https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/375/huascacase.shtml

In one of his first acts as US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales has asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a series of federal court rulings allowing a New Mexico church to use an hallucinogenic tea known as ayahuasca in its rituals. Ayahuasca is both illegal and potentially dangerous, the government argued.

In November, the full US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld two previous rulings blocking the federal government from interfering in the religious practices of the US branch of the Brazilian church, the Union of the Vegetable (UDV). The case began in 1999, when US Customs agents raided the church's US headquarters in Santa Fe, NM, and seized 30 gallons of ayahuasca, a tea brewed from two plants found in the Amazon. But Customs picked on the wrong people. The US branch of the UDV is headed by Seagram's whiskey fortune heir Jeffrey Bronfman, who promptly sued for relief claiming violations of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Bronfman and the church have won every time in court on the issue.

In an early hint the Bush administration was prepared to continue to fight the case, US Solicitor General Paul Greenburg in early December asked for and won a temporary injunction from the Supreme Court blocking the church from using its sacrament until -- and if -- the case made its way to the nation's highest court (The Supreme Court overturned that injunction two weeks later.). With his February 10 announcement, Gonzales has made it official.

In a filing seeking Supreme Court review of the case, the Justice Department attacked the 10th Circuit's ruling and reasoning. "The court's decision has mandated that the federal government open the nation's borders to the importation, circulation and usage of a mind-altering hallucinogen and threatens to inflict irreparable harm on international cooperation in combating transnational narcotics trafficking," the filing said.

If the high court agrees to take the case, it will not be heard until the next term.

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