I'm sorta high right now, but I like to post whatever is on my head so it will probably sound super duper stupid with a cherry on top of the super. I've seen Indian guys carrying around ritual knives as a religion. Even like kids in school, there was even one incident where an Indian boy stabbed some kid with it. Like they are allowed to bend the rules for religion. Same with turbans and bicycles instead of helmets. I was curious as to if someone started up a religion that involved smoking marijuana through some modern day peace pipe for spirituality. They can still arrest/fine you based on your belief and religion?
You can check out the current precedent for the legality of this stuff, but certainly some southwest tribes are allowed to use Peyote for spiritual purposes. The decisions about Peyote are what a lot of people use nowdays to claim that their drug use is religious, but you would never be allowed to do what you're saying legally, Peyote is a thousand year old tradition, while you would be starting a modern religion. Also, inb4 Rastafariansim.
Im not disagreeing or anything, I think your reply was amazing and I'm going to rep it when I get on a computer, but isnt Scientology a pretty new religion? Are people just allowed to start religions?
Scientology had to fucking infiltrate the FBI and IRS to become a religion. You willing to do that? They actually have an anti-drug organization linked to them
Im pretty sure they can arrest you. It may be a religion but at the same time its viewed as an illegal drug.
It most likely wouldn't be protected as like stated above, you'd be starting a "modern religion." It would be seen as an attempt to get around current laws prohibiting marijuana. Only way a religion like that would have worked is if it would have been established long before the prohibition came along. That way you'd have ground to stand when it came to the legality/protection of your religion. Hence why (again as stated above) Southwestern tribes can use Peyote. They had been doing so for many many years before Peyote was recognized as a drug and outlawed. It's a nice thought, but if it could have been done, you know for sure it would have been done by now.
Some religions are allowed to use particular drugs for religious purposes but it has to be a long standing tradition. If you just made up a religion and tried to sue for the right to smoke weed, you'd probably be laughed out of the lawyer's office. Some church won a Federal court for the right to use Ayahuasca (DMT) for spiritual purposes but Ayahuasca has been a part of their culture for thousands of years. You could start a church now in the hopes that a thousand years from now your followers get the right to smoke weed but you won't see any return from that.
the only reason that the native american church, and certain santo daime groups are allowed to use peyote and ayahuasca in this country is because they are centuries old, and sometimes 1000s of years old, religious rituals. they arent new. they are tried and true and the people derive benefit from it as a religious sacrament as has already been said any attempt to make a marijuana church would just be looked at as an attempt to get around federal law. in fact, i remember there was a church that sprung up not to long ago but i cant remember the name but the priests or whatever of that church were arrested for marijuana cultivation, traficking and use