STILL BURNING

A Des Moines Man Is Fighting for the Right to Use Marijuana in
Religious Services

Carl Olsen is the last member of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church.
The church, which blends Christianity with ceremonial marijuana
smoking, had thousands of members in the '70s and early '80s, Olsen says.

"The members would get together [and] smoke marijuana. It causes an
intensification of the spirit. It causes a deeper understanding
between people, and when you put that into a group setting it's
magnified," Olsen says. "Everyone thought we were protected by
religious freedom."

The federal government didn't see it that way and arrested many of
the church's members, including Olsen, he says. The raids on church
property and the jailing of its members caused it to break up.

"You are looking at the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, it's me," says
Olsen, 55, during an interview at his home in northeast Des Moines.
"There's no one else claiming to be a member."

Olsen, who works as a Web site designer, is hoping to change that. In
January, he filed a lawsuit against the Polk County Attorney, the
Iowa Attorney General and the Drug Enforcement Agency. The suit,
called a complaint for injunction, seeks an exemption from the state
and federal drug laws so as to allow Olsen to participate in his
church's marijuana smoking ceremony.

Olsen's church, which is incorporated in Iowa, is not the first to
seek an exemption for the religious use of a drug.

The most well-known case involving religious use of drugs is the 1990
U.S. Supreme Court case Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith, says
Randall Bezanson, a University of Iowa law professor and author of
"How Free Can Religion Be?"

"It had to do with a Native American church that had the religious
practice of using peyote."

Peyote, a hallucinogenic drug, is a controlled substance under state
and federal law. The Native American church challenged the law,
arguing they should have an exemption to use peyote in religious
ceremonies under controlled circumstances.

"It was argued in the Smith case, and the Supreme Court didn't
dispute it, that there had never been any problems with the
[church's] controlled use [of peyote]," he says. "But it never made a
difference."

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that "the First Amendment
doesn't exempt religion from generally applicable law," Bezanson says.

Congress reacted quickly to the Supreme Court's decision. It passed
the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, granting a federal
exemption for the use of peyote in religious ceremonies. Still, the
Smith ruling makes it extremely difficult to make a successful legal
argument in favor of using illegal drugs during religious services,
Bezanson says. Under the Smith ruling Olsen "has relatively little
chance. If there was a law that singled out his church, then he'd
probably have a claim." But a more recent court decision could make
it easier for Olsen to get an exemption.

The Supreme Court ruling in the case Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita
Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal, et al., in February 2006 gave Olsen
hope, he says. Uniao Do Vegetal is a South American group that blends
Christian teachings with Native American rituals. Its members drink
hoasca tea, which contains the hallucinogenic dimethyltryptamine,
during religious ceremonies.

The Supreme Court ruled 8-0 that the government did not have a
compelling interest to bar the sacramental use of the tea -- even
though, like marijuana and peyote, it is on the government's list of
controlled substances. "It reverses every single ruling," Olsen says.
"Now, I'm filing a suit that says 'I want that [exemption].'"

Olsen says he hasn't been able to practice his religion, and hasn't
smoked marijuana since the Supreme Court's 1990 ruling in the Smith case.

"My case is saying look at my religious involvement in the past and
look at it now," he says. "The reason [the church] doesn't have any
members is because they're interfering with my religious freedom. How
can you belong to something you can't participate in?"

If Olsen's suit is successful, he says he would attempt to
reestablish his church. "I would do what comes naturally, if I had my
liberties," he says.