At a summit hosted by the U.S. Justice Department on July 31, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced he would be creating a \u201cReligious Liberty Task Force\u201d to \u201chelp the department fully implement our religious guidance.<\/p>\n
Seeming to refer to secular values, Sessions stated in the\u00a0announcement<\/a>: \u201cA dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom. There can be no doubt. This is no little matter. It must be confronted and defeated.\u201d<\/p>\n He also invoked the unlikely specter of \u201cnuns\u2026 being forced to buy contraceptives,\u201d in what the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0generously called a \u201cnot fully accurate\u201d reference to Obama-era policies ensuring that faith-based groups\u2019 employee health plans cover birth control. But what about sacramental cannabis smokers, forced to stamp out their joints?<\/p>\n First, it\u2019s worth noting that the notion of \u201creligious guidance\u201d for law enforcement primarily sets off alarm bells for many those who see a potential for transgressing the First Amendment\u2019s separation of church and state. Human rights groups, including the\u00a0Human Rights Campaign<\/a>, warned the task force could also threaten abortion and LGBT rights.<\/p>\n The liberal\u00a0Center for American Progress<\/a>\u00a0warns that the task force is \u201cpromoting discrimination,\u201d and will mean \u201creligious liberty for a select few.\u201d\u00a0Vox<\/a>\u00a0calls the task force a step toward \u201cChristian nationalism,\u201d and notes that Sessions\u00a0used the Bible verse Romans 13<\/a>\u00a0to justify separating migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border. And\u00a0Stephen Colbert quipped<\/a>\u00a0that the stated goal of protecting religious groups from persecution \u201ccould put a real kink in their Muslim ban.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Colbert\u2019s quip could be more revealing than he knew: Jeff Sessions is just asking for his opponents to call him out on hypocrisy with this task force mandate. The religious freedom task force has its origins in a May 2017\u00a0Executive Order<\/a>\u00a0issued by President Trump, calling upon the attorney general to develop a \u201creligious liberty guidance.\u201d That guidance was written up in a\u00a0memorandum<\/a>\u00a0issued by Sessions on Oct. 6, 2017. And it contains some surprises.<\/p>\n In the relevant case law on the free exercise of religion that Sessions references in the memo, he takes himself into territory pretty far afield from anything that might be termed \u201cChristian nationalism.\u201d In fact, some of the case law he references could feasibly be interpreted to defend someone\u2019s religious right to use cannabis.<\/p>\n One case his memo cites repeatedly is the 1993 case\u00a0Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah<\/em><\/a>. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the right of Santeria practitioners to conduct animal sacrifices, striking down the efforts by a Florida municipality to ban the practice.\u00a0Santeria\u00a0is the Afro-Caribbean religion based on the indigenous African animist tradition of\u00a0Yoruba, still practiced in Nigeria today.<\/p>\n The memo also makes note that Congress \u201chas provided statutory exemptions for American Indians\u2019 use of otherwise regulated articles such as bald eagle feathers and peyote as part of traditional religious practice.\u201d<\/p>\n The laws in question here are the\u00a0American Indian Religious Freedom Act<\/a>\u00a0of 1978 and the\u00a0Religious Freedom Restoration Act<\/a>\u00a0of 1993. As the\u00a0National Constitution Center<\/a>\u00a0notes, the latter law has been something of a double-edged sword. It was passed to protect followers of the\u00a0Native American Church<\/a>\u00a0from employment discrimination for their use of peyote. But it was also invoked by the Supreme Court in the 2014\u00a0Hobby Lobby decision<\/a>, which found that employers may exclude contraceptives from their health plans on religious grounds.<\/p>\n Could there similarly be unintended consequences \u2014 but in a more liberal direction \u2014 for Sessions\u2019 new task force? Sessions has a notoriously\u00a0harsh anti-cannabis position<\/a>. But his own memo invokes a constitutional right to use of an otherwise banned psychoactive substance, peyote, in the context of religious practice. Can this principle also apply to cannabis?<\/p>\n Yoseph Leib, author of\u00a0Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs<\/a>, told Cannabis Now that he believes Sessions\u2019 arguments could actually be used to defend the religious use of cannabis.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any question of the historical role of marijuana in all ecstatic religion,\u201d Leib told Cannabis Now. \u201cAnd that includes the early Abrahamic religions. It was there in the breadbasket of Persia and Lebanon, and there are references to it in scripture.\u201d<\/p>\n Leib is among the scholars who believe that the\u00a0kaneh bosm<\/i>\u00a0(\u201csweet cane\u201d in Hebrew)\u00a0mentioned in Exodus<\/a>\u00a0and elsewhere in the Old Testament is actually referring to cannabis, and the King James Version rendering of the word as \u201ccalamus<\/a>\u201d is a mistranslation \u2014 perhaps intentional.<\/p>\n Leib also believes that the early\u00a0Hasidic movement<\/a>\u00a0of 18th century Poland revived this biblical-era tradition and that the\u00a0lulke<\/em>\u00a0(water-pipe) traditionally used by early Hasids after the weekly Sabbath actually contained cannabis. And, with a sense of revealing a kind of cultural secret, he adds, \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly popular in the Hasidic community today.\u201d<\/p>\n He notes a contemporary tradition among many Hasids of giving out cannabis edibles at\u00a0kiddush<\/a>,<\/em> the Friday night meal that ushers in the Sabbath.<\/p>\n \u201cCannabis has apparently been there the whole time,\u201d Leib says, referring to the long sweep of Jewish history.<\/p>\n Cannabis received some official recognition in Jewish religious law when Israel\u2019s leading Orthodox authority, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, issued a ruling in 2016 that\u00a0cannabis is kosher for Passover<\/a>. And the\u00a0Orthodox Union<\/a>, the body that sets such standards for America\u2019s half-million Orthodox Jews, that same year issued\u00a0kosher certification for cannabis products<\/a>\u00a0available under the New York state medical marijuana program.<\/p>\n And there is actually some U.S. case law about spiritual use of cannabis \u2014 although not very favorable. The\u00a0Oklevueha Native American Church<\/a>\u00a0has long waged legal battles for its right to sacramental cannabis use. Its bid to be exempted from the marijuana laws under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was\u00a0turned down by the Supreme Court<\/a>\u00a0in 2016. But this was after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco\u00a0ruled that their case had enough merit to proceed<\/a>, at least.<\/p>\n In addition to Rastafarians, there are other spiritual traditions from around the world, now well-represented in the United States, with an open practice of ritual cannabis use. India has laws permitting the use of\u00a0bhang\u00a0for the Hindu festivals of\u00a0Holi<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Shivaratri<\/a>.<\/p>\n At a minimum, the Religious Liberty Task Force may provide an opportunity for advocates to call the Trump White House and Sessions Justice Department out on their contradictions \u2014 and win further cultural acceptance of cannabis.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>,\u00a0do you think religious freedom includes the right to consume cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Will Jeff Sessions\u2019s Religious Liberty Task Force Protect Sacramental Cannabis Use?<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
At a summit hosted by the U.S. Justice Department on July 31, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced he would be creating a \u201cReligious Liberty Task Force\u201d to \u201chelp the department fully implement our religious guidance. Seeming to refer to secular values, Sessions stated in the\u00a0announcement: \u201cA dangerous movement, undetected byContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5334,40,50,5335,1141,5336,5337,5338,96,5339,1192,5340,5341,81,5342,5343,5344,5345],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28446,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28445\/revisions\/28446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A Religious Right to Cannabis?<\/h4>\n
Rabbinical Reefer<\/h4>\n
Legal Precedent Does Exist<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Will Jeff Sessions\u2019s Religious Liberty Task Force Protect Sacramental Cannabis Use?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"