Pubdate: Mon, 4 Feb 2008
Source: Brownsville Herald, The (TX)
Contact: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/sections/contact/
Copyright: 2008 The Brownsville Herald
Website: http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1402
Author: Jackie Leatherman, The Monito
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)

IN CANNABIS WE TRUST

EDINBURG -- He calls himself the Rev. Adam E. Zuniga.

His religion is illegal.

According to his business card, he is ordained by the Shemshemet 
Ministry, which teaches the Cannabis Sacrament.

"It's a means to my survival, spiritually," he says.

For Zuniga, his Eucharist is pot. But he doesn't call it that.

"Please refer to it as cannabis. I don't refer to propaganda names. 
It's sacrament. It's herb. It is a plant."

In July 2003, the 27-year-old had just wrapped up working security in 
the U.S. Air Force, and was awaiting an instructor position at 
Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.

That's when a car accident changed his life. He hydroplaned while 
driving in the rain and collided with several trees.

Prior to the accident, Zuniga says he dabbled in marijuana use in 
high school, but switched to cigarettes when he joined the Air Force.

After shattering several bones in his left arm and tearing ligaments 
in his right leg during the car accident, he found himself chasing 
the strong pain medicine he was prescribed with beer, and still 
feeling the pain.

It took one year before a friend finally convinced him that he had 
become addicted to prescription medicine.

Right about that time, his girlfriend, a nursing major, turned in a 
research paper at the University of Texas-Pan American on cannabis 
and its medical affects.

Through his own research, Zuniga discovered the drug could help him.

What he didn't expect was that it would also help him spiritually, too.

"I don't just want to smoke cannabis. I want to live my life 
comfortably," he said. "It's not just 'quote unquote' pot."

Shemshemet Ministry

Today, Zuniga uses a cane. Doctors tell him it's just a matter of 
time before he'll need a full knee replacement.

An anthropology student at UTPA, he lists "The Allegory of the Cave" 
by Plato and "Constantine's Sword: the Church and the Jews" by James 
Carroll -- a controversial book that argues the historical fight of 
the church's battle against Jews -- as some of his favorite reads on 
his Facebook page.

It doesn't take long to tell Zuniga has emphatically researched the 
history of all religions and the role that natural, now-prohibited 
drugs have played in them. He knows his stuff.

Though his studies, he stumbled upon the Shemshemet Ministry.

The organization's Web site states: "Celebrating our constitutional 
right to practice religion in the USA."

It further states that the ministry provides education in 
spirituality that will "help to protect you from arrest, prosecution 
and/or conviction of 'marijuana' charges -- wherever you live -- 
starting as soon as you sign-up, become ordained and receive your 
ministry documents."

Zuniga says God made the marijuana plant and his body, which allows 
for the two to combine. He advocates that natural drugs currently 
prohibited by law -- including hallucinogenic mushrooms -- should be 
legalized. He says his practice is a basic human rights issue. What 
he does with his own body, and in his own home, is his business, he 
says; he isn't hurting anyone else.

"It is about the greater whole," he said. "I'm fighting for everyone, 
just like the military. I want people to realize that they have a 
right to question."

Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino, who's taught criminal justice 
courses at UTPA, says Zuniga's assertions aren't based on any legal 
fact or right. It is illegal to possess marijuana in Texas, and like 
in every other state but 10, its use for medicinal purposes is 
prohibited. The severity of the charges someone like Zuniga could 
face depends on the amount in possession, Trevino said.

"Obviously, he is very well misinformed," the sheriff said. "He is 
putting himself in peril of being arrested for possession of marijuana."

"Nirvana"

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court declared medical marijuana patients 
are subject to federal prosecution even if they live in a state that 
allows medicinal use of marijuana. There are several grassroots 
groups like the Shemshemet Ministry that uphold the use of medicinal 
marijuana, including the credible national organization Americans for 
Safe Access, but their cause has struggled.

Douglas Laycock, a professor emeritus at the The University of Texas 
at Austin, said there is no definition of when a religion becomes a 
religion: "it is a question of sincerity."

"There is a very long history of religious use of hallucinogens," he said.

But Laycock seem skeptical that the government would ever recognize 
marijuana use as a religious practice.

He said in the late 1960s Congress passed the Controlled Substance 
Act, which allowed Native Americans to use peyote -- a small cactus 
that when eaten has powerful hallucinogenic affects.

And Ras Tafarians, a black Zionist movement that emerged in Jamaica 
in the 1930s, is known for using marijuana for spiritual purposes, 
according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

They have been on court for years advocating their rights to use pot 
to practice their religion and have lost, Laycock said.

"If (marijuana) were exempt (from law for religious practice), how 
would the government ever enforce the marijuana laws?" Laycock said. 
"Every one would say they are a Ras Tafarian."

Zuniga said when he "practices," he uses the time for meditation and 
insight on historical and current global issues, as well as his own 
life. It allows him to reach deeper questioning, he said.

He said his first religious experience with cannabis came to him in 
winter 2005. He realized "the creation" says humans came from dirt, 
which is from where cannabis comes. So, when he puts the herb into 
his body and exhales the smoke, he is merely furthering the circle of 
life and releasing the organism back into Earth, a part of which he 
will be again when he is dead and buried.

"For me, it is a living organism that has the ability to show me that 
there is something that transcends me," he said.

"It helps me to become a better human being. ... I am reaching what 
Buddha called Nirvana." 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake