Laws and Legal Issues
Peyote: Legal And Sacred
The Native American Church, founded in 1918 in Oklahoma, practices a religion known as Peyotism. Its members believe peyote is sacred, intended by God to give them wisdom.
Some Native American tribes in the southwestern United States adopted the use of peyote in religious ceremonies from Mexican tribes during the early 1800s. State governments, federal agencies, and missionary societies opposed the custom, but Peyotists refused to give it up. In a series of court cases during the 1960s and 1970s, they won the legalization of peyote use for religious purposes in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington.
Some 250,000 Native Americans, including approximately half of the Navajo tribe, are Peyotists. Interestingly, the Native American Church forbids the use of alcoholic beverages, considering them evil.
Legal or Illegal?
During the 1980s, illegal drug makers began to slightly alter the chemical composition of certain hallucinogens and other substances. The motive behind making these new designer drugs was to skirt legal definitions of the original substances. Because the new product had a different chemical makeup, the drug maker could claim that it was legal. During the late 1990s, many illicit manufacturers began advertising designer drugs as “research chemicals” on the Internet. They argued that legally, they were selling their wares for research purposes, not for illegal use as narcotics.
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