Alabama church members smoke pot, eat mushrooms and peyote: those are the sacraments

[Seedersandleechers]

An Alabama church founded last year has a legal exemption for its members to smoke marijuana and ingest hallucinogenic mushrooms and peyote cactus, according to Christopher Rushing, who is listed as chief executive officer.

The Oklevueha Native American Church of Inner Light in Warrior has been licensed as a federally registered branch of the Oklevueha Lakota Sioux Nation Native American Church, Rushing said. "We are the only federally registered people allowed to have these sacraments," he said in interview with AL.com.

The church has a religious exemption to use psylocibin mushrooms and peyote cactus, both of which have properties that augment traditional Native American spiritual beliefs and experiences, Rushing said. He calls their use in religious ceremonies a sacrament.


http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2016/05/alabama_church_members_smoke_p.html

[Initech]

1. How do I apply to be a member of this church?

[Seedersandleechers]

3. churches as a rule welcome

anyone who want to join. Just do it!

[Major Nikon]

4. Not sure about membership requirements

But to be exempt from the law you have to be a card carrying member of a Native American tribe, for starters.

[Seedersandleechers]

11. Not too hard if you share their customs.

http://www.native-american-online.org/tribal-enrollment.htm

[Major Nikon]

17. You might be able to join, but you might not be able to legally participate

The last time I checked, the SCOTUS exemption from drug laws only applied to tribal members under certain circumstances. I'm not sure if that has changed. Sometimes the rules are different if you're within the boundaries of a federally defined reservation, so there may be other exceptions.

[Major Nikon]

2. Native Americans were using peyote in religious ceremonies at least 3500 years before Christ

The Native American Church has been in operation about 100 years and was granted an exception to the prosecution for hallucinogenic substances about 25 years ago by the US Supreme Court.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Church#United_States_law

[Seedersandleechers]

7. It's just that the executive of the church

doesn't look like a medicine man or native american, but rather an old hippie - not that it matters.

[Major Nikon]

9. Here's the executives of my tribe

If you saw either of them on the street, you might not suspect they are Native American.

http://www.choctawnation.com/government/executive-branch

[Warren DeMontague]

5. They should be allowed to do so.

And so should everybody else, because peoples' consciousness belongs to themselves, not the government. Seems "self-evident", as it were.

[Major Nikon]

12. The government fought with the tribes over this for many years

Ultimately it was decided by the SCOTUS.

Interestingly, Native American tribes may blow the proverbial lid off cannabis legalization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_on_American_Indian_reservations

[Warren DeMontague]

14. The link between altered states of consciousness and religious experience is hardly new.

The idea that governmental authoritarians have tried to outlaw it for a century or so is positively Un-American.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. I'm guessing you're a bittorrent fan, OP.

[Seedersandleechers]

13. I was brought up to

share.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. Right on.

I've spent a lot of time on etree, you know, lossless grateful dead soundboards.

[fleabiscuit]

8. Wow. Always thought I was an atheist. Guess I was wrong. eom

[Seedersandleechers]

10. Yeah well,

join this church and you will see God.

[spanone]

16. praise the orb

sign me up

[LanternWaste]

18. I'm gonna push my Presbyterian congregation to do this

I'm gonna push my Presbyterian congregation to do this. Softball games and pot lucks could be a little more fun this way.