Black Market Tea

Published on April 19, 2005

The Supreme Court has decided to hear a case on whether or not a Brazil-based church in New Mexico may continue to use a hallucinogenic tea containing a drug banned in the U.S. in its religious services. The Bush administration has argued that the tea is illegal and dangerous and that the state has a […]

The Supreme Court has decided to hear a case on whether or not a Brazil-based church in New Mexico may continue to use a hallucinogenic tea containing a drug banned in the U.S. in its religious services. The Bush administration has argued that the tea is illegal and dangerous and that the state has a “compelling interest” in stopping an illegal market in the drug. The church, a hybrid of Christian and traditional Amazon basin beliefs, counters that the tea is a central sacrament to its worship services, and its lawyers argue that law-abiding citizens using the tea does not constitute drug use or threaten to start a black market in the tea.

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