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 Msg  : #4149 [218]                                                             
 From : Carl E. Olsen                       1:2613/335      Tue 23 Aug 94 23:51 
 To   : All                                                                     
 Subj : Israel Zion Coptic 1                                                    

From: Carl_E._Olsen@commonlink.com (Carl E. Olsen)
Organization: Common Link Consulting & On-Line Service

Coptic priest claims church
privilege to use marijuana
  PRAIRIE DU CHIEN (AP) -- A Coptic priest who grew marijuana in his basement
says drug charges filed against him should be dismissed because they violate
his constitutional right to exercise his religion.
  An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ testified on Michael
Matteson's behalf during a hearing that Crawford County Circuit Judge Michael
Kirchman continued to May 6 for additional testimony.
  "It's clear that ganja (the Coptic word for marijuana) is central to their
worship," said the Rev. Cynthia S. Mazur of Arlington, Va.  "Without their
ganja, it would be impossible for them to worship."
  Matteson, 47, of rural Soldiers Grove, was arrested last year after deputies
found 30 potted marijuana plants growing in his basement.  Matteson said the
plants were for sacramental use.
  Mazur, the Virginia minister, was one of several defense witnesses during
the daylong proceeding Thursday.  She said state and federal law grants
exemptions to the Native American Church to worship with peyote -- a
controlled substance.  She urged the same exemption for Coptics, who "abhor
abuse of the sacrament of ganja" and prohibit the use of alcohol.
  The Israel Zion Coptic church has about 30 members locally, District
Attorney Timothy Baxter said.
  He said similar cases have never been upheld.
  In June 1989, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia, on a 2-1 vote, rejected a claim for a religious exemption to drug
laws by a priest of the Jamaica-based Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church.
  The federal Drug Enforcement Agency had denied the exemption.
  John Morgan, a New York City physician and medical professor who also
testified at Matteson's hearing, said alcohol is consumed in many Christian
denominations in communion wine.
  Alcohol is more dangerous to humans than marijuana and more likely to be
abused, he said.
  State and federal exemptions allowed the legal use of sacramental wine even
during Prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s, he said.
  Defense attorney Donald Fiedler of Omaha, Neb., said marijuana is sacred and
holy to Matteson and his fellow Copts.  When church members partake of the
substance, he said, "something spiritual happens."
  "It is the small religions that need protection" under the law, Fiedler
said.
  Stanley Moore, a professor of philosophy at UW-Platteville, said "nothing is
more common" than for various religions to have differing interpretations of
scripture.
  Copts cite verses in the Old Testament they say gives them the right and
duty to use marijuana.
  The use of psychoactive drugs is common in spiritual practices in many
lands, Moore said.
  "It is the western rejection of them that is unusual," he said.
  Wisconsin State Journal, Prairie du Chien, Saturday, March 27, 1993, Page
5D.

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