Week 8

Psychedelic Society

Notions like those expressed by Terence McKenna exemplify wishful thinking, and involve concepts that only have their place in the hypothetical. While the end of McKenna's ideal is noteworthy, his means for accomplishing it are not. He states quite conclusively that "No reconstruction of society can be done without psychedelics because we have drifted so long without them (McKenna 63)." I don't think the premise of his argument warrants such an extreme conclusion. Also, his remarks that "Whether you buy into my own peculiar, apocalyptarian transformative vision involving 2012, or whether you can just tell by looking around you that shit may soon hit the fan...(McKenna 62)", really gave me pause. If McKenna seriously subscribes to the belief that either the world will end in 2012 or a large scale spiritual revivalism must take place, then I wish to detract the slightly complimentary words I used earlier.

Entheogens and Law Enforcement

Sterling's claim that American laws prohibiting the possession or use of psychedelic drugs is religious persecution is preposterous. Furthermore, his assertion that the nature of the oppressive legislation (and its enforcement thereof) against entheogens in contemporary America parallels that of the Spanish Inquisition or is comparable to the persecution of Pilgrims in the 17 Century is outright laughable.


In Employment Division v. Smith two gentlemen, one Native American and one white man, were randomly drug tested at their work ( a drug rehabilitation clinic) and subsequently fired for the trace amount of drugs in their system. The two men, who acknowledged that the ingestion of psychedelic drugs was illegal in the state of Oregon, proceeded to file for unemployment compensation. However, more relevantly, Sterling seems to omit that Oregon's Appellate and Supreme Court ruled in Smith's favor, acknowledging the Free Exercise Clause infringement, until the Supreme Court finally overturned their ruling. Also, the state of Oregon did not file criminal charges against these gentlemen during or after the ruling. Moreover, a recent case, Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal 546 U.S. 418 (2006), upheld the religious right of a branch of a Brazilian church to ingest Hoasca, a psychedelic tea, falling back on their prior "compelling interest" criteria established in Sherbert v. Verner in 1963. It is interesting to note that the hallucinogenic properties in Hoasca, the sacramental tea used in the UDV religious practices, happens to be listed under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. In this case, however, the State failed to establish a "compelling interest" in disallowing the substance from being used for religious purposes, therefore, the UDV were granted the right to take Hoasca.