cannabisnews.com: Court OKs Use of Religious Pot on Federal Lands





Court OKs Use of Religious Pot on Federal Lands
Posted by CN Staff on June 06, 2002 at 12:45:19 PT
Editorial
Source: Daily Camera 
If you're a Rastafarian who considers marijuana holy, it's legal to light up in Guam and maybe in any national park on the West Coast. At least that seemed to be the conclusion of a federal appeals court in San Francisco, which said this week that a 1993 religious-freedom law puts limits on prosecutions in the "federal realm" specifically in a U.S. territory like Guam, or potentially within any other federal property. 
A three-judge panel said a Rastafarian whose Jamaica-based religion regards marijuana as a sacrament that brings believers closer to divinity could not be federally prosecuted for merely possessing marijuana, a decision that upheld a portion of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The same reasoning would apply to drug prosecutions on other federal property, such as national parks, said Barry Portman, the federal public defender in San Francisco. He said marijuana possession for personal use is prohibited by federal law but is rarely prosecuted. The ruling did not help the defendant in the Guam case, however, as the court said he could be prosecuted for importing marijuana. "Rastafarianism does not require importation of a controlled substance, which increases its availability," the court said. That distinction doesn't make sense, said Graham Boyd, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued the case and plans to seek review by a larger appellate panel. "It's equivalent to saying wine is a necessary sacrament for some Christians but you have to grow your own grapes," he said. The religious freedom law protects religious practices from legal interference unless the government can show a compelling need for enforcement. It was prompted by a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing Oregon to enforce an anti-drug law against a Native American who used peyote for religious purposes. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal statute was an unconstitutional interference with states' authority to enforce their own religiously neutral laws but that ruling applied only to state prosecutions. On Tuesday the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the 1993 law was a valid restriction on the federal government, reasoning that Congress had the power to create religious exemptions to laws it had originally passed. The ruling, which follows decisions by two other appeals courts, applies to California, eight other Western states, and the Pacific territories of Guam where the case originated and the Northern Mariana islands. If it became a nationwide standard, it would also cover such federal enclaves as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, defense lawyers said. The case involved Benny Toves Guerrero, a Rastafarian arrested at the Guam airport with five ounces of marijuana and 10 ounces of seeds. He was charged with importing the drugs from Hawaii. Source: Daily Camera (CO)Published: June 1, 2002Copyright: 2002 The Daily Camera.Contact: openforum thedailycamera.comWebsite: http://www.thedailycamera.com/Related Articles & Web Site:ACLUhttp://www.aclu.org/ Rastafarians Hit It Big in Pot Fight http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13006.shtmlCourt OKs Use of Religious Pot on Federal Lands http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12983.shtmlU.S. Hears Guam Marijuana Casehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11290.shtmlJamaican Plan To Legalise Use of Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10779.shtml 
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