HALLUCINOGENIC TEA CASE STARTS IN ALBUQUERQUE

Jeffrey Bronfman's quest to legalize an hallucinogenic tea for members of
his sect finally reached court last week.

U.S. District Judge James Parker heard testimony for more than three days in
Albuquerque, then recessed at mid-day Thursday with plans to resume Monday.

Bronfman, a member of a prominent Canadian family, for years held meetings
at his Arroyo Hondo home where people would drink a tea known as hoasca,
which contains the hallucinogen N.N. dimethyltryptamine, known as DMT.

That changed on May 21, 1999, when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency seized
30 gallons of the tea from Bronfman's office on Valley Drive, on the north
side of Santa Fe. No one was arrested or charged with any crime.

On Nov. 21, 2000, Bronfman, as president of the U.S. branch of O Centro
Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal (UDV), and other church members sued
the DEA, alleging the government violated their constitutional right of
freedom of religion.

They said hoasca is an essential sacrament, like peyote is to the Native
American Church.

Over the last year, more than 90 motions and other instruments have been
logged into the electronic court docket, representing hundreds of hours of
attorney time. The evidentiary hearing is expected to continue through this
week. Bronfman seeks a preliminary injunction to stop the DEA from
interfering with UDV's activities. A full trial could follow.

Bronfman told the court Monday that the government seizure of his tea has
harmed "the core of my being," according to the Albuquerque Journal.

He has declined to speak to the media. Acquaintances describe him as
casual-dressing and low-key, in his 40s and increasingly secretive.

State corporation records show Bronfman was director of a for-profit called
the Cañon Corp. founded in 1990 and since allowed to become inactive, and a
nonprofit called the Aurora Foundation, founded in 1997 with others from
Austin, Texas.

Bronfman was divorced from Lucy Luzader Bronfman, with whom he has a
16-year-old child, on Sept. 28, 2000, in Las Cruces, according to court
records.

The hoasca case comes at a time of change for the Bronfman family empire.

The Bronfmans - the name means "whiskey man" in Yiddish - are one of North
America's most famous families. The family patriarch immigrated from Russia
to Canada in the 1800s, acquired distilleries and made Canadian whiskey
world-famous.

The Seagrams Corp. reached its apex by the late 20th century when drinking
habits in the U.S. began to change toward lower alcohol consumption. In the
last decade, the company has come under criticism for tempting young people
to drink by promoting its sweet mixers.

As Seagrams' chief executive officer, Edgar Bronfman Jr., Jeffrey Bronfman's
cousin, diversified the company into media and entertainment, buying
Universal Pictures. The elder Bronfmans are known as art collectors and
philanthropists for Jewish and Israeli charities.

Earlier this year, the French firm Vivendi, which began as a water utility,
purchased Seagrams for an estimated $6.8 billion.

Assistant U.S. attorneys Elizabeth Goitein and Adam Zueben of Washington,
D.C., who are handling the government's defense, were not available for
comment.

Nancy Hollander, who is representing Bronfman, said Thursday she has called
seven witnesses, including Bronfman and José Luiz de Oliviera, the head of
the church in Brazil. Among her five expert witnesses was Charles Grob of
the psychiatry department at the University of California at Los Angeles.

According to one article by Grob, UDV originated in the early 1950s when a
Brazilian rubber tapper tried hoasca prepared by Amazonian Indians. Over the
next four decades, UDV grew to about 7,000 members; the Brazilian government
legalized use of the tea in 1987, Grob wrote.

Hollander said the government on Thursday morning called its first expert
witness, Lorne Dawson, a Canadian sociologist, and will continue Monday with
a physician from the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

UDV has compared its practices to the Native American Church's use of the
hallucinogenic cactus peyote. Native American Church founder Quanah Parker
was the son of a Comanche leader and a white woman captured as a child by
Indians. His life is one of the most enduring folk stories in Texas and
Oklahoma.

But UDV chafes at the comparison to Santo Daime, another Brazilian religion
that uses a similar concoction of Amazonian plants for a DMT-based tea known
as ayahuasca.

In January, Hollander objected to stories published in the National Post of
Toronto, Canada, that linked UDV to Santo Daime, a name derived from the
Portuguese words for "holy give."

In March, however, Ron S. Haber, a Eugene, Ore., attorney representing the
Santo Daime Church of the Holy Light of the Queen in Ashland, Ore., sought
permission to file an amicus curae, or friendly brief, in the case. He said
federal authorities refuse to recognize ayahuasca as a religious sacrament,
despite negotiations, entreaties from U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and
invitations for government agents to participate in Santo Daime services.

"The Department of Justice has, for the most part, treated the factual and
legal issues raised by the plaintiffs in this case (UDV) in a similar
fashion as it has regarding the Santo Daime Church," Haber wrote.

In May, Judge Parker rejected Santo Daime's motion to enter the case.

UDV supports Santo Daime's analysis of issues, but opposes its attempt to
"participate in the development of the evidentiary record in this case,"
Parker wrote.

In her letter to the Toronto newspaper objecting to their articles,
Hollander also said their comparison between hoasca and LSD was wrong.

"Within the religious ritual of the UDV, the tea is used as an instrument to
increase perception and facilitate mental concentration for the religious
work and spiritual studies that occur within the ceremonies," Hollander
wrote. "The religious use of the tea within the UDV neither causes
hallucinations - as erroneously reported - nor are they desired within the
sect."

Other plaintiffs in the case include UDV members from Colorado, Texas,
California and Washington. Santa Fe residents listed as plaintiffs include
Almeida Dias, a Brazilian native, and Solar Law, the son of Lisa Law, known
for her photographs of counter-culture figures in the 1960s and 1970s.

Patricia Chavez, spokesperson for the New Mexico district of U.S. District
Court, said the hearing, expected to last through Friday, could result in
Parker denying or granting a preliminary injunction. Hollander said a trial
could follow Parker's decision.