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The Grass Case: Defense for the Religious Use of Marihuana Submitted to the United States Supreme Court. Stephen [Gaskin] and the Farm Legal Crew. The book Publishing Co. 1974. original price $1. photocopy.
| The Entheogen Law Reporter Issue #9 - Winter 1995 ISSN 1074-8040
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- Miami Herald - 12-05-95 - Associated Press - Fort Pierce, Flordia - A judge has ruled that hallucinogenic mushrooms are not illegal because the law forbidding possession of the mind-expaning drug does not cover the fungus that produces it. Jeff Garland a Fort Pierce lawyer, pesuaded a St. Lucie County Circuit judge last week to throw out a mushroom charge against his client, citing a little-known Supreme Court decision. Garland said a 17-year old Florida Supreme Court ruling says that mere possession of the mushrooms is not unlawful. The high court, he said, ruled that the law prohibiting possession of psilocybin, a powerful hallucinogen, does not cover the fungus that yields it. Garland said the decision was indexed incorrectly in the Southern Reporter, the reference book that records all Supreme Court cases. "I stumbled across it when I was looking for something else," Garland said. "I just tucked it away, waiting for the day I'd need it." Psilocybin has been illegal since 1975. Since then, police have been arresting people possessing mushrooms, based on the psilocybin statute. The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that the "statute failed to advise a person of ordinary common intelligence that such substance was contained in a particular species of mushroom." The high court explained how the statues could be rewritten to apply to mushrooms, suggesting that it include the scientific name of the fungus. But 18 years later, the statues remains unchanged. "It would be a stretch of the imagination to say that the reason that the defendant trespassed on property and began to pick mushrooms from cow manure was to expand the color of his dinner salad." wrote prosecutor Tony Schwab in his memo to the court. But Circuit Judge Cynthia Angelos, citing the high court ruling, threw the case out. A sheriff's spokesman, Mark Weinberg, said 15 of the 17 people arrested on psilocybin charges also were charged with trespassing. |
| The Entheogen Law Reporter Issue No. Three - Summer 1994 pp.16-27:
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| Federal Anti-Drug Laws May Violate Commerce Clause excerpt from: The Entheogen Law Reporter - Issue Eight, Fall 1995, Page 72 |
| The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 is the law that established the federal scheduling system for "narcotic" or "dangerous drugs. In enacting the federal law, Congress asserted that it was acting entirely within its power to regulate interstate commerce. (See TELR #6, page 57 for a verbatim quote from the Act itself explaining Congress' weak reasoning in this regard.) Previous legal attacks aimed at showing that the federal drugs law was not authorized by the Commerce Clause have all been rejected under Supreme Court precedent which has historically permitted Congress broad powers in this area [1]. However, [...] "the law" is ever changing and presents few bright lines. A new case can entirely dismantle decades of line-drawing and statutory or constitutional interpretation. Just such a case was recently decided by the United States Supreme Court, calling into question the constitutionality of the federal anti-drug law. In United States v. Lopez[2], decided on April 26, 1995, the Supreme Court struck down the federal law which made it a crime to possess a gun within 1000 feet of a school [3].This was the Supreme Court directly telling the Congress that it had overstepped it's powers. The gun law, said the Court, was only tangentially related to interstate commerce and, hence, would not be justified under the Commerce Clause. Interstate commerce, found the Court, was not "substantially affected" by someone possessing a gun near a school. Commenting on the Lopez decision, constitutional law scholar, Erwin Chemerinsky, recently questioned whether many federal drug laws might be vulnerable to a renewed attack on the ground that they do not fall withing the Commerce Clause and, hence, are outside Congress' regulatory power. Discussing the potential wide-spread ramifications of Lopez, Professor Chemerinsky explained: The majority's narrow definition of Congress' powers gives the Court a basis for striking down countless federal laws. For example, many federal drug laws might be vulnerable because they regulate activities that are only tangentially related to interstate commerce. Likewise Lopez can be used to challenge federal RICO prosecutions where there is not a strong relationship between the activity and interstate commerce.... The Lopez decision opens a door to constitutional challenges that appeared to have been closed almost 60 years ago. [4] Notes: [1] In a 1964 opinion, the Court stated, "the authority of Congress to keep the channels of interstate commerce free from immoral and injurious uses had been frequently sustained, and is no longer open to question." Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. U.S. (1964) 379 U.S.241,256[85 S.Ct.348,13,L.Ed.2d 258].) [2]U.S. v Lopez (1995) 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 636. [3]Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1990; 18 U.S.C. sec 992(q)(1)(a) & 921(a)(25). [4]Chemerinsky, E. "Interpreting the Constitution: A Dramatic Conservative Turn" in August 9-16, 1995 Res Ipsa 11. |
| An abbreviated excerpt from Sacred Mushrooms and The Law The Religious Freedom Restoration Act On April 17,1990, the United States Supreme Court issued a stunning opinion,effectively demolishing the Free Exercize Clause of the First Amendment. The Smith decision was widely criticized and led Congress to enact the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA). The RFRA expressly provides: (a) In GeneralThe government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b) of this section.(b)ExceptionThe government may substantially burden a person's excercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person -(1) is in the furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling government interest. Employment Div. Dept. of Human Resources v. Smith (1990) 494 U.S. 872 [108 L. Ed. 2d 876, 100 S.Ct. 1595] Religious Freedom Restoration Act: 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000bb, PL 103-141 107 Stat. 1488 |