Heroin dealer cites religious freedom as his defense. Court says yeah, but what about the buyers?

[rug]

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=

A user prepares to inject heroin, in a file photo. A drug dealer in St. Louis claimed that he sold the drug only for religious purposes. (Fernando Vergara/AP)

By Tom Jackman
May 4 at 5:35 AM

Timothy Anderson admitted he sold heroin, lots of it. And didn’t intend to stop. But he said he did so as “a student of Esoteric and Mysticism studies,” and that he had created a religious non-profit to distribute heroin to “the sick, lost, blind, lame, deaf and dead members of God’s Kingdom.” So prosecuting him criminally would be a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed in 1993 to prohibit the government from unduly burdening a person’s exercise of religion.

Anderson was on to something here. (Except for the part about distributing to the dead. That may have been a bit off.) The Supreme Court previously ruled under the religious freedom act that a small sect of a Brazilian religion could import ayahuasca, containing the hallucinogen dimethyltryptamine, because a sect in New Mexico used it as part of a sacramental tea. And the government has also given an exception to Native Americans for peyote, even though both it and ayahuasca are Schedule 1 drugs, considered the most dangerous in the narcotics pyramid.

Before his trial in St. Louis in 2015, Anderson demanded that the case against him be thrown out, noting that the religious freedom act states that “the government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it is in the furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling interest.” Anderson wrote that he was running a “faith-based system” which offered detoxification treatment by the distribution and controlled use of heroin to “consenting adults only” as a “method of bringing the individual to a drug free state.” He stated that he did not “formally ascribe to any organized religion” and that his “religion beliefs derive from his transcendental union with the divine,” court records show.

A federal judge in St. Louis did not hold a hearing on this motion, records show. District Judge Rodney W. Sippel found that the government “has a proper and compelling interest in the regulation of heroin,” that prohibition of heroin was the “least restrictive means” of achieving that interest, and denied Anderson’s motion. A jury then convicted Anderson of conspiracy and distribution and Sippel sentenced him to 27 years in pri

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/05/04/heroin-dealer-cites-religious-freedom-as-his-defense-court-says-yeah-but-what-about-the-buyers/?utm_term=.5ec2fa4985c5

The 7-page decision: http://media.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/17/04/163053P.pdf

It really is not hard to discern what is a religion and what is not.

[AtheistCrusader]

1. It's extremely easy to discern. It's all make-believe. Done.