Man claims religious use of cannabis, court disagrees
The Sentinel Online : News : Local
Of his arrest with a quarter-pound of marijuana in 1984, Robert George Henry said, “I pleaded guilty because it was the easy way out.”But when he was stopped in Cumberland County on Oct. 10, 2007, the 48-year-old Franklin County resident decided not to take that route. Instead, he appeared before Cumberland County President Judge Edgar Bayley Wednesday, testifying that smoking marijuana was part of his religion.
His attempt to have the charges against him dismissed did not succeed.
“I come to the belief that me smoking cannabis helps me connect with my Lord and what he wants me to do with my life,” Henry said. He starts every day with pot and prayer, he said.
Henry said he learned about The Hawaii Cannabis Ministry, which claims the sacramental use of cannabis as a cornerstone of its religion, in December 2007 and became a member on Jan. 14, 2008.
On Jan. 15, he said, he was ordained as a minister of the Universal Life Church of Modesto, Calif., which he said gives him “the ability to start my own church.”
Part of his religion, he said, involved growing his own marijuana organically. He had just picked up the last of his own marijuana and smoked a pipe before police stopped him in October, he said, but the arrest put an end to all that.
But Henry’s attorney, George N. Marros, said he had expected the decision.
“No common pleas court judge would rule on such a serious issue like this,” Marros said. At Henry’s pre-trial conference on May 6, he said, he plans to ask for a bench trial on the case, then take it to the Superior Court.
“That’s what the Superior Court is there for,” he said.
There are many people out there who are sincerely using cannabis for spiritual purposes, as humans have done since the beginnings of civilization. The government tries to pigeonhole sacramental cannabis users as being “insincere” and decisions about religious use of drugs are often biased and contradictory. Members of certain indigenous tribes may use certain hallucinogens under 1st Amendment religious protections, but your everyday American who meditates or prays with marijuana isn’t afforded the same protection.
Tags: Pennsylvania
July 9th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
WHAT MAKES THIS SO? As an American with the supposed right to religion why must you be from a tribe? I believe in cannabis for medical and spiritual purposes and who is to tell me i am insincere? no one but the GOD i worship can judge me and if I was taken to a court of MANS LAW I would say so even if i was found to be guilty in the EYES OF MAN I would never let it lye! as all children of ” CREATOR ” who use the herb would support this and would not stand for it with the internet how long do you think it would take to start a revolution ? Im serious ! YOU ALL SIT BEHIND YOUR DESKS and judge us according to your lawsas you PAVE THE PATH TO HELL! But MOTHER EARTH will have her say in the end and father time will be no more, you can not put my soul behind bars only my physical body TILL I DIE AND RETURN TO HE ORIGINAL DREAMER I BELIEVE IN THE PLANTS CREATOR MADE AS YOU AL TEAR THEM DOWN AND TURN YOUR HEA TO WHAT THEY CAN DO. LIES LIES LIES LIEs is what you spread to get the tax act and WHOMEVER believes this does not hear the the voice of GOD ITS All about money to you! MURDER of WITCHES for using HERBS to heal was a sin and you walk in the blood you spilt and stand for. In the end we will be judged by the weight of a feather and so shall you fall to your knees as you support the destructive nature of this EARTH! I am a tribe of my own in modern society who are you to say what is real to me in my heart? I AM AMERICAN, MY FAMILY CAME BY WAGON. I SEE CREATOR IN NATURE AND WILL NOT FALL TO MAN!
July 25th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
According to international law, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Cannabis use for religious/spiritual reasons IS legal. See Art. 18 UDHR. The use for Spiritual reasons is well documented all over the world and dates back for thousands of years, every cultural anthropologist with expertise on this issue can testify to that. It is not new, it has always been there in most cultures including most of the the European cultures, the American ancestors. NORML should support religious use and demand that the laws are obeyed by the US government. Cannabis for religious use IS legal!
July 25th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
NORML does support the religious use of cannabis. NORML supports any responsible adult’s personal use of cannabis for whatever reason — spiritual, medical, industrial, or social.
What we do not support is selling people a kit for $250 that claims to provide a “get out of jail free card” for American cannabis consumers, under the guise that this certified religious use is going to keep them unprosecuted and out of an American state or federal prison, when all precedent and evidence suggest otherwise.
Speaking for myself (and not NORML), I find it ridiculous that one cannabis consumer should be exempted for use because he believes in unprovable cosmological assertions, but the cannabis consumer who prefers to stick to the rational, provable cosmological assertions should be jailed. If cannabis use is a religious right, then it is an inherent human right to alter consciousness, regardless of one’s particular belief in creation myths.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:21 am
although I completely agree with russ the UDHR doesn’t and I feel that being a free country with suposed freedom of religious practice should at least acknowledge nato’s article as a logical attempt to uphold the rights of the people and to do otherwise is contradictary to every thing the US claims to stand for.