Want to use psychedelics for religious purposes in the U.S.? The government should let you, but it's not going to make it easy.
In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for religious exemptions to the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) for illegal psychedelics. Since then, only a few groups have been granted such exemptions - and not for want of trying. Religious exemptions are procedural nightmares.
Getting a religious exemption to use psychedelic substances is like winning the Super Bowl. It is a system that seems intentionally designed to interfere with religious practices. Today, I'll examine why that is.
美国缉毒局的宗教豁免程序
1990年代，美国国会通过了《宗教自由恢复法案》（RFRA）。该法案为法院评估政府行为是否干涉宗教自由设立了判定标准。2006年，最高法院在冈萨雷斯诉奥森特罗案中援引RFRA支持了一家藤蔓圣灵教会的诉求。该案后，美国缉毒局发布了《宗教用途申请《受控物质法》豁免的临时指南》。
Anyone with knowledge of the DEA religious exemption procedure will tell you it's a nightmare, and that it's futile. I wrote about the process extensively in posts set out below. To summarize, petitioners must submit detailed information explaining their religious beliefs and why the use of a controlled substance is a part of that religious belief. They must explain how they will make, distribute, dispense, import, use, etc. the controlled substance.
This is a very simplified explanation but the point is that it's a very murky process. Groups without a lawyer are not going to be able to fill one of these requests sufficiently. Even groups that have lawyers are faced with uphill battles. The DEA rarely even responds to these letters. As I described in my last post, even groups with the backing of U.S. Senators have had trouble getting the agency to even acknowledge them.
One of the few groups to get a response letter was Soul Quest. The DEA, of course, denied its request. I intend to write in detail on that letter at a later date. But it's plainly clear to anyone who reads that letter that the agency has taken it upon itself to evaluate whether religious beliefs are legitimate. Given its position in virtually all cases we're aware of, it doesn't seem like DEA has any intent to either take these things seriously or treat these beliefs as sincere.
宗教豁免程序是否有例外情况？
You may ask whether there are alternatives to the religious exemption petition procedure. The answer is very complicated. The DEA didn't use formal rulemaking procedures when it created its religious exemption petition. Literally all we have is a PDF on the DEA's website governing the process. This means that the entire process has some serious legality problems. For purposes of this post, though, the bottom line is without a formal rule, the process for challenging the agency is unclear.
对于那些想要诉诸法庭的人，有几个重要案例值得参考。关键在于诉讼程序不透明，且任何诉讼都将陷入程序噩梦。
在未提交宗教豁免申请的情况下对美国缉毒局的裁决提出异议的程序
Let's look at what happens when a party wants to avoid submitting a petition and go straight to court. For those wanting to go to court, there are a few important examples to consider. The point is that the process is unclear, that and that any challenge will be a procedural nightmare.
First, a party could file a suit challenging the DEA's religious exemption petition process as a whole. A group called the Arizona Yage Assembly (AYA) did that in 2020, without filing a petition. One of DEA's main arguments is that AYA never went through the petition process and essentially "skipped a step."
DEA is advancing a standard that forces people to either sit in line for literally years with no end in sight, or go to risk getting their case tossed for not going through this pointless exercise. I started writing about the AYA case in 2020. I think it's key to point out that the DEA represented to the court in a sworn declaration that it had started to make actual regulations for the exemption process. That was almost two years ago and we still have no religious exemption regulations.
另一种选择是在法庭上依据《宗教自由恢复法案》抗辩逮捕或其他处罚。这片水域无人愿涉足。 在法庭宣判前，无人愿被逮捕或处罚。宗教豁免程序的设立初衷，正是为避免此类情形。但若豁免申请未获处理，必将有团体遭受处罚并被迫诉诸法庭——这正是奥森特罗案的始末，也是导致宗教豁免程序沦为噩梦的根源。
在缉毒局审议宗教豁免申请期间将其告上法庭
Soul Quest is a good example of what happens when a petitioner sues the DEA with a petition under review. In one sense, Soul Quest succeeded in getting the DEA to respond to its petition. In another sense, DEA considered Soul Quest's pleadings in the case in denying the petition. So on balance, it's not a great outcome. And we don't know whether any lawsuit would spur the DEA into action - that certainly hasn't happened yet in the Iowaska case where DEA has gone nearly three years without a response.
Moreover, once those claims were filed, the DEA jumped in with a series of procedural grenades. In its motion to dismiss, DEA argues that the case should have been brought directly in a federal appeals court under section 877 of the CSA. There are a lot of technical nuances here: 877 provides for appeals of final agency decisions to the court of appeals, whereas the case was filed before there was a final agency decision. This isn't DEA's only argument, but it just underscores the kind of procedural nightmares that petitioners are forced to deal with when challenging something like this.
宗教豁免是程序上的噩梦
There is no good process for religious groups to obtain exemptions to the CSA. Other than certain Native American groups that have received peyote exemptions, there have only been TWO groups to receive exemptions. These were the plaintiffs in O Centro and a group that adheres to the Santo Daime religion - both of whom had to sue the government first.
We are certainly hoping DEA makes good on its representations to the AYA court that it will one day come out with clear regulations for applying. And that it'll quickly process petitions in accordance with fundamental due process principles.
更多我的 Psychedelics Law Blog 关于宗教自由问题的文章，请参阅：
