Pubdate: Fri, 31 Dec 2004
Source: Austin Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2004 Austin Chronicle Corp.
Contact:  http://www.auschron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/33
Author: Jordan Smith
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hallucinogens.htm (Hallucinogens)

LET THE AYAHUASCA FLOW

Federal drug warriors took a hit on Dec. 8 when the full U.S. Supreme Court 
voted to lift a temporary stay that Justice Stephen Breyer had granted 
against the U.S. branch of the Brazilian Union of the Vegetable Beneficent 
Spiritist Center (or, in Portuguese, the Uniao do Vegetal or UDV) 
congregation based in Santa Fe, N.M. The court relief means that for the 
first time in six years UDV church members will be able to use ayahuasca, a 
hallucinogenic substance derived from the Amazonian vine Banisteriopsis 
caapi, which church members take as sacrament.

In 1998, fed narcos raided the Santa Fe church -- one of three branches of 
the Amazonian Santo Daime faith -- and seized 30 gallons of ayahuasca tea, 
which they assert they had the right to seize since it contains 
diemethyltryptamine or DMT, which the feds regulate under the Controlled 
Substances Act. The head of the UDV's U.S. branch, Seagram's whisky heir 
Jeffrey Bronfman, cried foul and sued. His church's use of the drug is akin 
to the legal use of peyote by members of the Native American Church, he 
argues, and so far the courts have agreed. The feds have lost their case 
against the UDV twice -- in federal district court and then on appeal 
before a three-judge panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals -- 
before asking Breyer to impose a stay pending a review of the case by the 
full bench of the Denver-based 10th Circuit. That stay has now been lifted, 
meaning the ayahuasca will flow while the appeals court reviews the 
government's request.
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