Swallowing the scroll: legal implications of the recent Supreme Court peyote cases.
R K Bullis
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs July 1, 1990 DOI: 10.1080/02791072.1990.10472556 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Legal analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mescaline |
| Keywords | Humans Cultural characteristics Public policy Religion Indians, north american United states |
| Key points | Argues that the 1990 Supreme Court ruling allowing states to prohibit religious peyote use establishes a precedent contrary to earlier lower-court decisions, with implications for peyote use and for nontraditional sacramental drug use generally. |
Abstract
Two cases decided by the United States Supreme Court in the past two years, with the same factual bases and involving the religious use of peyote by Native American Church members, are described and analyzed. In 1990 the Supreme Court ruled that states may prohibit the use of peyote for religious purposes. These cases are examined by applying traditional equal-protection and First Amendment religious liberty analyses as well as by traditional Western interpretations of sacrament. The Supreme Court now has established a legal precendent running contrary to previous lower court cases that has implications for the religious use of peyote, specifically, and for nontraditional use of sacramental drugs, generally.
Citations in the library
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- The "vine of the soul" vs. the Controlled Substances Act: implications of the hoasca case. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs June 1, 2008