How do you center the needs and perspectives of people of color in your activism—not because you want to fill a quota, but because the success of your work depends on it?

That was the question Antwan Jefferson Ph.D. asked me after we met in Chicago on March 30, 2019. Jefferson, an education and human development professor at the University of Colorado in Denver, visited the Windy City to present a lecture on racism and privilege at SSDP2019: The Global Students for Sensible Drug Policy Conference. Over three days, SSDP brought together a diverse crowd of students and activists, young and old, for their annual strategy meeting on how to end the War on Drugs.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy—formed in Rochester in 1998, now an international grassroots network in 33 countries with over 4,300 members and counting—is confronting the challenge of building an inclusive movement that prioritizes the needs of people of color and marginalized groups targeted by the War on Drugs.

This year’s conference in Chicago saw its first-ever People of Color Dinner and healing circle, where a diverse group of about 50 students, alumni and other supporters dug into a delectably savory meal (lemon butter tilapia?!) before digging deeper with an intimate reflection on their place in the drug movement.

“The SSDP network, from its student body to its staff, is primarily white, and has been since I first became involved in 2013,” said Oriana Mayorga, an SSDP alum, current Psymposia Community Outreach Director and a co-organizer of the dinner event. “This year, the Dinner and Healing Circle gave me hope, for the first time, to see all of us in a shared space. I hope to see this continued every year for as long as SSDP continues to exist.”

Mayorga and SSDP intern Logan Ward opened a group discussion about identity and inclusion. The SSDP in attendance shared stories about the insecurity, anxiety and confusion that comes with trying to understand their race, gender, and sexuality. There emerged a recognition that many of us don’t know how we relate to these ideas even within our own communities and families—but also a sense of camaraderie that we are not alone.

“I remembered how old I was when I was in that room,” Jefferson told me. “It was beautiful and encouraging and powerful to see that happen, and that environment should be a testing ground for how SSDP can do similar work.”

But Jefferson noted how at the event’s close, Mayorga urged the group to continue this conversation through more meetings and group phone calls. “That suggests this hasn’t been happening and is not important to SSDP as a whole, but only being prioritized by people of color within the organization,” he said.

For many reasons, SSDP has struggled to support people of color in the network, and that problem is complicated by their college campus chapter model. Levels of enrollment and retention in higher education institutions in the U.S. divide along racial lines, according to a 2017 Young Invincibles report.

While college enrollment rates out of high school are similar between White, Black and Hispanic students, Black and Hispanic students disproportionately enroll in for-profit and community colleges. These institutions are linked to poorer student outcomes, higher student debts, lower incomes after graduation and greater student loan defaults.

Minority students are also completing college and earning degrees at an increasingly lower rate compared to their white counterparts, and their education costs take up a greater share of their families’ income, the report found.

“Our education system in the States is very elitist and exclusionary, which makes it harder to recruit people of color to the organization,” said Jason Ortiz, an SSDP alum and current President of Connecticut Puerto Rican Agenda. He detailed how as an SSDP during his undergraduate years at the University of Connecticut, he struggled even to find other Puerto Ricans to partner with at the very white college.

But this doesn’t mean that people of color have no interest in the movement’s goals, he explained—quite the opposite. “SSDP now is international,” he said. “And we see when you have chapters around the world we do very well in places like West Africa and Mexico. When folks are present they do opt in to participate and be a part of SSDP.”

Where many SSDP agree is that while the organization and movement have a lot more work to do engaging with people of color, it has made significant progress over its twenty year lifespan. “I’ve noticed the demographic of the organization get incredibly more diverse, to the point where that dinner event on March 30 drew such a large crowd,” said Ismail L. Ali, Chair of the SSDP Board of Directors and involved since 2014.

“There was—and is—substantive outreach from SSDP toward a more diverse student body, including SSDP’s DARE committee, and the drug policy reform movement has become more mainstream which means that joining it is less stigmatized.” Ali referred to the Diversity Awareness Reflection and Education Project (DARE), SSDP’s committee which teaches its members how to better engage with underrepresented groups of people. It also provides scholarships for people experiencing hardships to attend SSDP events.

But the increased leadership of people of color in this movement is owed to more powerful forces than organizations like SSDP, Ali continued. The emerging debate in drug policy reform is not what to legalize, but how to legalize it. There is a huge demand for social equity in the legal cannabis industry, as states like California and Massachusetts set up statewide programs to fund and assist cannabis license applicants from communities disproportionately targeted by the War on Drugs. These issues, Ali said, are giving people of color an ever greater stake in the direction of drug policy reform.

But where is the line, Jefferson asks, between involving people of color in the activist goals you’re already pursuing, and making your activism centered on people of color? “We mistakenly assume that low income people and people of color should know that our work is meaningful to them,” he said. “We think, they should just show up, if we build it they will come. This reinforces the faulty idea that what people of color are missing, middle-class white people can give to them.”

Organizations like SSDP, he said, cannot just think that they already know what they need to do and others should join in. They have to approach their work with the understanding that without a diversity of voices, they are incapable of accomplishing their mission.

In the same weekend SSDP hosted their People of Color Dinner, they opened the three-day conference with a discussion on surviving the prison system and criminal justice reform from two formerly incarcerated men, Orlando “Chilly” Mayorga* and Marlon Chamberlain. (No relation to Oriana Mayorga.)

They also hosted the first-ever #MeToo discussion (co-organized by Oriana Mayorga), featuring personal testimony from four women detailing their experiences of sexual violence working in the drug policy reform movement.

Programming like this exists because the organizations’ grassroots base demands it. Vilmarie Fraguada Narloch, Drug Education Manager for SSDP, explained that SSDP is run by its Board of Directors comprised of students elected to it each year. The board oversees its staff and keep it accountable to the network’s needs, instead of a ‘top-down’ approach.

“We have a priority to ensure that drug policy reform does not happen without the voices of people of color and other minority groups at the forefront,” Fraguada Narloch said. “It is well-established that these folx have been the most disproportionately and negatively impacted by the War on Drugs.” Without their input, she said, drug policy reforms perpetuate inequalities in drug law enforcement, and the promises of social equity and community re-investment programs ring hollow.

The way forward, then for SSDP and similar organizations striving for real inclusion, may be simple: create more space, and give up the microphone. “Representation matters,” said Oriana Mayorga. “If we do not see people who look like us in positions of power in areas of interest, we internalize the belief that there is no place for us in this work. Without minority groups in the drug policy reform movement, the movement will continue to uphold white supremacy.”

The United States has passed the first major criminal justice reform under President Donald Trump. Trump signed into law the First Step Act, which makes modest reforms that ease the federal prison population. The unlikely chain of events set in motion December 11, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced he would allow a vote on S.2795.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill by 87-12 on December 18. The House of Representatives, which first introduced the bill earlier this year, then passed the legislation on December 20 before it was sent to the President’s desk for signature. The federal prison system holds about 181,000 people, or 8.6% of the total U.S. jail and prison population of 2.1 million.

Reforms in the First Step Act include:

• Making crack cocaine sentencing reforms under the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act retroactive.
• Expanding the ability of judges to avoid handing down mandatory minimum sentences.
• Eliminating the mandatory life sentence in the federal “three strikes” statute.
• Restricting the use of ‘gun stacking’ sentences for crimes involving a firearm.
• Increasing ‘good time credits’ to slightly reduce inmates’ sentences.
• Creating a system of ‘earned time credits’ to allow inmates to be transferred to halfway homes or home confinement; creates an controversial algorithmic system to determine how inmates can cash in these credits.
• Prohibiting the shackling of pregnant inmates.
• Allowing for compassionate release of the elderly and terminally ill.

The most consequential reforms are related to mandatory minimum sentences. It makes retroactive the reforms of the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), which related to sentences for cocaine offenses. In effect, this would allow 2,600 inmates sentenced before 2010 to petition for release from a judge.

The 2010 FSA amended statutory penalties for crack cocaine possession; previously, any amount of crack cocaine carried the same penalty as one-hundred times the amount of powder cocaine, resulting in much more severe criminal sentences. FSA reduced this statutory ratio from 100:1 to 18:1 (a continuing though smaller disparity), and eliminated the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for simple crack possession.

“With crack’s prevalence in many black neighborhoods in the 1980s, the crack penalty hit African Americans much harder than white powder cocaine users,” said the Marshall Project. “That disparity has been a major example of the racial imbalance in the criminal justice system.”

The FIRST STEP Act is just that — a first step to right the wrongs that exist in our criminal justice system. Proud to support it and fight for far greater reforms, such as applying all of the Act’s sentencing reforms retroactively. https://t.co/BbkelaEVdU

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) December 18, 2018

I'm glad the First Step Act passed. But there is much more needed to achieve comprehensive criminal justice reform. We must:

-End cash bail
-End private prisons
-End mandatory minimums
-Reinstate the federal parole system

Our primary goal must be rehabilitation, not punishment.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 19, 2018

The First Step Act also reforms other mandatory minimum guidelines—not to be applied retroactively. It expands the “safety valve” that federal judges can use to avoid prescribing mandatory minimum sentences. They will now be able to use this exemption not only for people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses with no prior criminal record, but also for people with limited criminal histories. This can affect up to 2,000 people each year according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Notably, the bill reduces the disastrous “three strikes” mandatory minimum sentence. First codified in federal law under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 signed by President Bill Clinton, this statute requires a mandatory life sentence in prison for someone who is convicted of at least three ‘serious violent felonies or drug offenses’. The First Step Act reduces this mandatory minimum from life to 25 years.

It also reduces other mandatory minimums for both felony drug and violent offenses. It notably restricts “gun stacking” sentences, a practice which can add 25 years in prison for someone convicted of two or more violent or drug trafficking charges while holding a gun. These sentences must be served consecutively (back-to-back), and include cases where a gun was not actually used, where a gun was legally owned or registered, and even if a gun was simply found in the home but not used in the crime. The First Step Act’s restrictions on this sentencing practice may save some people decades in prison.

The bill increases “good time credits” for inmates with good disciplinary records, effectively allowing them to remove a week from their sentence for each year served. It also creates “earned time credits” from vocational and rehabilitative programs that can allow inmates to be released early to a halfway house or home confinement.

A point of controversy over the bill is that it creates an algorithmic system to evaluate inmates based on their perceived level of risk, with only ‘lower-risk’ inmates allowed to cash in earned time credits. Critics of the legislation claim such a system perpetuates racial inequities in the prison system.

“Researchers have shown that risk assessment tools applied in sentencing decisions in Florida – meant to predict recidivism – were twice as likely to be wrong when evaluating Black people as White people,” said the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, representing organizations including the ACLU and NAACP. “A further recent analysis showed that risk assessment tools are as accurate as a prediction made by a random human selected over the Internet.”

“Against a political culture that lauds compromise, the push to end the brutal carceral system must be uncompromising,” writes @natashalennard. https://t.co/d4WV5TQ8vy

— The Intercept (@theintercept) December 19, 2018

The Leadership Conference supported the bill in a later statement released December 17, but noted its reservations over bill’s unequal effects on the prison populations. “[This] bill continues to exclude many federal prisoners from earning time credits and excludes many federal prisoners from being able to ‘cash in’ the credits they earn,” they said.

“The long list of exclusions in the bill sweep in, for example, those convicted of certain immigration offenses and drug offenses….Because immigration and drug offenses account for 53.3 percent of the total federal prison population, many people could be excluded from utilizing the time credits they earned after completing programming….a disproportionate number of those excluded would be people of color.”

My @DrugPolicyOrg colleague Michael Collins on the #FirstStepAct "This is a bittersweet moment. The bill represents progress & we shd celebrate the release of thousands of ppl serving disproportionately long sentences, but at the same time the bill leaves far too many ppl behind.

— Sheila Vakharia PhD MSW (@MyHarmReduction) December 21, 2018

Representatives Doug Collins (R-GA) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) first introduced the bill as H.R. 5682, and on May 22, 2018 it overwhelmingly passed the House with bipartisan support of 360 votes. But from the start, the bill has faced various forms of political opposition. Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, opposed the bill in the House on the grounds that it would worsen racial disparities in federal prisons.

“I cannot support legislation which fails to address the larger issue of sentencing reform, and, though this bill makes moderate improvements in areas related to our prisons, actually does more harm by cementing into our system new areas of racial biases and disadvantage that make worse a criminal justice system desperately in need of reform,” he said on the House floor.

While the criminal justice bill going through Congress is a first step, we need to be bolder to finally end mass incarceration in America:

End cash bail
End mandatory minimum sentencing
Ban private prisons
Legalize marijuana

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) December 19, 2018

He continued, “I also do not believe we can simply accept, as a reason not to change our sentencing laws, opposition to sentencing reform by a Trump Administration that changes its legislative positions on a near-daily basis and that has already done so much to weaken and undermine the criminal justice system.”

The political pressure to pass this bill came from a motley crew on both the political left and right. CNN host and commentator Van Jones championed the bill, calling its passage a “Christmas miracle”. President Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner worked to lobby conservatives in government and media, convincing the president of Fox News’s parent company News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, to support the effort. The broader coalition behind the First Step Act also included organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Koch brothers-backed Right on Crime.

When two men entered a party in Uneeda Nichols’ home in Washington, D.C. in August 2017 with a couple hundred dollars in cash, they were greeted as cannabis enthusiasts. They seemed eager to indulge in the bong rips, edibles, and other activities taking place.

Nichols had opened her home for some local cannabis vendors and brands to throw the event, where guests came to enjoy their products. These underground ‘pop-up’ cannabis events are common in the District. The two men made some purchases and then left.

No one realized they were undercover cops. Shortly after, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police raided Nichols’ home and arrested her and several others. After the police found over 40 plants in her home, Nichols was charged with several cannabis-related crimes. She maintains her innocence and says she owned the plants legally under D.C. law.

The most tragic consequence of the raid, however, was what happened to Nichols’ elderly uncle James McIlwain. The 84-year old Vietnam veteran lived in her house under her care, suffering from gout, prostate cancer, and heart problems. “The police raided my house where my uncle was in a hospital bed for six hours,” Nichols said. “The arrest and search was too much on his heart. He passed shortly after as a result.”

Nichols is one of many D.C. residents who have been persecuted in a police crackdown on underground cannabis parties and trades. Though the city legalized cannabis in November 2014, its efforts to regulate sales have been handcuffed by a one sentence amendment Congress inserted at the last minute in a federal spending bill in December 2014. The amendment is simply called the ‘Andy Harris rider’, after the Republican Representative of Maryland’s First District who authored it.

The rider’s language specified, “none of the funds contained in this Act may be used to enact any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any schedule I substance”.

Cannabis legalization entered force in 2015 in the District, but the Harris rider has limited its scope. District residents can legally possess up to two ounces of cannabis, grow up to three mature plants in their home, and gift cannabis to others without exchanging money. It is this third provision on gifting which has created a legal gray area in the District, sparking an explosion in underground transactions.

Local cannabis activist RachelRamone Donlan of DCMJ explained how this ‘gray market’ works. “Cannabis brands or companies will trade things like art, stickers, or a pack of Skittles,” Donlan said. “Then they say ‘here’s a gift, I’m gonna give you some cannabis’. But Skittles don’t cost a couple hundred dollars. This is called remuneration and it’s not allowed under the law.” Much of the underground activity takes place at the ‘pop-up’ events, in bars, nightclubs, and private homes.

The situation has caused headaches for everyone in the city. Though police focused little on the ‘pop-ups’ for the first couple years, they have decided to step up their enforcement as the parties have grown larger and started attracting visitors from outside the city. “No matter what the government does, there’s gonna be more arrests because people won’t stop to get their cannabis,” Nichols said. “There’s so much money in this. So many people want this medicine. So we might as well tax it and get the money from it.”

Local activist Lisa Scott agrees. That’s why she formed the D.C. Cannabis Business Association (DCCBA). Before, she helped found the District’s pop-up movement back in 2015. “The pop-ups were great for a while but then the crackdown started happening,” she said. “Now we have to move on if we want to be legal. I started the DCCBA to prepare a lot of the local wannabe businesses for when the laws change. We want to be first in line to get the licenses and we don’t want outsiders to come in with big pockets and take what we started.”

Like many local cannabis enthusiasts, Scott pushes for a legal and regulated market—but fears that production and distribution will be controlled by a few wealthy investors that shut out smaller businesses. “We’ve already proven cannabis is a successful business model here, even though it’s illegal. We’ve brought in thousands of people every week—from Maryland, Virginia, other states, and around the world. We don’t want what we started to be taken away from us.”

Scott highlighted D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s “A Fair Shot” program to help develop economic opportunities the city’s African American population. The cannabis market, Scott says, will fit perfectly with the mayor’s approach for helping the city’s residents start new businesses.

DCCBA, for their part, is busy developing the infrastructure for local cannabis businesses once full legalization comes. They are helping entrepreneurs understand licenses and regulations, build a reference of lawyers and legal professionals, and create networking opportunities. Not interested in large corporations controlling the market, Scott favors small, micro-businesses, owned by families and local residents, working together in co-operatives.

Though the city government cannot advance any legalization efforts absent a change in the federal funding prohibition, they have begun to prepare legislation. In January 2017 City Council members David Grosso, Robert White, and Brianne Nadeau proposed a bill to legalize and regulate sales. Scott welcomes this progress, but wants to work with the council to improve the future law. “We want the requirements for licensing to favor local residents,” she said. “We want a fair shot.”

Besides lobbying lawmakers, cannabis activists in the District are making sure their efforts remain in the spotlight through public rallies and actions. On Tuesday March 27th, 2018, activists from DCMJ and the DCCBA took part in a ‘pot giveaway’ outside the John A. Wilson Building housing the city council and mayor’s office. They handed out rolled cannabis joints to anyone over the age of 21—including City Council members Grosso and Jack Evans. (Most other council members took a separate exit to avoid seeing the demonstration, Scott told me.)

“That was good for me,” Nichols said, “just seeing that they accepted us and there were no police trying to put us out. If we continue to do this and they know what we stand for, we’ll make our presence known.”

Activists are also pushing to make cannabis accessible to the District’s most vulnerable residents. “We’re looking forward to our ‘Bring it Home; campaign,” Nichols said. “The day after we were at the Wilson building we were at the Housing and Urban Development building. We want to let people in public housing grow in their homes, just like they can grow fruits and vegetables.” Currently, about 20,000 residents of federal public housing in the District are prohibited from growing or possessing cannabis, risking eviction and homelessness if they do. DCMJ wants this campaign to unite activists around the country in support of all public housing residents.

Even with all this activity, D.C.’s cannabis activists are not limiting their efforts within the boundaries of the federal district. DCMJ co-founder Adam Eidinger has relocated to Salisbury, Maryland, nearly a hundred miles away. His goal is to help unseat Representative Andy Harris, the namesake of the Harris rider. He and a group of D.C. activists are supporting Allison Galbraith, a single mother running a grassroots campaign for the Democratic nomination in Maryland’s First District.

Galbraith supports legalizing cannabis on the federal level to allow all adults the right to use it. “The arrests would stop if the federal law would change and we just made it outright legal,” she said. “I want to get to the root of the issue, which is that it’s classified incorrectly.”  

But absent a successful federal reform of cannabis law, Galbraith supports repealing the Harris rider and respecting the District’s autonomy. “I trust in D.C.’s ability to make laws for itself. The rider shouldn’t be there. Congress should be recognizing and upholding its rights.”

Galbraith considers the Harris rider an overreach of federal authority. “He’s not doing his job,” she said. “His job is to listen and be available and be responsible and advocate on behalf of the people he represents.”

Galbraith describes herself as pro-‘state’s rights’ as long as state laws honor basic rights and protections for their people. “As far as states go about implementing policies, local is better,” she said. “Let them decide how to meet their goals. That’s how we drive innovation, by having pilot programs and letting them try different things.”

Though she faces a tough competition both in the Democratic primary and general elections, Galbraith can count on the assistance of her allies from D.C. “Our activists are in Salisbury now doing outreach and getting people registered to vote,” Nichols said. “We plan on staying out there continuously through the election. That’s how we will support Allison.”

A candid talk with Arturo Lua Castillo, named Outstanding Student Organizer of 2018 by Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Our tired feet trudged through mud and leaves as we climbed up the mountain of Forest Park. Down below us, miles over the hills and the river, the city of Portland, Oregon gleamed in the night behind a veil of red cedar trees.

It was a humid Saturday evening on the weekend of the 2017 Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) conference. This event brought together a coalition of students and activists from around the world to share ideas and tactics in the fight against the War on Drugs. But after a long day of talks and networking, I had stolen away from the hotel to join in this hike with a group of seven other kids.

I was wrapped up in a conversation in Spanish with some of my Mexican friends. Arturo Lua Castillo called Mexico as well as the U.S. his home, while Juliana and Melissa were visiting from Mexico City to attend the conference.  

The topic was drug words. “I know ‘smoke weed’ in Spanish,” I declared. “Aprendí de mi baterista: ‘fumar mota’!” They laughed. “Bueno!” Juliana said. “Y también, hablamos: yerba, maría, macoña, café, mostaza, y quemar pie de diablo!”

“‘Pie de diablo?’” I repeated. “Feet of the devil?” 

“That’s more common than you’d think,” Arturo said. “Here’s another word for you: ‘Cyph.’”

“That’s Spanish?” I asked.

Arturo laughed. “Of course not, it’s English! That’s what me and my buddies say in the Bronx: ‘Yo, you guys wanna cyph? Last night’s cyph was wild!’”

I would have gladly stayed all night on the mountain, but Arturo was eager to return to the hotel before late to attend the night’s Awards Ceremony. His campus chapter of SSDP at the University of Albany was nominated for an award—so he couldn’t turn up late and covered in mud.

Navigating off the mountain in the dark proved a challenge, and we took many wrong turns along the way—punctuated by louder and louder groans of exasperation by Arturo. I followed behind with Juliana, Melissa, and our other friends, fighting to contain my laughter.

Now, barely a year later on Saturday, March 3, 2018, Arturo Lua Castillo was presented with the Outstanding Student Organizer Award by Students for Sensible Drug Policy at the annual conference in Baltimore, Maryland.  

Arturo is originally from Mexico but lives now in Mt. Vernon, New York, just north of the Bronx. He studies both Economics and Latin American Studies at the University of Albany (SUNY Albany). He is the President of the his campus chapter of SSDP, a position he’s held for two years. He joined the campus chapter in his first year at the school. During his time with SSDP, he’s proud of having increased the chapter’s membership, lobbied for local drug policy reforms, and changed the school’s campus policies to put condoms in vending machines.

“Because we’re in the state capital we’ve been blessed with many lobbying opportunities,” Arturo said. His chapter—along with other SSDP around the state—joined together to lobby for ‘Ban the Box’, a bill which aimed to eliminate criminal history screenings from college applications. The initiative succeeded in pressuring the SUNY system to amend their own application process, allowing people who were formerly convicted or incarcerated to more easily pursue educational opportunities. Arturo also helped lead a lobbying initiative to legalize marijuana in New York state—a fight which is ongoing.

“One of my greatest achievements so far is just being able to get more students involved in the organization,” he told me. “It shows because before we used to only have about four people that would come to the SSDP conferences—and those four would be the entire chapter. Now this year, we were able to bring nine students. So I’m very proud of that.”

I caught up with Arturo in the midst of the learning and festivities at the conference, and we sat down to discuss his background in the drug reform movement and his place in it as a young Mexican-American.

What got you interested in drug activism in the first place, and what keeps you interested?

At first I simply wanted to learn more myself. I was very curious about the cannabis industry, and I still am. But as I learned about that, I learned more about how it’s a machination for oppression. My interests went from strictly the business side to also including a very strong human rights interest. I work to fight the systematic oppression many groups of people face today.

How has learning about the War on Drugs brought you closer to your own history?

One of the things I began to study more is the history of my people. For example, psilocybin has played such a key role in the religions and beliefs of Pre-Colombian cultures where I’m from. Before that, all I really heard about psilocybin was just ‘magic mushrooms’. I only understood the American culture surrounding its recreational use—that you get to see a lot of trippy shit—but I knew nothing about its ritual and sacred use.

I’m grateful also for the excellent Latin American and Caribbean Studies department at the University of Albany. The education they’ve given me informs and inspires my activism in this space. The more I learn of this history, the more I recover little bits of the past, little bits of my identity, that have been lost.

How did you in turn educate your parents about these issues?

It was a slow domino effect. My parents always knew that I loved learning and I’m very scholarly, and they always supported that. As I learned about the War on Drugs, I learned too about our culture and I said to them, ‘You know I love to learn but now I’m learning about us, our people, and I’m learning about drugs.” My conversations with my parents about our history, who we are, and how this whole thing has been used to repress our people has been able to change their minds.

It was a long process. I didn’t convince them in one session. But I began opening up their minds to different perspectives gradually. Until finally, I told them I smoke weed, and they said at this point, with all I’ve told them, that’s not even a  problem.

Can you talk about your brother’s impact on you, and how you found hope in an unexpected place?

My younger brother suffers from autism. He has never been able to socialize and live a normal life. Ever since I was really young I was always thinking about my brother’s diagnosis: What can we do? What can be done? Through the years you get so used to doctors and other people telling you nothing can be done for him. So you just become numb.

There are many families like mine who just want their kids to have a good quality of life. We’ve experienced so much pain for my brother with synthetic drugs. It’s an unbelievable hypocrisy that the drug the doctor gives you has a side-effect that is the same symptom that drug is meant to treat.

If you have a drug to treat mood swings, one of the side effects shouldn’t be drastic mood swings. Before he was being medicated, he’d have a violent mood swing, but then with the drug it’s a depressed mood swing. Neither of those two things should happen. That’s simply not treatment.

But then I learned about cannabis as a potential treatment for autism. Certain cannabinoids might help in reducing those mood swings and allow them live easier.  

Whenever new research comes out, it gives me hope. There’s still work to be done. We’re still not sure what the effects of cannabis are on autism. I hold onto that hope that maybe it can help. If it can help his mood, it can help him live a better quality of life, then it’s worth it. Even my father has supported this.

How does your family and national background impact you as a student and an activist?

Where we come from in Mexico there isn’t much. We were farmers back home. We were so poor we sometimes only had one meal for the whole week. Thankfully, through the prosperity we found in the United States we were able to buy lands and we’ve come a very long way. We now own lands back in Mexico, we’re healthy, and we’re stable but this all came after a lot of trauma.

Getting across the border was a big deal for our family. When I was several months old, my father left Mexico for the U.S. When I was three years old he came back down to Mexico to meet us, and I didn’t even recognize him. That broke his heart. So he said, “We have to be a family. We have to be together.” That’s when my family decided we would go to the U.S.

But ever since then, there’s a bit of a survivor’s guilt that you live with. You see all the trouble going on back home and all the people you left behind. The good things that happen in this new life hurt a little bit. It’s bittersweet, because you realize what you missed out on.

I just recently met my grandmother for the first time, this past year here in the U.S. She had finally acquired a visa and she was able to visit this country for a month. Had I been where I was born, my grandmother would have been like a second mother. The whole family raises us. We’re meant to have these really close bonds, it’s how we are as a culture. It’s very hurtful, to be estranged from her for so long, to not even be able to hug her. It’s especially hurt my mother a lot. It’s hard to live with my family and see that pain.

What other family do you have in Mexico or elsewhere?

I have a lot of cousins and uncles and aunts. Many of my family remain in Mexico, but thankfully a lot of them have been able to move to the States. We have some family now in New York and in California. That distance between all of us sucks. We should all be together.

In what other ways has your immigration status affected your life?

While I was applying to college, one of them was giving me a particularly hard time applying. They were treating me as a foreign student. They were asking me to pay the international tuition, even though I was eligible for in-state tuition. They wanted bank statements and all kinds of other documents. I got on the phone with a woman from Admissions to explain my situation. After she realized I was a DACA recipient, her tone changed severely.

‘Well, if you do get in,’ she started to say, ‘if we do accept you, being that you are an illegal immigrant,’—and I hung up. Those are still very hurtful words, regardless of your political stance. To tell someone they are illegal, is just wrong. I didn’t follow through with my application. I thought, if this is just admissions, what is administration like?

So my status has closed some doors, but some of them I have closed myself, because I don’t have a tolerance anymore. Since the age of five I’ve been called an illegal alien. In every document I’ve seen, I’ve had to put down this admission that I am a little bit less human—and I’m sick of it and I won’t take it. I’m just as much a human being as anyone else.

How has the recent political turmoil around the future of the DACA program affected you?

I have to say, on this issue the U.S. government has disappointed me my entire life. I’m upset, I’m frustrated, but to a certain degree now I’m not surprised. I firmly believe anyone else in my situation, had they come from another country, they would have been called refugees. But for us we just hear, ‘You’re an immigrant and we don’t want you here.’

What is the relationship between this immigration crisis and the War on Drugs?

A lot of us are only immigrants here because of the War on Drugs. There was a point in time when we were only in the U.S. because of crippling poverty in Mexico. As the years went by, while I was away, things got very violent in my home state of Michoacán. Now, we stay here because going back would mean returning to a very violent place. When I speak to other Mexicans and tell them I’m from Michoacán, they just fall silent. Because they know what happens there, and it’s very hard to hear sometimes.

I had a childhood friend back home—or so my mom reminds me, as I was so young I barely remember. A couple of years ago he disappeared and his family was so distraught. They eventually found out he had gotten mixed up int he wrong crowd and landed in jail in Mexico City for petty theft. Then this last year my parents told me the story of someone else whose remains were found in a black plastic bag. Investigators concluded he was dismembered alive. It’s not just people who get caught up in the wrong crowd, or people in the drug business, that die in these ways. Oftentimes innocent civilians are caught in the crossfire.

Why do you think it is important for people like yourself to speak up about this crisis?

I can only speak for myself, because all of our situations are unique. But one of the reasons I’ve started speaking out about this is because I’ve come to terms with what could happen. I know I may have to leave the US, I may be deported, especially because of my outspokenness. There have been many immigration activists who have gotten deported solely because they were outspoken about this. This is a risk I am fully willing to accept. I have an education now, which is the most valuable thing I have, and I believe I can use that either in Mexico or Canada, or hopefully keep using it in the U.S.

This isn’t about just me, and I can’t just sit idly by while all of my fellow Dreamers are in this same crisis. Not all of us can speak up. Many of us can’t make that sacrifice, and I fully respect that. That’s why I’m speaking up for those who can’t.

What do you want to say to others like you in your predicament to give them hope?

One of the things I tell people is that the government can take away your presence here, or your rights, and use different labels for that purpose. But they can never take your humanity, or your knowledge, and you need to hold onto both those things. And if you don’t have enough knowledge, don’t worry because you can acquire that. And you don’t need a college education necessarily, all you need to do is educate yourself and have faith in humanity and stick through it. Because you need that knowledge to fight for your rights.

Believe me, there are more people who are with you—on your rights, on your humanity, that believe you are a person, that you matter—than there are against you. And the course of history shows there will be more who agree with you and will join you.

On Friday, November 3, 2017, Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) vetoed legislation to regulate cannabis sales in the state. This came after the legalization initiative ‘Yes on 1’ passed by popular vote in November 2016, and after a bill to implement commercial sales passed the state’s House of Representatives and Senate last month.

The Marijuana Legalization Act (LD 1650), a rewrite of the ballot-box law passed by Maine voters, first passed in the state legislature October 23, 2017 by a vote of 22-9 in the Senate—a veto-proof majority. Though it also passed in the House, it fell short of a veto-proof majority. On Monday, November 6, the state legislature met to vote again on the bill, but the House vote of 74-62 again fell short of overriding the governor’s veto.

In a letter to lawmakers, LePage cited his concerns about conflict between state and federal cannabis law. “Until I clearly understand how the federal government intends to treat states that seek to legalize marijuana, I cannot in good conscience support any scheme in state law to implement expansion of legal marijuana in Maine,” he said. He added that before Maine proceeds with implementing legal cannabis, “we need assurances that a change in policy or administration at the federal level will not nullify those investments.”

LePage’s also cited the state’s opioid crisis as a reason for his veto. “The dangers of legalizing marijuana and normalizing its use in our society cannot be understated,” he said. “Maine is now battling a horrific drug epidemic that claims more than one life a day due to overdoses caused by deadly opiates. Sending a message, especially to our young people, that some drugs that are still illegal under federal law are now sanctioned by the state may have unintended and grave consequences.” LePage seems to have missed reports that opioid overdoses decreased by 6% in the 2 years following implementation of legal adult-use cannabis markets in Colorado.

LePage claimed legal cannabis would increase violent crime and traffic fatalities in Maine. However, this has not been the case in other states. Violent crime decreased 6% in Colorado between 2009 and 2014. [ref] According to the Brennan Center for Justice, Colorado experienced a crime-rate increase in 2016 11 times the average of 0.3% in the nation’s 30 largest cities, with about 1 in 3 homicides committed in Denver. The Colorado Bureau of Investigations did not offer an analysis of why crime increased, drawing no direct correlation to cannabis legalization, as LePage implies. [/ref] Crime decreased in Washington and remained level in Oregon after they each legalized cannabis. Cannabis-related DUIs also decreased 33% in Colorado this year. This raises the question of whether LePage is lying or merely stupid.

After the Yes on 1 initiative narrowly passed last year, the Maine legislature formed a special bipartisan committee to amend the cannabis law and implement it. The Joint Select Committee on Marijuana Implementation consisted of 17 different representatives and senators, both Democratic and Republican, who met throughout the year to negotiate and craft regulations.

Senator Roger Katz (R-Augusta), committee co-chairman, explained the necessity for Maine to keep moving forwards with sensible cannabis policy. “The legalization ship has sailed, the people have spoken,” he said. “It’s not about whether you voted for legalization. I certainly didn’t vote for it. [But] if we do not pass this bill, if we go back to an unchecked black market, we will go back to chaos. Who could want that?”

With LePage’s veto, the ballot-box law will remain in effect. Possession of up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis and 6 home-grown plants will remain legal. But a temporary moratorium on commercial cannabis sales in Maine is in place, meaning no Maine resident can buy or sell cannabis or set up a legal business. If the moratorium is not extended or another bill is not passed by February 2018, then commercial elements of the ballot-box law will take effect.

House Minority Leader Kenneth Fredette (R-Newport) sees LePage’s action as an opportunity to extend the commercial moratorium to January 2019. He expressed a desire to work towards better legislation. “We’re not trying to kill legalization, or stall it,” he said. “[To] me, more important than when we’re going to do it is how we’re going to do it. Let’s do it responsibly. Let’s do it right. It’s still a federally illegal drug, after all. If we’re going to go there, let’s do it with a consensus bill.”

The bill in its current form has proved divisive among both parties in the legislature, and even among supporters of cannabis legalization in Maine. Committee member Craig Hickman (D-Winthrop) opposed the bill for being too conservative towards home-grows, or cannabis that is grown for personal use on private land. Meanwhile Committee member Patrick Corey (R-Windham) opposed the bill for economic reasons, stating that its rigid commercial taxation system would not generate sufficient revenue for the state to cover the cost of implementation.

The bill, predictably, attracted opposition from groups like Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM). SAM applauded LePage for “vetoing legislation written by Big Marijuana that would simply enrich private profits at the expense of public health. The only people rushing to legalize are the companies deceiving the public about marijuana’s harms.” Senator Scott Cyrway (R-Benton) couched his opposition in even bleaker terms, claiming legalization would lead to a flood of underage use and impaired driving accidents. “We are on the brink of a disaster,” he said. “But if we act responsibly now, we can save Maine.” In fact, teenage use of cannabis in Colorado declined after legalization, again raising the question: Lying or stupid?

Legalize Maine, the group who pushed the Yes on 1 initiative, announced their opposition to the bill in October. They criticized its changes to the voter-approved law, including increased sales and excise taxes, removing drive-up, internet, and home delivery sales, and requiring municipalities to opt-in to the cannabis market. “A poor, rushed process got us to where we are today,” Legalize Maine’s Paul T. McCarrier said after LePage’s veto.

The legislature also declined on Monday to extend the moratorium on sales, putting them in a precarious position. They must reach consensus—to either pass a new bill or buy themselves more time—when they return to session in January.

Senator Katz expressed uncertainty about the future of cannabis markets in Maine. “We will regroup and we will sit around and try to figure out where the heck we go from here, and I hope somebody has some bright ideas because right now I don’t have any.”

Special thanks to Penelope Overton of the Press Herald in Maine for her extensive coverage of this local issue.

Ipulled into the Omni Hotel at the CNN Center in downtown Atlanta, Georgia just after noon on Friday, October 13, 2017. My destination was the 2017 International Drug Policy Reform Conference (Reform 2017), hosted by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). DPA hosts this conference every two years to bring together people from around the world with the shared goal of ending the War on Drugs.

Psymposia’s Expansion Director Mike Margolies was expecting us at the Psymposia exhibitor table, a prime spot from which to peddle T-shirts and solicit donations.

The first entrance to the Omni Hotel we tried, I knew we were in the right place, judging by the throng of young college students crowding the lobby: Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) had made a strong showing here at Reform, with over 70 students and staff members in attendance.

We broke away a few minutes later to continue up towards the fourth floor. We passed a woman proudly wearing a SHE’S SO VOCAL t-shirt, identifying her with the fearless harm reduction group from back home. We spoke later that weekend with one of their members, Levele Pointer. He connected the Drug War to inequities in criminal justice in his home city of New York.

“One of the things that’s really central to me is Rikers Island,” he said. “People are getting arrested and put on Rikers Island, they’re not being afforded legitimate bails, and they’re being arrested for crimes that are violations. It’s become this big juggernaut and correctional officers are not capable of dealing with the issues they’re being asked to deal with, such as mental illness. So they deal with it in a violent manner. If we opened up the mental institutions and allowed people to get the proper help they need, and we got affordable bails, we wouldn’t need Rikers Island as we know it today.”

My friend Sierra and I reached level 4, where all the exhibitors were. We walked towards the back, past a big yellow DanceSafe tent. The displayed buckets full of wristbands, safe snorting kits, and colored info cards about drugs like DMT and heroin. Beside them at a smaller table was the Georgia Harm Reduction Alliance, who distributed safe sex kits and explained where attendees could get trained to use naloxone.

Harm reduction—in a time when tens of thousands of Americans are dying each year from opioid overdose—was a major topic and concern at Reform. We spoke about this issue with Kevin Garcia, an SSDP member from Florida:

“Something we’ve been pushing for in my community is trying to equip police officers with naloxone,” he said. “We’ve gotten them to accept that starting a pilot program would be something very useful for our university. We were able to collaborate with the police as well as the Department of Children & Families. It’s a lot like having a defibrillator on campus. It’s there as a safety measure to reduce any harm that might come and it’s the same thing with naloxone.”

Reform addressed other aspects of harm reduction, too. We spoke with New York-based writer Julie Holland, MD about its role in therapy:

“One of the things that’s driving problematic drug use,” she said, “is people feeling sort of displaced and disconnected and not having strong social ties and not having therapeutic relationships. And I think sometimes psychiatry can make things worse and not better. There are issues of stigma or shame with drug use that get played out in therapy a little bit. With a harm reduction framework, you really accept where the person is at and you really work within their framework and what their goals are so you get rid of a lot of the stigma and shame that way.”

We observed visitors of every size, color, and age. Reform brought together a diverse array of academics, advocates, students, lawyers, writers, and other supporters from all over the world. Attendees came from all corners of the United States as well as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, Japan, Kenya, and Zimbabwe—to name a few.

“Who are we, the drug policy reform movement?” said Ethan Nadelmann, the retired DPA founder and executive director, when we caught up with him. “We’re the people who love drugs, the people who hate drugs, the people who don’t give a damn about drugs, but every one of us thinks the War on Drugs is not the way to deal with this.”

The last conference was held in 2015, making this the first Reform of the Trump era. This conference focused strongly on global Drug War issues, as well as domestic.

One of the issues discussed was President Rodrigo Duterte’s impact on the Drug War in the Philippines. “Drug policy [in the Philippines] is still based on the thinking that all drug use is bad and needs to be punished,” said Filipino native Ma.Inez Feria. “Maybe 60% of the people in jail now are there for drug-related cases, a little higher now since this past year. About half of those are there for use and possession, non-violent. And if you look at the demographics, most of them are from low-income and low-education families. So there’s a lot of injustices that are happening, but people don’t see it.”

The theme of racial injustice and its role in the Drug War came up again and again.

“We still have black and brown people incarcerated [in the UK] at a way higher rate than white people,” said Camille Barton of London. “A Ministry of Justice report that just came out shows the UK incarcerates a higher percentage of the black population than the US does. So you’re more likely to go to jail if you’re a black person in England than here. I really appreciate this conference for centralizing racial justice in policy and in the War on Drugs, because it really does dominate. This is a liberating space for us to work on the deeper issues and build powerful connections.”

After lunch, Mike texted me and urged us to come to a community meeting on psychedelic law hosted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Science (MAPS). The meeting was led by another friend of ours, Ismail Ali, and his colleague, Natalie Ginsberg. We arrived several minutes late, making an awkward entrance in the small room and squeezing into a table next to Mike and a new friend, Jag Davies (DPA). We split into four discussion groups; our table’s topic was psychedelics in criminal justice.

“I’m saying full-speed-ahead with decrim,” Mike said. “But I’m cautious about legalization.  What I’m seeing is that even in states that have legalized [cannabis], cops are still arresting and prosecuting the most vulnerable citizens.”

“But look at Colorado,” Jag said, “arrests have gone way down!” The table then erupted into several smaller arguments, as we all debated this or that legal or policy framework for legalizing psychedelics.

Jag later explained to me in greater detail his ideas on this issue. “We ultimately want to legalize psychedelics,” he said, “but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to change the way psychedelics are perceived and managed. The people who’ve always been victimized the most by prohibition, young people, people of color, aren’t really gonna be helped at all by [legalization]. So I think it’s really important we don’t put all our eggs in the basket of just legalizing psychedelic therapy, but we also think about how to reduce the harms of prohibition, and we have to do that very carefully and strategically.”

After a day packed with intriguing talks and lots of mingling with great minds, Sierra and I decided to take a step outside, where we were approached by three men.

“Excuse me, my friend,” said the tallest of the trio, “Do you know how we are going to reach the Park Bar?” His accent revealed he was an international visitor.

“The Park Bar?” I repeated. “No, what’s that?”

“You are with the drug conference?” the man said. “We are trying to go to the Park Bar. They are saying it is for international attendees.” He introduced himself as Wilson, from Zimbabwe. His two companions, Lugard Abila and Kitale, were from Kenya.

We spoke later with Lugard, who shared his thoughts about coming to his second Reform conference:

“[This] has been a journey of learning how can you help those in need,” he said, “how can you stand up for those who are helpless, for someone you love. The only way you can do that is by speaking out, coming out, and shouting louder about your particular issue. So DPA has really sharpened my skills in learning how to debate your issues with the key decision makers like the political class and the religious leaders.”

It turned out the Park Bar was a short walk away. “Excellent!” Wilson said. “Will you please come with us?” And so we soon found ourselves in a homey tavern surrounded by a crowd of foreign drug policy activists.

And so our first day at Reform 2017 came to an end, as we flirted with conference-goers both new and familiar, indulged in cold ales, and took lots of group pictures. I joined in a (slightly intoxicated) discussion with our African friends and a man from the Netherlands about President Donald Trump and the future of global liberal democracy. Sierra and I finally decided to take a cab home around midnight, knowing we had a full day ahead of us and limited opportunity for sleep.

“I have seen the suffering firsthand of what the Drug War is doing and I have not seen one iota of evidence that it is stopping people from using drugs,” said Lyn Ulbricht, mother of Ross Ulbricht, when we spoke with her that weekend. “I’m here because I’ve learned so much about the Drug War since this happened to Ross, and have seen the suffering not just of him and our family but all the families I’ve gotten to know in the past four years visiting him in the prison.”

It was a sobering reminder of what started us all down this path. No matter what aspect of drug policy it was that brought us to Atlanta that weekend, no matter our disagreements over the solutions and the legislative proposals, no matter what country we were from and the particular issues facing us, we all understood that people’s lives are being destroyed every day by the War on Drugs, and this must end.

Adam Eidinger, a founder of Washington, D.C.-based cannabis activist group DCMJ, will be in court on September 11, 2017 to face charges for public use of cannabis. The penalty is up to six months in jail. Eidinger plans to challenge the constitutionality of cannabis prohibition on First Amendment grounds.

“I have been offered a plea deal of three months in jail which I have refused and seems excessive,” Eidinger says, “especially because the crime is only a crime if its constitutional.”

On April 24th, 2017, Eidinger and a group of cannabis activists held a demonstration outside the White House.  They made a Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, non-sectarian, and Rasta prayer over the plant, seeking to highlight the spirituality of cannabis use.

Eidinger and three other activists were arrested by Capitol Police after each lighting a cannabis joint. They were charged with public cannabis use in violation of D.C. law. “This peaceful direct action got under their skin and they are seeking real jail time for a working single dad,” Eidinger says.

Eidinger will represent himself at trial with the aid of an attorney, Mark Goldstone. Eidinger argues that cannabis prohibition denies the free exercise of religion guaranteed in the First Amendment. “[Mark and I] have worked on First Amendment cases I have been a defendant in in previous years. We have won most of the cases actually. Being my own lawyer or Pro-se allows me to make opening and closing arguments, as well as motions and objections. In any case, I plan to call many people who were at the interfaith service on April 24.”

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It is this second clause—the free exercise clause—which Eidinger argues is undermined by cannabis prohibition. Can Congress make laws banning drugs if it violates one’s freedom of religious exercise? It’s an interesting question, but Eidinger is not the first to pose it. U.S. courts at the state and federal levels have grappled with this in similar cases for decades.

Cases From The Past

In 1964, the Supreme Court of California heard the case of People v. Woody (1964). This case involved a group of Navajos who were arrested in 1962 while using the peyote cactus, which contains the psychedelic mescaline. The trial court found them guilty of illegal possession of narcotics. This was affirmed by the Appellate Court, before the California Supreme Court reversed it.

They concluded the Navajos were protected by the First Amendment “since the defendants used the peyote in a bona fide pursuit of a religious faith, and since the practice does not frustrate a compelling interest of the state [emphasis added].” The court’s language was based on Sherbert v. Verner (1963), which established the “Sherbert test” to determine when a state has violated the free exercise clause.

The court conceded that although the right to free exercise is “absolute”, that doesn’t mean any practice is protected by the First Amendment. The state can regulate certain practices—but only if it can prove a “compelling interest” that outweighs the free exercise. An example is the case of Reynolds v. United States, where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that polygamy in the Mormon church was not constitutionally protected, because of the dangers it posed to society.

People v. Woody touched on the question of what is a “bona fide” religious belief. We must distinguish, the court said, between those who practice their religion sincerely, and those who exploit the free exercise clause “merely as a cloak for illegal activities.” The court found that since the use of peyote was so central to the Navajo faith, it was a bona fide religious practice.

In weighing the individual’s free exercise against the state’s interests, the court found “the use of peyote presents only slight danger to the state…The scale tips in favor of the constitutional protection.” The court finishes their statement with a defense that makes one wonder if they themselves were using peyote: “In a mass society, which presses at every point toward conformity, the protection of a self-expression, however unique, of the individual and the group becomes ever more important. The varying currents of the subcultures that flow into the mainstream of our national life give it depth and beauty.”

The 1970 Controlled Substances Act established a system of controls and regulations on various drugs, including cannabis and other psychedelics. In practice and in writing, the U.S. government has recognized a special exemption for the “bona fide” use of peyote by members of the Native American Church. This understanding was based on existing legal precedent established by Woody and cases like it for over a decade.

But is this same protection afforded people who are not members of the Native American Church? This question came up in Native American Church of New York v. U.S. (1979). Here, a church in New York sued for their right to use psychedelics in a religious context. The Church, founded by Alan Birnbaum, was not affiliated with the Native American Church and few of its members were of Native American descent. However, they believed that all psychedelics—including peyote, cannabis, LSD, and more—were deities and wanted to use them freely in their practice.

The court concluded the law cannot restrict the peyote exemption to one particular church or group, and that any organization who used peyote sincerely in a religious context would be protected. However, the court would not let Birnbaum claim the exemption to use and distribute other psychedelics in his church besides peyote. The court noted the danger to society posed by psychedelics, and found that “[the plaintiff’s] interest still must be subordinated to the important purposes served by the Controlled Substances Act.”

The free exercise issue came up that same year with regards to cannabis in Jacquelyn R. Town v. State of Florida (1979). In this case, the Supreme Court of Florida affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the petitioner, Jacquelyn Town, may not use cannabis in her home for meetings of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church. This faith is based in Jamaica and Miami, and draws influence from Marcus Garvey and Rastafari teachings. It considers cannabis use central to its faith. Again, the court found that “the state’s compelling interest outweighs the free exercise interests of the petitioner. To hold otherwise would, for all practical purposes, legalize the use of cannabis for anyone, member or nonmember of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, who came to [Town’s] residence to use the prohibited drug.”

In the early 1980’s, various members of this church were convicted in two separate trials in Florida and Maine of importation, distribution, and possession of cannabis. Law enforcement agents in both states collected a total of over 115 tons of cannabis. The church members’ free exercise defense was dismissed because the court found that the First Amendment did not protect smuggling cannabis into the country.

The free exercise question comes up in the famous case of Employment Division vs. Smith (1990). In this case, two members of the Native American Church in Oregon named Alfred Smith and Galen Black were fired from their jobs after testing positive for peyote. Their petition for state unemployment benefits was denied, because they were fired for work-related “misconduct”. They sued in response, and the appellate court found the state had violated their First Amendment rights. The state appealed, but the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the decision.

The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against Smith and Black. The Court reasoned that although the free exercise clause protects religious belief, it does not protect any religious activity from “neutral, generally applicable” laws of the state—meaning laws everyone must follow. Because the State of Oregon had a legitimate interest in banning peyote, one must not claim a religious exemption to the law. Justice Antonin Scalia recognized that this standard might disadvantage certain religious minorities but deemed “[this] must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of … laws against … religious beliefs.” In this ruling, the court diminished the importance of the “Sherbert test” used for years and applied in the Woody case.

Public outcry from groups both liberal and conservative led to the passage in Congress—by near unanimous support—of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA). This reinstated the Sherbert test in federal and state law. The Act prohibited any government from “substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion” even in generally applicable law. The only exception is if the burden “furthers a compelling governmental interest, and is the least restrictive means of furthering [that interest].” The Smith ruling had been thwarted.

But in 1997, the Supreme Court struck down the RFRA in City of Boerne v. Flores, ruling that it was unconstitutional as applied to the states and an improper exercise of Congress’s power. It remained in place as applied to the federal government.

This was confirmed in the case of Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal (2006). This case concerns the Uniao do Vegetal (UDV) or Union of the Plants, a church based in New Mexico. This church made sacramental use of the psychedelic brew ‘hoasca’ (ayahuasca). In 1999, federal agents seized a shipment of the ayahuasca the church imported from Brazil. UDV sued the federal government and received a preliminary injunction against any further action towards the church. They cited the RFRA, stating that the state failed to show a “compelling interest” in its ban on their importation of the drug. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor, concluding that their right to free exercise outweighed the state’s interest in regulating the drug. It compared their case to the religious exemption made for Native American use of peyote.

They remanded the case to lower courts for further proceedings. According to the American Law Division, “The Court’s decision does not establish a broad precedent for religious exemptions from criminal statutes….The Court made it clear that the government could not establish a compelling interest in simply enforcing an existing statute; there must be some other justification for the burden on religious expression.”

A smaller case dealt with a very similar issue. In Guam v. Guerrero (2002), the U.S. Court of Appeals found that the RFRA protected individual possession of a drug—but not its importation. Here, a Rastafari man named Iyah Ben Makhana (b. Guerrero) was arrested at the Guam international airport with several ounces of cannabis, and charged with drug importation.

His religious defense was partially dismissed. The court concluded Ben Makhana’s possession of cannabis was justifiable, but not his importation of it. “Rastafarianism,” the court reasoned, “does not require importation of a controlled substance, which increases the availability of controlled substances and makes it harder for Guam to control.” This odd ruling was summarized by Ben Makhana’s lawyer: “[This is] equivalent to saying wine is a necessary sacrament for some Christians but you have to grow your own grapes.”

Ben Makhana had limited success. But we turn now to the most disappointing story concerning this question—that of Reverend Roger Christie. Christie founded The Hawai’i Cannabis (THC) Ministry in 2000, after being ordained as a minister to perform marriages with “cannabis sacrament”. In 10 years, his church’s membership grew to 50,000 and he performed weed marriages, weed funerals, and weed baptisms. VICE News writes, “Miraculously, [Hawaii] pretty much agreed with his interpretation, allowing him to form a church around the drug and practice uninterrupted for nearly ten years.”

But in 2010, Christie’s ministry was raided after a two-year long DEA investigation. He and 12 others were arrested, including his wife, and indicted by a grand jury for counts of marijuana trafficking.

Christie’s defense citing the RFRA was first upheld by U.S. District Court Judge Leslie Kobayashi, who found Christie’s practices sincere and legitimate according to the law. But the same judge reversed course one week later and rejected his defense. She refused to make a religious exemption for a Schedule I drug, citing its danger. In a move that echoes the Town case, the court also claimed Christie’s ministry might allow people with a fake ID to access the church and its cannabis and use it for a non-religious purpose (Christie denies this ever happened). However, Christie did defeat the charge that his ministry was a front for a drug-trafficking ring.

It is difficult to know which lessons to take away from this peculiar case, but if nothing else it reveals that strictly legal concerns are often subservient to mere political concerns. Reverend Christie tells us that he and his wife are fighting to overturn their convictions, and are awaiting a final ruling as of the writing of this article.

Back to the Present—How Will the Court Rule?

Looking at the legal history of this issue, one cannot clearly predict the outcome of Eidenger’s case in Washington, D.C. Clearly, the U.S. government at both the federal and state level—and courts at every level—have for decades recognized that some forms of illegal drug use are protected by the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. But context is of utmost importance.

What is the state’s compelling interest, if any, for restricting Eidinger’s ability to smoke? Is Eidinger’s cannabis use a bona fide religious expression, and if so, how could he prove it? Is this expression central to his religious practice, or is it secondary to other, more important aspects of his faith? And if it is a true religious expression, is a federal property in Washington, D.C. an appropriate venue for him to make it? These are all important questions that must be tackled in his trial. There is no sure road here to success–—nor an inevitable path to failure.

If you want to assist Eidinger and DCMJ in this legal effort — or just offer your support — you can  contact them here.

Correction: September 28, 2017: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Roger Christie was convicted of drug trafficking. He was charged but not convicted.

Paul Lee Corbett of Washington, 63, is a man of great adventure with a deep love for nature. Between 1968 and 1976, he lived, studied, and traveled throughout the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountains, and Alaskan regions. He has spent most of his life in Alaska, where he supported himself and his family by utilizing the environment around them. He set gill nets and long lines for fish, dug clams, hunted his meat, grew vegetables, and foraged. His adventures include traveling in 16-foot skiffs on the open waters of the Pacific Ocean and trekking 1,600-mile round-trips between Alaska and British Columbia. “I loved nature and the secure peace of being in it,” he says.

While mastering his external terrains, Corbett simultaneously built a strong relationship with his internal landscape with the use of entheogenic drugs, such as cannabis, LSD, and psilocybin-containing mushrooms. Corbett knows quite a bit, in fact, about psilocybin mushrooms—and not just from eating them. He’s a skilled forager with knowledge of the many different species of psychedelic mushrooms—of which there are hundreds, belonging to about a dozen different genera.

He credits LSD in particular with having “changed [his] mind in every direction” and relieved him of his heroin addiction. But the lasting effects were even more profound. “I no longer felt comfortable in this society, the United States, or really any society,” he says. After his experiences with drugs, he left the U.S., traveling northward before arriving in Alaska, beginning his life in remote destinations.

Currently, Corbett is facing a potential prison sentence of five years for possession of psilocybin mushrooms. In November 2016, he was arrested for picking wild mushrooms at Cape Disappointment Park in Washington state. He glimpsed what he believed to be a yet unidentified species of psilocybin mushroom, picking specimens of it for later analysis. Corbett maintains his innocence, arguing he committed no crime and injured no one. He was only exercising his natural curiosity, he says.

He first picked wild psilocybin mushrooms outside Seattle in 1972. “That kinda opened my eyes to the early information about season and location, so I became curious about that,” he tells me. “Eventually I found other types of psilocybe. Once you find the mushroom, you learn about the other mushrooms that grow with it, what kind of trees there are, what kind of medium they grow in, whether it’s grass or bark. The mushrooms educate you about the rest of the forest and the environment, too.”

Corbett was hiking in Cape Disappointment Park when he spotted large red mushrooms in a wood chip pile, which were to his knowledge, unidentified. A sign posted nearby read: NO MUSHROOM PICKING: VIOLATORS SUBJECT TO CRIMINAL CITATION. Corbett ignored it, elated by his discovery. “Everyone that goes there thinks those mushrooms are Psilocybe azurescens, but they’re not. They’re more clean feeling like the ‘liberty cap’ [Psilocybe semilanceata], and a very, very beautiful mushroom.” Close by, in the grass, he spotted true azurescens. More of the mystery mushrooms grew by the spot where Corbett had parked his truck.

The odd mushrooms, Corbett believes, were a sub-species—if not an entirely different species—of azurescens. He picked 10 specimens from the woodchip pile, and put them in a plastic bag along with 10 of the classic azurescens. “I put them together because they were clearly different, with no mistake whatsoever. They don’t look anything alike.” After storing the bag in his truck, Corbett put ten more mushrooms in his pocket before he heard a cry: “Police! Hold it right there!” A park ranger darted out of the brush with a gun pointed at Corbett’s face.

The ranger felt in Corbett’s pocket for the mushrooms, then handcuffed him. Another park ranger soon arrived. Corbett calmly revealed where his other mushrooms were stored, and the officials searched his truck. He was arrested and taken to the local jail. After the police called a judge, they were advised to release Corbett on his own recognizance. He hitchhiked back to the Washington coast to find his partner, Joyce, whom he has never left alone for more than two hours due to her physical ailments.

After his arraignment, Corbett was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance, punishable in Washington by up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines. He was offered a plea deal of one year of felony probation with 15 days in jail, but he immediately turned it down. “Joyce uses [medical] cannabis to cut down a quarter of her narcotic pain medication,” he explains, “but on probation she couldn’t even be in the same place I’m in.”

“Plus,” he adds (with a hint of annoyance), “I didn’t commit a crime. There’s no injured party involved in any of this, only Joyce and myself. In fact, over my time of picking mushrooms, I’ve probably saved a couple hundred people who were really stupid.” Not all mushroom species are equally safe for consumption, he states. Through the knowledge he has gained and shared over a lifetime of foraging, he has prevented his pupils from suffering potentially fatal side effects.

Corbett has been to court several times since the incident, but the case has not yet been settled. Twenty-four hours before one of his court dates, he was ordered to leave his wife in the hospital on risk of contempt of court—despite her doctor’s pleas to the contrary—to drive six hours from Fort Townshend, his residency, to attend his hearing.

Corbett has been frustrated by what he considers insufficient or even counterproductive advice by his lawyers, who have urged him to plead guilty. They have refused to discuss anything relating to mushrooms or entheogens, and hope Corbett will settle for the plea deal and probation. But Corbett is determined to challenge the law and prove his innocence.

He has since fired his attorneys and he hopes to hire one who will best represent him and his unique situation. He has opened a crowdfunding campaign to fund his legal expenses and his partner’s medical expenses.

Since his arrest, Corbett and Joyce have been traveling around Washington, following a recent hospitalization and surgery that Joyce underwent. He states that the worst likely consequence of his conviction would be leaving behind his frail partner. “We’re living in a camper now—which is a nice one—but she’s not capable of doing that on her own.” They are both counting on disability insurance, with no money to pay rent.

Corbett heaves a heavy sigh as he recounts his tale to me. “This has got to end. People need to be educated. My hope is to educate the whole courtroom. It’s a mystery to all of us why these things are illegal. And it’s a mystery to me why the word ‘liberty’ doesn’t apply to my curiosity and my entheogenic use.”

Corbett is uncertain about his own fate, but he hasn’t lost faith for his younger peers. “I’m hoping that education with these entheogenic substances will help us change the world, because I’m worried about it. I’m hoping this new movement now can change things. So we look at everything—each other and this whole earth—in a way that is a little more caring and a little more on the side of being a good steward.

“I don’t think people really get to know [the mushrooms] and where they live. They live in beautiful places, amazing places. And then again they also follow us around everywhere we go. They want to be with us, and they want to teach us.”

Corbett will return to trial in November 2017, after two more hearings scheduled in the fall.

One city in Ohio has devised what it considers to be an effective approach to deterring drug overdose: criminal charges.