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 Msg  : #4152 [218]                                                             
 From : Carl E. Olsen                       1:2613/335      Tue 23 Aug 94 23:53 
 To   : All                                                                     
 Subj : Israel Zion Coptic 4                                                    

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

Marijuana use draws fire in court
Prairie du Chien man defends drug use

By Lyn Hanson Jerde
of the Telegraph Herald
  PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, Wis. -- Attorney Don Fiedler posed a question his client
Michael Matteson has heard time and time again.
  "Isn't this just a ruse to get high?"
  More than a year after he was charged with manufacturing marijuana, Matteson
was on the witness stand Thursday in Crawford County Circuit Court to testify
about the role of marijuana in his Israel Zion Coptic faith.
  "If I just wanted to get high," Matteson said, "I wouldn't make it public.
I'd stay hidden, in secret.  But that's not my faith.  I stand with the
truth."
  Matteson's lawyers, Fiedler, of Omaha, Neb., and Thomas Geyer, of
Platteville, are trying to get the charge against Matteson dismissed on
religious grounds.  Matteson contends the 36 marijuana plants that Crawford
County deputies seized from his home in March 1992 are sacramental ganja,
crucial to the practice of his faith.
  Ganja is part of his faith's holy trinity which also includes truth and the
person.  Without all three, he said, communion with the spirit of God inside
him is incomplete.
  Crawford County Attorney Timothy Baxter agreed that Matteson uses marijuana
for religious purposes.  But he's fighting the dismissal motion because he
believes the Legislature, not the courts, should decide whether there is a
religious exception to the laws against marijuana.
  Matteson said this is his first marijuana related arrest since he moved to
Crawford County with others of his faith in 1981.
  When the Israel Zion Coptics carved a commune out of the remote Star Valley
in northern Crawford County, newspapers and television stations from all over
the Midwest were there, too -- producing stories about the group, its
religion and its use of marijuana.
  Before long, Matteson said the sheriff came to call.
  "I told Sheriff (William) Fillbach that if he wanted to bust us for
possession, he could do it any time," he said.
  Matteson also promised the sheriff the commune dwellers would not try to
convert others to their faith, nor distribute their ganja to anyone.
  For several years, Matteson -- who has since moved from Star Valley to the
unincorporated settlement of Fairview -- grew his ganja outdoors.  But people
stole it.
  So he began an indoor growing operation in his basement.
  The sheriff's department got a search warrant based on an anonymous tip and
on Wisconsin Power and Light figures that showed an unusually high electric
use to the Matteson home.
  Matteson was arrested March 5, 1992, and released on a signature bond.
  A Milwaukee psychologist, Andrew Kane, said the amount of marijuana in the
Matteson home was consistent with his claim that it is used for religious
observances, not recreational purposes.
  "It is clear to me that the use of ganja is central to the defendant's
practice of his faith," Kane said.
  Thursday's proceedings were a continuation of a hearing that started March
29, in which Fiedler called witnesses to testify about the effects of
marijuana.
  Judge Michael Kirchman asked lawyers for both sides to write their arguments
in 30 days.  After that he'll decide whether to dismiss the charge.

  The Dubuque Telegraph Herald, Friday, May 7, 1993, Page 1A.

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