Could Your Religious Beliefs Legalize Your Cannabis Use

This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on March 29, 2015.

On Thursday, Indiana governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) into law, and many people including celebrities, citizens and activists are up in arms. Opponents say the law is a license to discriminate against gay people. The MPO argues it is another way to protect law abiding citizens from arrest for their marijuana use, and also a way to discriminate.

While several states have passed their own versions, Indiana’s and other similar state law is a copy of a 1993 United States federal law aimed at preventing laws that “substantially burden” a person’s free exercise of religion, also called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The bill was introduced by Congressman Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on March 11, 1993 and passed by a unanimous U.S. House and a near unanimous U.S. Senate with three dissenting votes and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

This law reinstated the Sherbert Test, which was set forth by Sherbert v. Verner, and Wisconsin v. Yoder, mandating that strict scrutiny be used when determining whether the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing religious freedom, has been violated. In the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Congress states in its findings that a religiously neutral law can burden a religion just as much as one that was intended to interfere with religion; therefore the Act states:

“Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.

The constitutionality of RFRA as applied to the federal government was confirmed on February 21, 2006, as the Supreme Court ruled against the government in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006), which involved the use of an otherwise illegal substance in a religious ceremony, stating that the federal government must show a compelling state interest in restricting religious conduct.

The court analyzed the four prongs of the compelling state interest balancing test:

1) whether the individual holds a sincerely held belief;

2) whether the regulation burdens the exercise of religious beliefs;

3) whether the state’s interest is overriding or compelling; and,

4) whether the regulation uses the least restrictive means to accomplish the state’s interest.

A fundamental tenet of any religion, organized or not, is to continue the health and happiness of its flock. No one (even climate change deniers) can dispute that marijuana use helps in the physical or medical well being of users.

Biblical Sources:

Genesis 1:29-30
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Corinthians 6:12
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything.

Genesis 1:11-12
And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:29
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.

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