The Supreme Court's decision in Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith ignored accepted ethnographic research on the Native American Church's use of Peyote. This paper argues that Peyote's Schedule I status contradicts ethnographic findings, which show the substance is safe and therapeutic when used in this tradition. The Court's ethnocentric assumptions and rationale for denying religious freedom are unsupported by both ethnographic evidence and legal precedent. The right to use Peyote involves not only religious freedom but also the rights to raise children in one's culture and to access culturally relevant therapeutic treatment.
Healing in the Native American Church (NAC) centers on ritual use of Peyote, a psychedelic cactus regarded as a sacred medicine and a morally evaluative guardian spirit. The psychopharmacological properties of Peyote produce self-reflective states that are guided by ritual symbolism and a mythic language of transformative rebirth. Therapeutic change arises from both the experiential, higher-order mental processes induced by the drug and from "cultural emplotment"—the embedding of experience within NAC’s worldview, narratives, and collective ethos. Prior socialization into this worldview shapes participants’ interpretations, and convincing spiritual experiences reinforce collective identity and resistance to Western influences.