A California church that distributes hashish and psychedelic medicine for sacramental functions has filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Metropolis of Oakland and its police division, alleging {that a} 2020 raid violated federal protections for non secular freedom.
The authorized motion was filed in opposition to town and police by the Zide Door Church. The institution serves because the Oakland middle of worship for the Church of Ambrosia, “a nondenominational, interfaith non secular group that helps the use and protected entry” of sure pure psychedelic medicine often called entheogenic crops and fungi, based on the group’s web site. A minister carrying a gown emblazoned with hashish leaves leads the church’s providers, the place members are permitted to smoke hashish as a sacrament and pathway to connecting with the next energy.
To hitch the church, potential members are required to fill out a web-based questionnaire asking if the applicant is a member of legislation enforcement and in the event that they settle for hashish and psilocybin mushrooms as “a part of your faith.” As soon as admitted to the church, members will pay a $5 month-to-month membership payment that permits them to obtain hashish and psychedelic mushrooms for a donation to the church.
Earlier than the coronavirus pandemic started, the church would maintain providers on Sundays at 4:20, the place founder Dave Hodges would move out joints. The church opened in early 2019 and now has a complete of 60,000 members, based on Hodges. As much as 200 come every day to get hashish and psilocybin mushrooms.
Hashish has been authorized for adults in California since 2016, and in 2019 Oakland metropolis leaders voted to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms and different entheogenic crops and fungi, though gross sales aren’t permitted.
Lawsuit Over 2020 Raid
In August 2020, the Zide Door Church was raided by officers with the Oakland Police Division. Legislation enforcement officers entered the church and seized roughly $200,000 in hashish, mushrooms, and money. Police claimed the institution was working as an unlicensed dispensary relatively than a respectable place of worship. No prices had been filed within the case, however the money and medicines seized by police through the raid haven’t been returned to the church.
An affidavit filed with a search warrant served through the raid states that town obtained a grievance that the Zide Door Church was working as an unlicensed hashish dispensary in Could 2019. Two months later, an undercover police officer visited the church to develop into a member and subsequently exchanged money for hashish. Solely days later, the church was raided by police. Hodges was issued a nice and a warning, however nobody was taken into custody.
After the raid, critics had been skeptical that the church was a respectable place of worship, alleging that it was as an alternative a entrance to promote medicine. However Hodges insists that’s not the case.
The lawsuit filed in opposition to town and police argues that the raid and seizure violated constitutional ensures of non secular freedom. Within the authorized motion, the church particulars the “sacramental use” of hashish, psilocybin and different pure psychedelic medicine as a technique to join with “the next consciousness, their very own everlasting souls, religious beings and God.” Consuming psilocybin mushrooms will not be permitted on the web site, nevertheless.
“This isn’t simply an excuse to promote medicine,” Hodges told the San Francisco Chronicle. “That is what we actually imagine is the origin of all faith and actually what faith needs to be.”
The lawsuit argues that the raid violated the church’s “honest train of faith” in violation of federal legislation, in addition to the church’s proper to the free train of faith underneath the First Modification of the U.S. Structure.
The Oakland Police Division didn’t touch upon the lawsuit when requested by The Washington Submit. Metropolis Lawyer Barbara Parker instructed reporters town had not but been served with the authorized motion however declined to remark additional.
Jesse Choper, a legislation professional on the College of California at Berkeley, stated that the church’s non secular freedom argument would possibly prevail if the lawsuit goes to trial.
“If it’s not a sham enterprise,” he stated, “I might say the people who smoke received a fairly good case.”
However Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the College of California’s Berkeley College of Legislation, stated the church will not be more likely to succeed with its protection that non secular freedom exempts it from state drug legal guidelines.
“The overall rule is that there isn’t a exception to legal guidelines for non secular beliefs,” he said. “Assuming that the California legislation applies to everybody and doesn’t have discretion to grant exceptions, then there’s not a foundation for difficult it primarily based on faith.”