VIERA (Florida Today) — A Brevard County jury today convicted a 53-year-old man, who said he uses marijuana for religious and health purposes, of illegally harvesting more than 100 of the plants in his Palm Bay home.

It took a jury 14 minutes to convict self-proclaimed minister Steven Swallick following a two-day trial.

Swallick faces up to 10 years in prison following a conviction on one count each of possession and manufacturing of marijuana. He also was convicted on one misdemeanor count of larceny with relation to a utility fixture for tampering with electrical wiring in his home.

Circuit Judge Jim Earp wouldn’t let him testify about his use of marijuana for religious purposes.

But as part of a motion asking the judge to allow the evidence, Swallick testified outside of the jury’s presence that he is affiliated with the Hawaiian Cannabis Ministries, which mandates use of the drug.

This Hawaiian Cannabis Ministry will sell to you and anyone who logs on a “Sanctuary Kit” for just $250.  This kit allegedly “provides you with proof of your legitimacy as a religious practitioner of Cannabis Sacrament.”  They claim it provides a “successful religious defense to prosecution”.

Looks like it didn’t work for Rev. Swallick.  Even if Judge Earp did allow Swallick’s religious testimony, if wouldn’t work and hasn’t worked for plenty who have tried.  I wonder how much of Swallick’s and others’ $250 donations to the ministry will come back in the form of legal defense funds for an appeal?

I am all for religious use of cannabis and I believe many people’s sincerity when they call it a sacrament.  I don’t think anyone should be arrested or locked up for any use of cannabis, whether you think it’s holy or whether you just think it’s gnarly, dude.  But all the “it’s my religion” claim is ever going to get you in an American court is a nice quiet cell and plenty of time to read your holy book.  I’m not saying that’s right, I’m just saying that’s the facts.  Point to precedents over ayahuasca and peyote all you like, but no court is going to allow cannabis as sacrament because doing so undermines government’s compelling duty to protect the citizenry from the “evils” of legal weed.

Only full legalization for all people, even healthy atheists, is going to provide patients and practitioners their right to access legal medicine and sacrament.

(Arizona Daily Star) PHOENIX — The state’s interest in banning marijuana outweighs the religious beliefs of an individual that he is entitled to use the drug anywhere, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled today.

In a unanimous opinion, the justices said state law permits the government to “burden the exercise of religion” only if it shows a compelling interest and that the restrictions are the “least restrictive means of furthering that interest.” And Daniel Hardesty conceded to the court that there is some governmental interest in the regulation of marijuana.

But Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch said that, given the claim by Hardesty that his membership in the Church of Cognizance allows him to use marijuana anywhere and anytime — including driving — it is clear that the “least restrictive means” of the government to further its interests in protecting the public is an outright ban.

Today’s ruling, however, does not foreclose the possibility that the state’s high court might not conclude that some other religious use of marijuana is acceptable.

Berch pointed out that courts have allowed users of peyote to use federal laws to shield them from prosecution against state drug laws. She said, though, there is “an obvious difference” between the situations.

“Members of the Native American Church assert only the religious right to use peyote in limited sacramental rights,” the chief justice wrote. “Hardesty asserts the right to use marijuana whenever he pleases, including while driving.”

Today’s ruling is the second defeat in two years for members of the Church of Cognizance.

Last year a Graham County couple that claims to have founded the religion in the early 1990s were found guilty of possession and conspiracy with intent to distribute marijuana after being stopped with 172 pounds of marijuana in their vehicle near Las Cruces, N.M. A federal judge in New Mexico rejected their religious freedom arguments.

Dan Quaintance was sentenced to five years in prison; his wife, Mary, was sentenced to two to three years.

A friend of mine is an amazing trial lawyer here in town and he and I discussed these religious use arguments. He thinks that a federal religious use case for marijuana can be made and won under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but to date, the people attempting to use a religious defense haven’t had a leg to stand on in court.  “It can’t just be somebody from The Church of I Like To Smoke Pot All The Time, or The Church of I Like to Sell Pot, or The Church of I Just Got Caught With A Hundred Pounds of Pot in My Trunk,” he tells me.  “I need a seriously devout, older, black Rastafarian (sorry, white kid with dreads won’t cut it, don’t mean to be racist, but appearances matter in court), with a verifiable record of practicing his faith over the long haul, busted on federal land (like, say, a national forest), caught by a forest ranger for holding less than an ounce of ganja , who’ll be enough of a dick to arrest and prosecute this older black Rastafarian for an amount that’s decriminalized under state law on federal charges and not just make him dump it.  Oh, and who has enough money to finance the appeals all the way to the Supreme Court.”

“No problem,” I answered, “I’ll put the call out to all the devout and rich black Rastafarian hikers I know.”

You know how I feel; I think all adults should be allowed to use pot whenever and whyever they feel like it, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others.  But the problem with framing the religious use argument is that you’re forced to engage on a rhetorical battlefield where historical precedent does not bode well for the marijuana smoker.

For example, many religious users refer to ganja as a “sacrament”.  That term, then, puts ganja on the same playing field as the Catholic use of communion wine.  When people think of communion, they think of a ceremony and a ritual and the ingestion of a tiny amount of wine as a symbolic gesture*.  They don’t think of all wine everywhere drank anytime as something sacred.  So when people hear of the guy who wants to smoke pot all the time and call it “religious use” or the guy caught with 172 pounds of pot for “religious use”, the “sacrament” frame turns that kind of pot use into an abuse akin to an alcoholic with a barrel of MD 20/20 in the trunk of his car.

“Sacrament” derives from “sacred” and refers to something that confers a higher connection with the spiritual realm.  So it is difficult for folks that think of sacraments as a once-a-week ritualistic practice to think of multiple daily smoking of ganja right out of the blue with no ceremonies or rituals as “sacred”.  It’s like that line from Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average.

Mind you, I’m just telling you how it looks to the average citizen on a jury or a judge.  Personally, I totally understand the sacredness of the herb and even as an irreligious person I believe the bond between humans and cannabis is as special as that between humans and dogs or horses.

*I’m told that to Catholics, transubstantiation is far from merely “symbolic”.  Forgive me.

ECHO PARK, Calif. (KABC) — For the third time in a week, the Los Angeles Police Department has raided a medical marijuana facility.

Police arrested three people during the raid Thursday night at the Royal Temple of Zion in Echo Park.

Authorities say the facility has not applied for a hardship permit like all the other medical marijuana dispensaries, so selling the marijuana is illegal. About two pounds of marijuana were seized.

Oh my gosh!  A whole two pounds of marijuana!  Here in Oregon, that’s 2/3rds the amount of medical marijuana two registered patients may possess.  Even at ridiculously-inflated black-market-dictated California dispensary prices that’s less than $10,000 worth of marijuana.  I wonder how much it costs the city of Los Angeles to execute and prosecute such a raid?  Wanna bet it’s more than $10,000?

Those associated with the temple say it is a Rastafarian ministry, and it has the legal right to sell marijuana to the sick.

“This is a church run medical marijuana club providing medical marijuana for sick people, but we do it as a church,” said Pastor Craig Rubin.

Pastor Rubin believes police are targeting those that have been vocal about legalizing the drug.

Pastor Rubin, as you may remember, is the man who was offering patients a free eighth ounce of marijuana if they would come testify at the LA PLUM hearings two weeks ago.

“They seem to be particularly picking out people who have applied for these hardships who speak out,” said Pastor Rubin.

Members say because this is a place of worship they have not done anything illegal.

“It’s because we believe a cannabis from Revelations 22 is a plant for the healing of all nations and that people should have access to this plant. It’s not only benign, it’s benevolent,” said Pastor Rubin.

Yes, and I believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster brought forth cannabis from his noodly appendages to give to humanity so they may savor His Succulent Meatballs, so I shouldn’t be arrested for my pot smoking, either.

Sorry, I know many reading this have sincere religious beliefs and some have sincere beliefs that treat ganja as sacrament, but as an atheist I continue to be offended by the notion that because I treat all books as written works of men, not gods, I deserve to be arrested and jailed for my use of cannabis.  I completely support the right of religious folks to use ganja because I completely support the inalienable right of ALL folks to use cannabis, but when religious folks think they have a special and unique right to not be arrested for cannabis because they picked the right god, they are discriminating against me for my lack of a god.

Religion is not a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.  We don’t let certain religious folks get away with abusively beating their kids because some book says “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” We don’t let certain religious folks get away with marrying ten virgin brides because some book says “And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.” We don’t let certain religious folks get away with murdering people because some book says “And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.”

Yes, we do have a First Amendment that prohibits Congress from enacting laws suppressing religion, but that is tempered by the compelling interest of the state in maintaining secular law.  To date, that has meant that certain religions get to use Schedule I ayahuasca and peyote, but not cannabis:

(Erowid) First, it is important to understand a little about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court changed the legal standard by which First Amendment religious cases were decided with regard to “laws of general applicability”. For laws that apply generally and are not intended to ban a particular religious practice, there are Constitutional questions about what the US Government can and can’t do. Just because someone claims that their religion requires that they drive faster than the speed limits, the generally applicable laws regarding traffic safety still apply to those members of the fanciful “100 Mile-Per-Hour Church”.

(RFRA) Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it determines that application of the burden to the person
1. is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
2. is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

While the RFRA tests have not been applied at the Supreme Court level, they were considered in a Hawai’i case in which the state supreme court rejected the appellant’s claim that his religious use of cannabis was protected under RFRA and the First Amendment:

(Hawaii: State v. Sunderland) The government’s ability to enforce generally applicable prohibitions of socially harmful conduct, like its ability to carry out other aspects of public policy, “cannot depend on measuring the effects of a governmental action on a religious objector’s spiritual development.” Lyng[ v. Nw. Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n, 485 U.S. 439, 451 (1988)]. To make an individual’s obligation to obey such a law contingent upon the law’s coincidence with his religious beliefs, except where the State’s interest is “compelling”–permitting him, by virtue of his beliefs, “to become a law unto himself,” Reynolds[, 98 U.S. at 167]–contradicts both constitutional tradition and common sense.

The closest the federal courts have come to ruling on this is the Guerrero case in the Ninth Circuit out of Guam, but the court had only to address Guerrero’s importation of marijuana, not his religious use of it:

(Cognitive Liberty) After litigating the case for more than ten years, the Ninth Circuit ruled on Tuesday that while the Religious Freedom Restoration Act might protect some Rastafarians who possess or smoke marijuana as part of their religious practices, it does not protect the importation of marijuana, even if that marijuana was intended for religious use. According to the Ninth Circuit, while the practice of Rastafarianism sanctions the smoking of marijuana, nowhere does the religion sanction the importation of marijuana.

Basically the government’s argument is that ayahuasca and peyote are used by so few both religiously and recreationally that letting a few First Peoples use them religiously doesn’t substantially burden the government from stopping others from using them recreationally.  But cannabis use is so prevalent that the minute you let some people use it religiously, everybody who uses it recreationally will suddenly find religion and that substantially burdens the government from keeping people from using cannabis recreationally.

In other words, Rastafarians are punished for their god picking too popular of a sacrament.

Native American Church Sues DEA over Sacramental Use of Cannabis — July 22, 2009 — Honolulu, Hawaii

The OKLEVUEHA NATIVE AMERICAN CHURCH OF HAWAII filed for an injunction in Federal Court that would allow its members to continue to use Cannabis as a ceremonial sacrament. The Plaintiffs are seeking an Order declaring their consumption, cultivation, possession and distribution of Cannabis to be free from federal penalty. Currently the Federal Government is prohibited from preventing members of The Oklevueha Native American Church from using the entheogenic cactus Peyote, and The Church is now seeking the same religious freedom for its members’ religious use of Cannabis.

Church President and named Plaintiff MICHAEL REX “RAGING BEAR” MOONEY is a Native American Spiritual Leader (commonly known as a Medicine Man). Mr. Mooney and The Church are suing ERIC H. HOLDER, JR. (Attorney General for the United States of America), MICHELE LEONHART (Acting Administrator of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration) and EDWARD H. KUBO, JR., (United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii). According to the Plaintiff’s attorney, Michael A. Glenn, “the federal government is required (by the American Indian Religious Freedom Act) to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise their religion, including the use and possession of sacred substances, and the freedom to worship through ceremonies and rites.”

Good luck with that.  I support the religious use of cannabis, however, I support everyone’s use of cannabis and I don’t think you need to find it holy to have the right to use it.

In previous attempts to sue for this right, the courts have ruled that letting some Indians use obscure drugs like peyote or ayahuasca is OK, because allowing that exception does not substantially burden the government from enforcement of laws that prohibit peyote and ayahuasca for others, because so few people outside the religious users use those drugs.  But they’ve also ruled that letting some Indians use the most popular drug, cannabis, is not OK, because allowing that exception would substantially burden the government from enforcement of laws that prohibit cannabis for others, because so many people outside the religious users use that drug.

Basically, that means if your holy sacrament is really popular for non-holy uses, you don’t get your First Amendment religious rights.  It’s the government’s way of telling you your God was wrong about that plant, pick a less popular, much more psychotropic hallucinogenic one.

Let’s see to it that the world hears Eddy’s story! Create an account and “vote up” this video so that it will appear on the international cable channel Current TV.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It has been my experience as typical American church-going Christian that our religious right haven’t embraced Marijuana, and they take a stance contrary to the religious teachings of the Kings James or Living Bible.

In spite of condemnation from hard line conservatives, this isn’t the case of Illinois Reverend Al Sharp, executive director of Chicago-based Protestants for the Common Good.

Along with more than 60 religious leaders in Illinois, Reverend Sharp is taking a bold stance contrary to mainstream religion by calling on state senators this week to pass a bill that would allow patients to use medical marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation and without criminal consequences.

“Jesus lived his life healing those where he could, this [request] is entirely consistent with that.”

In a list provided by the article, many local religious organizations and leaders support the Medical Marijuana bill.

Denominations that officially support medical marijuana include the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Union for Reform Judaism, Unitarian Universalist Association, Episcopal Church, and United Church of Christ.

A decision on the bill expected by Thursday. If passed, the legislation would create a three-year pilot program allowing the state Department of Public Health to give registry identification cards to people with doctors’ recommendations for Marijuana. Eligible patients would be entitled to seven cannabis plants and 2 ounces of dried usable cannabis.

These events bring together two very important elements; The Conservative Christian Right is starting to realize that “Reefer Madness” is nothing more than an empty hat, and their realization is happening in our President’s home state of Illinois!

Mr. President, are you still laughing?

From the Chicago Tribune.

One very observant Stasher sent me in this screenshot from a website called “ChristianForums.com”. This appears to be an online bulletin board where people can discuss everything and anything about Christianity.

Actually, I've been 420 for quite some time now...

As our Stasher began to fill out the registration form to begin posting on the forum, it presented one of those “Captcha” anti-spam features designed to prove you’re a human and not an automated robot registering on the site.  These features present two graphic depictions of common words and the human has to re-type them in order to complete the registration.

Click the picture for the full-size screenshot.  To register on the Christian Forum, the pass code was newly 4:20.  Either God or Captcha has one helluva sense of humor.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. /California Newswire/ — Craig Rubin, candidate for mayor in the City of Los Angeles, is certainly happy that Michael Phelps is not going to be prosecuted, but is still organizing an international boycott against Kellogg’s. He is even happier that marijuana seems to be the subject d’jour the month before the L.A. Mayoral election. Rubin, who recently has become a fixture on Los Angeles television and radio, is the off-beat candidate challenging the current mayor in “The City of Angels.” As can be seen on his appearance on the number one rated morning show in Southern California, “Good Day L.A.” starring Steve Edwards, Dorothy Lucey and Jillian Barberie where the focus seemed to drift like smoke toward the cannabis plant.

Rubin has a busy schedule reaching out to churches, speaking at neighborhood council meetings and attending local debates with the other candidates. He and the other candidates have gotten to know each other fairly well, showing up at all the local events while the current mayor has yet to be even photographed with the other candidates.

The candidate has pledged to protect medical marijuana clubs when elected mayor of the city. “I always knew we could win if medical marijuana could pass, but now we are beginning to see others who believe in my candidacy too. I think we are going to shock the mayor,” say Rubin.

More information on Craig X Rubin for Mayor: www.craigx4mayor.org

OTTAWA — Researchers say they have located the world’s oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.

The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly “cultivated for psychoactive purposes,” rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

The 789 grams of dried cannabis was buried alongside a light-haired, blue-eyed Caucasian man, likely a shaman of the Gushi culture, near Turpan in northwestern China.

The marijuana was found to have a relatively high content of THC, the main active ingredient in cannabis, but the sample was too old to determine a precise percentage.

2,700 years of humans using cannabis, 70 years of cannabis prohibition.  What has happened to cannabis in the past seventy years to make it so dangerous to the species that’s used it for millennia?  Sounds like the ancient Chinese had the “skunk” – why is it modern man can’t have it again?