The All-Night Ceremony

Police officers watched part of an all-night religious gathering in a traditional hogan and arrested several members of an Indigenous church who were using peyote, a cactus containing a hallucinogen that state law banned outright. The prosecution accepted that the gathering was a genuine religious ceremony. Church members regarded peyote as a sacrament, an object of worship and a spiritual teacher, and its use was the centre of their faith. The state argued that peyote was harmful, could lead to other drugs, could be used to indoctrinate children, and that religious exemptions would invite fraudulent claims. The defendants were convicted without a jury and argued that punishing them for their sacramental use violated their freedom of religion.