http://www.scribd.com/doc/271997415/Hindu-Brief#scribd
The drug laws (the Controlled Substances Act) are in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution, similar to how it violates this same Clause in Native American and Santo Diame cases. It is also possible the act violate the 21st Amendment, which legalized not alcohol or fermented drinks, but all intoxicating liquors, and by the definition of intoxicating liquor, Bhang (a Hindu Liquor) is an intoxicating liquor (The Controlled Substances Act was written when it was found that the Marijuana Tax act violated the Fifth Amendment and was overturned, the Controlled Substances Act may need to be overturned due to 21st Amendment violations). There are very few Supreme Court cases involving the 21st Amendment, and no one has ever brought up to the Supreme Court the point that the 21st Amendment legalizes intoxicating liquors. The 21st Amendment was ratified in 1933 The drug laws at that time were based on the Harrison Narcotics Tax act, which did not make narcotics illegal but taxed them and limited importation from foreign countries. Around this time most every drug could be bought at a Drug store, and much of the time it would be in syrup form and mixed with Soda. This is where Coca-Cola comes from, which was originally made with the Coca leaf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Forty_Barrels_%26_Twenty_Kegs_of_Coca-Cola
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._O_Centro_Espirita_Beneficente_Uniao_do_Vegetal
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. _ (2014)
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf
"It held that the Greens’ businesses are “persons” under RFRA, and that the corporations had established a likelihood of success on their RFRA claim because the contraceptive mandate substantially burdened their exercise of religion and HHS had not demonstrated a compelling interest in enforcing the mandate against them; in the alternative, the court held that HHS had not proved that the mandate was the “least restrictive means” of furthering a compelling governmental interest.
In order to ensure broad protection for religious liberty, RFRA provides that “Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.” §2000bb–1(a).2 If the Government substantially burdens a person’s exercise of religion, under the Act that person is entitled to an exemption from the rule unless the Government “demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” §2000bb–1(b)
Following our decision in City of Boerne, Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 114 Stat. 803, 42 U. S. C. §2000cc et seq. That statute, enacted under Congress’s Commerce and Spending Clause powers, imposes the same general test as RFRA but on a more limited category of governmental actions. See Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 715–716 (2005). And, what is most relevant for present purposes, RLUIPA amended RFRA’s definition of the “exercise of religion.” See §2000bb–2(4) (importing RLUIPA definition).
Before RLUIPA, RFRA’s definition made reference to the First Amendment. See §2000bb– 2(4) (1994 ed.) (defining “exercise of religion” as “the exercise of religion under the First Amendment”). In RLUIPA, in an obvious effort to effect a complete separation from First Amendment case law, Congress deleted the reference to the First Amendment and defined the “exercise of religion” to include “any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.” §2000cc–5(7)(A). And Congress mandated that this concept “be construed in favor of a broad protection of religious exercise, to the maximum extent permitted by the terms of this chapter and the Constitution.” §2000cc– 3(g)."
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Great post.
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