It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
The use of hallucinogenics by Native Americans has persisted for centuries, with peyote being the most common drug by my understanding. This drug seems to be new, at least in terms of use in America.
The central and distinctive practice of the Native American Church is the ceremonial and sacramental use of peyote, a psychoactive or entheogenic cactus (lophophora williamsii), and that practice among the Huichol and other tribes goes back thousands of years in Mexico. Peyote use was first documented among the Aztecs some 400 years ago, and reports of it were made by many early Christian missionaries in Mexico.
Originally posted by worldwatcher
Now if the Supreme Court can allow this Church to have halluginogenic tea, shouldn't they allow the Rastafarians to smoke marijuana or at least make a tea from it?
Justices, in their first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, moved decisively to keep the government out of a church’s religious practice.
Originally posted by djohnsto77
Religions and religious beliefs don't really become more valid with the passage of time.
Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
...if you want to start a religion that centers on smoking crack coc aine, you'll have to go somewhere else to do it because it's illegal here.
Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
You're arguing from a very unusual position, BH. The drug in question here is dimethyltryptamine ('___'), which is illegal, just like crack.
'___' is created in small amounts by the human body during normal metabolism. Pure '___' at room temperature is a colorless waxy or crystalline solid. '___' was first chemically synthesized in 1931. It also occurs naturally in many species of plants. '___'-containing plants are used in several South American shamanic practices. It is one of the main active constituents of snuffs like yopo and of the drink ayahuasca.
'___' is not orally active unless it is combined with a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), such as harmaline. Without an MAOI, the body quickly metabolizes '___', and it therefore has no significant hallucinogenic effect.
Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
You don't see the difference in respecting a religion's practices that were in place before we came here made laws against them - and starting up a new one with what we have determined to be an illegal drug?