application of the Act to this case.
If it is a serious and established religion they should have freedom within their place of worship.
Actually, there is. Alcohol was banned by Amendment, giving us the Prohibition. It didn't take long to figure out that that was a Bad Idea. So, it was repealed, also by the Amendment process. But, soon thereafter, Congress invented the expansive definition of the commerce clause, and decided that a farmer feeding wheat to his own hogs "affected" interstate commerce and therefore could be banned. And in the same vein we now have bans of other drugs, machine guns, and a lot of other things, all without the Amendment process.
Is there really a ban on machine guns? I thought you just had to get a background check and buy a tax stamp that costs $200 or $250 per weapon or something like that. I have friend who collects weapons who has several of them and he says they are all legal. He's an attorney and he represented a guy recently though who went to prison for modifying a couple of assault rifles to make them fully automatic and making a silencer. You can't do that. The guy he represented had plenty of money and a clean record. He could have just went through the right procedures and bought machine guns if he had have wanted to but instead he's sitting in a federal prison right now. That's kind of a ridiculous thing to do to a tinkerer who isn't a threat to anyone.
They are banned from ordinary civilian possession, as your own post indicates - all the hoops. Ones made after 1986 cannot be registered at all, and can only be owned by "special occupational taxpayers," and of course military and JBTs. In any case, the justification for whatever federal laws exist pertaining to machine guns is that they have "traveled in, or affect" interstate commerce. Alito, for one, finds that reading of the Commerce Clause incorrect, and I agree with him. Thomas does too, as indicated by his dissent in Prinz - regarding home-grown pot, that is neither interstate (because it stays at home where it was grown), nor commerce (because it isn't bought or sold), and, unlike wheat, it mere existence can't even affect a legal market, because there is no legal market for pot.
Don't mean to get picky, but there is not. To repeal is to excise; to remove.
Article [XXI.]
Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
Legally speaking, what that means is the 18th amendment no longer exists.
In addition, alcohol is not legally classified as a drug as are marijuana, cocaine, herion, etc., and all the legal prescription and over-the-counter medications.
So to repeat: If one takes originalism to its logical conclusion, there isn't word one in the Constitution about drugs, legal or otherwise.
I see your point. The words have zero legal weight, but you have to admit you have to spend ink on them when printing copies of the Constitution.
Sure, but for the historical record only.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.