Well, I was recently arrested for a marijuana related offense and never want it to happen again. Marijuana is something that I enjoy and use recreationally, medicinally, and think it brings out my more spiritual side. It makes me ponder the existence of myself and the universe. In light of that, I have done some research and found some hope in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act for continuing my use of cannabis legally. I found this website: Divine Smoke and explored a little and found that I could pay for a certification in my religious use of cannabis, and that I can pick any god or religion for worship, essentially. It seems kind of iffy about its legitimacy based on how commercial the website looks and the 120 dollar "donation" for certification. But they give an outline on how to use the RFRA to my benefit. Has anyone had any experience with this? Has anyone on here ever been arrested/caught and used their religion as a defense with police or in court? It would be nice if I could hear about some experiences with that. I'm not the biggest fan of the idea of worshipping ancient egyptian gods, I've always thought about myself being more interested in nature and was thinking about practicing shamanism as part of my use of cannabis. Shamanism is really just about the interconnectedness of nature, and I'm considering majoring in biology so I'm all for that. Maybe I'll learn something about myself and the world if i start doing some ritualistic use. Also, It would a great learning experience about life if I could grow a couple plants of my own. Would this be upheld in court if I was caught using or even growing cannabis under the idea that it is a religious sacrament of mine? Would the court/police recognize shamanism as a legitimate religion? It would be nice if police were friendly enough to not even drag me to court to battle this out. I dislike, police, lawyers, judges, the justice system, etc. and don't want to deal with their bullshit. Any thoughts? Some other sources i found on the subject are here: http://www.libertybelltemple.com/lawsuit/Complaint_for_Liberty_Bell_Temple_II.pdf To summarize this, in LA there was a Rastafarian temple where they used cannabis and in 2009 when California decided they had too many collectives and dispensaries (nothing to do with religious use) and decided to take them out of business, the temple got caught up in the mess, tried to explain their religious use, and ended up being raided by a SWAT team. The owner of the temple had been practicing for 25 years, and they had all drug related items essentially stolen from them by LAPD, and were told that they aren't protected by the law. I don't want anything like this to happen to me. It's terrible that the law let this happen. Section 1983 Blog: Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and Marijuana Use In this case, some people were essentially trafficking across the Mexico-US border and it was ruled in court that they were not truly religious, but secular in their interests. I'm not interested in trafficking across borders so I don't know how relevant this is for me, but good information nonetheless. Don't think you can get away with falsifying your religious beliefs. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Rules Religion May Be Defense to Marijuana Possession This details some Rastafarians from Montana who moved cannabis from Mexico to Montana and were found not guilty after going through a long appeal process, all the way to the 9th circuit court. Marijuana Legal Precedents Library - Legalize Marijuana on Basis of Freedom of Religion Here's a website with many legal precedents about the religious use of drugs. If anyone has any input on this, please share.