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Mimetics Hostilis: An Assemblage of Law, Psychiatry, and Chemical

Artifice

Richard Glen Boire

Configurations, Volume 16, Number 2, Spring 2008, pp. 145-165 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

For additional information about this article

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1. Gottried Benn, Provoziertes Leben (1941). Thanks to Jonathan Ott or bringing my

attention to this quote and to the rest o Benn’s work; see Ott, Pharmacophilia (Ken-

newick, WA: Natural Products Company, 1997), p. 89.

“I need time to nish my world view, which in skeleton orm is already based on

one sentence: God is a substance. God is a substance, a drug. An

inebriating substance with anity or the human brain.”

Gottried Benn1

Abstract

In 1947, a new drug appeared that was said by its pharmaceutical

creator to temporarily simulate psychosis. According to the creator,

the drug could acilitate psychiatrists who might take it or the pur-

pose o better understanding their “mental patients.” As the drug

gained wider use, some psychiatrists (and others) reported that the

drug elicited “revelation,” “great insights,” and “experiences o tran-

scendence.” But, branded as a “psychotomimetic,” the drug’s unex-

pected and apparent power to grant the grace o transcendent expe-rience created a crisis o consciousness. I the drug mimicked psycho-

sis, were the claimed transcendent and spiritual experiences mere

simulations o religious experience? How does the First Amendment’s

guarantee o religious reedom navigate the inner domain o mind

and map the gaps between the authentic and the reproduction, the

real and the hallucinated? What is to be said o the undamental

145

Mimetics Hostilis: An Assemblage o

Law, Psychiatry, and Chemical

Artifce

Richard Glen Boire

RGB Law Group

Confgurations, 2008, 16:145–165 © 2009 by The Johns Hopkins

University Press and the Society or Literature and Science.



right o religious reedom in the age o neuroscience and psychop-

harmacology? Have we returned to the age o heresy trials, as judges

dawn the robes o priests and decree true religion rom the so-called

articial?

Introduction2

In 1947, the Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz began distrib-

uting, ree o charge to psychiatric researchers, a new drug named

Delysid. Preliminary studies by Sandoz indicated two primary uses or

Delysid. As a pharmaceutical adjunct to analytical psychotherapy,

Delysid was said “to elicit release o repressed material and provide

mental relaxation, particularly in anxiety states and obsessional neu-

roses.”3

But it was the second suggested use that really xed in theeyes o clinical psychiatrists: Delysid, reported Sandoz, was useul or

“[e]xperimental studies on the nature o psychoses.”4 As urther ex-

plained in the product monograph that accompanied Delysid: “By

taking Delysid himsel, the psychiatrist is able to gain an insight in

the world o ideas and sensations o mental patients. Delysid can also

be used to induce model psychoses o short duration in normal sub-

jects, thus acilitating studies on the pathogenesis o mental disease.”

Here was a modern pharmaceutical agent capable o temporarily

admitting psychiatrists into the alien irrational world inhabited bytheir psychotic patients. A new technology o production—a wet

technology, a pharmaceutical agent that could be admitted into the

body or the purpose o simulating a diseased mind. Delysid, it ap-

peared, was a drug that cleanly and selectively muddied the doors o

perception, reversibly rewiring “normal” thought processes to con-

struct a “model psychoses,” which could saely be inhabited or an

aternoon. This was an eye-opening experience, said to provide the

adventurous psychiatrist with what one early researcher called “that

mysterious yet vital quality—empathy” or his or her psychoticpatients.5

146 Confgurations

2. “These events are real not because they occurred but because, rst, they were remem-

bered and, second, they are capable o nding a place in a chronologically ordered se-

quence” (Hayden White, The Content o the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Rep-

resentation [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987], p. 20).

3. Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company, Delysid Product Monograph, reprinted in Albert

Homann, LSD: My Problem Child: Reections on Sacred Drugs, Mysticism and Science (New

York: McGraw-Hill, 1980), pp. 46–48.4. Ibid., p. 47.

5. Humphry Osmond et al., eds., Psychedelics: The Uses and Implications o Hallucinogenic

Drugs (London: Hogarth Press, 1971), p. 425.



So-called psychotomimetic6 drugs (drugs that mimic psychosis)

were, o course nothing new, even during the 1940s. Only seven years

ater the publication o Jean Etienne Esquirol’s Des maladies mentales

(1838),7

widely considered the rst scientic study o psychosis,Esquirol’s associate Jean-Jacques Moreau de Tours was eating hash-

ish (and giving it to his medical students) in an eort to better un-

derstand the resultant “happy madness.”8 A hundred years o such

hashish and marijuana studies had accumulated by the time Delysid

was released in 1947. Researchers had also amassed nearly ty years

o psychotomimetic studies using mescaline, a psychotropic com-

pound isolated rom the peyote cactus ( Lophophora williamsii) by

Arthur Heter in 1897 and rst synthesized in 1919 by Ernst Spath.

Kurt Beringer, a colleague o Herman Hesse and Carl Jung, gave mes-caline to over ty doctors and medical students and published their

psychonautical reports in his 1927 book, Der Meskalinrausch.9

But Delysid was dierent: it was artifcial.10 Yes, it was derived rom

ergot—a ungus common to rye and wheat—but unlike marijuana

and mescaline, Delysid was nowhere to be ound in the natural11

world. Its articial character permitted both quantitative and qualita-

tive assurances that were impossible with the pre-existing psychoto-

mimetics. It was psychoactive in astonishingly small amounts. Dos-

ages were measured in micrograms (millions o a gram), whereasmarijuana and mescaline were measured in grams and milligrams.

But most importantly, unlike all the preexisting psychotomimetic

agents, Delysid was what might be called a “pure product,” not only

Boire / An Assemblage o Law, Psychiatry, and Chemical Artifce 147

6. This term was evidently coined by Ralph Gerard; see Gerard, Neuropharmacology:

Transactions o the Second Conerence (New York: Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, 1956).

7. Jean Etienne Esquirol’s, Des maladies mentales (On mental illness) (Paris: J. B. Baillière,

1838). Esquirol is also credited with introducing the term hallucination; see RolandFisher, “The Perception-Hallucination Continuum (A Re-examination),” Diseases o the

Nervous System 30:3 (1969): 161–171.

8. Jean-Jacques Moreau de Tours, Du Hachisch et de l’aliénation mentale (On hashish and

mental alienation) (1845), in John Miller and Randall Koral, White Rabbit: A Psychedelic

Reader (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1995), p. 209.

9. Kurt Beringer, Der Meskalinrausch (The mescaline intoxication) (Berlin: Julius

Springer, 1927).

10. The Compact Edition o the Oxord English Dictionary (1971), s. v. “articial”: “Op-

posed to natural. Made by or resulting rom art or artice; contrived, compassed or

brought about by constructive skill, and not spontaneously; not natural.”

11. Ibid., s. v. “natural”: “Constituted by nature; having a basis in the normal constitu-

tion o things. Existing in, or ormed by, nature; consisting o objects o this kind; not

articially made, ormed, or constructed.”



because it was manuactured under sterile laboratory conditions, its

purity tested and veried, but because its very genesis occurred

within white walls and under the imprimatur o a major pharmaceu-

tical company. Unlike marijuana and mescaline, both o which, be-sides being natural products, entered Western medicine with long

nonmedical histories that included religious and shamanic use,

Delysid was a new product without any cultural history,12 a chemical

blank slate waiting to inscribe and to be inscribed. When a researcher

opened a box o Delysid, he ound a sterile glass ampoule o color-

less liquid or shiny coated tablets—inoensive items perectly at

place among the other tools o modern medicine.

A paper published in the American Journal o Psychiatry in 1952

summarized the rst our years o Delysid research. Normal subjects,reported the researchers, who were given “mere traces” o the drug

temporarily entered states o mind that “show similarities to symp-

toms that occur in actual psychoses.”13 Moreover, these symptoms

seemed to mimic schizophrenia, the psychosis extraordinaire:

We noticed, predominantly, changes similar to those seen in schizophrenic

patients. The subjects exhibited . . . diculties in thinking, which became re-

tarded, blocked, autistic, and disconnected. The aect was shallow or there

was clear-cut blunting. Feelings o indierence and unreality with suspicious-

ness, hostility, and resentment also approximated schizophrenic phenomena.

Hallucinations and delusional disturbances though present were much less

prominent or striking, but together with the maniestation o depersonaliza-

tion were most reminiscent o schizophrenic dissociation.14

Yet at the same time that researchers explored Delysid as a chem-

ical inducer o model psychosis, reports that did not t the psychot-

omimetic model began to accumulate. Some who took the drug re-

ported having aesthetic, philosophical, and even mystical insights.

For example, W. A. Stoll, the psychiatrist who published the rstscientic paper on Delysid, discussed the drug’s ecacy at mimick-

ing psychosis, but also noted that at one point during his own sel-

experiment

148 Confgurations

12. A number o plants, including seeds o some Morning Glories ( Ipomoea violacea)

and Hawaiian Baby Woodrose ( Argyreia nervosa) contain lysergic acid amide (LSA), a

drug that has a long history o shamanic use and a molecular structure similar to

Delysid’s; see Richard Evans Schultes and Albert Homann, The Botany and Chemistry o

Hallucinogens (Springeld, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1980).

13. Max Rinkel, H. Jackson Deshon, Robert W. Hyde, and Harry C. Solomon, “Experimen-

tal Schizophrenia-Like Symptoms,” American Journal o Psychiatry 108:8 (1952): 576.

14. Ibid., pp. 576–577.



I elt mysel one with all romanticists and dreamers, thought o E. T. A. Ho-

mann, saw the maelstrom o Poe (even though, at the time I had read Poe, his

description seemed exaggerated). Oten I seemed to stand at the pinnacle o

artistic experience; I luxuriated in the colors o the altar o Isenheim,15

andknew the euphoria and exultation o an artistic vision. I must also have spo-

ken again and again o modern art; I thought o abstract pictures, which all at

once I seemed to understand.16

Dr. Sidney Cohen, one o the early researchers in the eld, later

wrote that or the rst ten years o research with Delysid, “there was

no question but that its administration inevitably produced a psy-

chosis.”17 But then something strange happened:

reports rom isolated groups insisted that something dierent rom madnesswas being induced. In these circles the talk was o revelation, o great insights

obtained, o eelings o proound unity and experiences o sel-transcendence.

Even the illusions and hallucinations, instead o being terriying and disorga-

nizing, were described as pleasurable and meaningul.18

Dr. Humphry Osmond was one such researcher who believed that

labeling Delysid a “psychotomimetic” was negatively aecting how

researchers evaluated the drug. The habit o researchers to downplay

Delysid’s power to elicit positive insights in avor o characterizing

the drug as modeling pathology was regrettable, said Osmond, who

argued that the psychotomimetic model was a conceptual straight-

jacket that threatened to restrain other, perhaps ar more important

uses o the drug. Speaking to ellow researchers at a New York Acad-

emy o Sciences conerence in 1957, Osmond counseled:

The primary interest o these drugs or the psychiatrist lies in their capacity to

mimic more or less closely some aspects o grave mental illnesses, particularly

schizophrenia. The act that medical men have been preoccupied with tran-

sient states resembling mental illnesses that have been called model psycho-ses, however, does not mean that the only use or these compounds is in the

study o pathological conditions. This misunderstanding, unless corrected,


15. Interestingly, the Isenheim Alterpiece (ca. 1515) includes a painted portrayal (bot-

tom let o right-most inside wing) o a man suering rom St. Anthony’s Fire, an ex-

cruciating infammation o the nerves later linked (in the seventeenth century) to the

ingestion o ergot-inested rye.

16. Homann, LSD (above, n. 3), pp. 38–39.

17. Sidney Cohen, Drugs o Hallucination (1971), p. 70.

18. Ibid.



can deprive us o much knowledge and prevent the growth o new and asci-

nating researches.19

While Osmond did not dispute that Delysid was valuable as a

psychotomimetic, he elt strongly that its potential went ar beyondsimply modeling psychosis. Drugs like Delysid, he suggested, opened

up much broader possibilities or study: they “raise more questions

than answers, and to understand those answers we must invent new

languages . . . we must change our thinking to use the potentialities

o our new instruments.”20 A new term, one that escaped the heavy

pathological coloring, was needed:

I mimicking mental illness were the main characteristic o these agents, “psy-

chotomimetics” would indeed be a suitable generic term. It is true that theydo so, but they do much more. Why are we always preoccupied with the

pathological, the negative? Is health only the lack o sickness? Is good merely

the absence o evil? Is pathology the only yardstick? Must we ape Freud’s

gloomier moods that persuaded him that a happy man is a sel-deceiver evad-

ing the heartache or which there is no anodyne? Is not a child innitely po-

tential rather than polymorphously perverse?

I have tried to nd an appropriate name or the agents under discussion: a

name that will include the concepts o enriching the mind and enlarging the

vision. Some possibilities are: psychephoric, mind moving; psychehormic,mind rousing; and psycheplastic, mind molding. Psychezynic, mind erment-

ing, is indeed appropriate. Psycherhexic, mind bursting orth, though di-

cult, is memorable. Psychelytic, mind releasing, is satisactory. My choice,

because it is clear, euphonious, and uncontaminated by other associations, is

psychedelic, mind maniesting.21

150 Confgurations

19. Humphry Osmond, “A Review o the Clinical Eects o Psychotomimetic Agents,”

Annals o the New York Academy o Sciences 66:3 (1957, March 14): 420.

20. Ibid., pp. 428–429.

21. Ibid., p. 429. In a now well-known letter to Osmond on March 30, 1956, the novel-

ist Aldous Huxley proposed the name “phanerothyme” or drugs like mescaline.

Huxley wrote:

To make this trivial world sublime,

Take a hal a gramme o phanerothyme.

Osmond replied with his own rhyme:

To athom Hell or soar angelic,

Just take a pinch o psychedelic.

The letter is reprinted in Michael Horowitz and Cynthia Palmer, eds., Moksha: Aldous

Huxley’s Classic Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience (Rochester, VT:

Park Street Press, 1977), p. 107.



The term psychedelic caught on22 and Delysid, better known to-

day as LSD (D-lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate), became its quint-

essential exemplar.

* * *Re-branded to allow or more positive interpretations o the experi-

ence, some o which were nothing less than rapturous, word o LSD

began spreading. Especially among artists, philosophers, and mys-

tics, ew wanted to be let behind. But just as researchers were begin-

ning to reexamine LSD outside o the psychotomimetic interpretive

straightjacket, a rash o women in Europe gave birth to babies with

serious birth deects. The problem was traced not to LSD, but to an-

other experimental drug, a sleeping pill named Thalidomide.

In response to public concerns that loose regulations in theUnited States could lead to a similar asco, the U.S. Congress passed

new regulations that tightly limited research with experimental new

drugs.23 Prior to 1963, human experiments with newly created drugs

were largely unregulated; the 1963 regulations radically expanded

the powers o the FDA, requiring companies to prove that a new

drug was reasonably sae and eective in nonhuman animals beore

commencing human testing. I animal testing was successul, hu-

man testing could begin, but only in stages, with each new stage

requiring both pre-approval and post-evaluation by the FDA. Whilesaeguarding against a U.S. tragedy like the European Thalidomide

crisis, the new regulations added substantial costs and delays to the

process o developing potentially saer and more eective new

drugs.24

In 1963, the same year that these new regulations came into eect,

Sandoz’s patent on LSD expired. Without any way o generating a

protected prot rom its investment, Sandoz concluded that it could


22. Just a year ater Osmond suggested abandoning the label “psychotomimetic,” the

World Health Organization published a report that encouraged ongoing scientic

research with psychedelics and expressed dissatisaction with the moniker “psychosomi-

metic,” remarking: “The relationship between a model and a real psychosis . . . is ar rom

clear. The term, thereore, can only be accepted with the greatest reservation, and it is

suggested that, until superseded by a happier one, it should not be used”; see “Ataractic

and Hallucinogenic Drugs in Psychiatry: Report o a Study Group,” WHO Technical

Report Series no. 152 (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1958), pp. 34–35.

23. Pub. L. No. 87-781, 76 Stat. 780 (1962), codied in various sections o 21 U.S.C.

24. Lehman Brothers Healthcare Group has estimated that the costs o bringing a newdrug to market under current FDA regulations can reach as high as $675 million; see

Lehman Brothers, “Drug R&D Costs, Success Rates, and Emerging Technologies: A Look

at Three Future Scenarios” (1997), in Pharmaceutical R&D Statistical Sourcebook (Dublin:

Parexal International, 2000).



not justiy the expenses o moving LSD through FDA approval. As a

result, Sandoz drastically reduced LSD production and distribution.

* * *The genie, however, was already out o the bottle. For a ee o ty

cents payable to the U.S. Patent Oce, enterprising chemists could

acquire the recipe or making LSD. These chemists stepped in to

supply a booming legal market just as Sandoz cut back supply and

popular demand or the drug was mushrooming.25 In 1965, respond-

ing to a swarm o media reports that depicted America as a country

ravaged by dangerous drugs o all sorts, ederal lawmakers moved to

prohibit the unregistered possession, manuacture, or sale o any

drug having a “depressant,” “stimulant,” or “hallucinogenic eecton the central nervous system.”26 The ollowing year, the law was

amended to explicitly enumerate six prohibited substances having a

hallucinogenic eect: dimethyltryptamine (DMT), d-Lysergic acid

diethylamide (LSD), mescaline, peyote, psilocybin, and psilocin.27

Sandoz responded by ending all urther production and distribution

o LSD, psilocybin, and psilocin.28

Congress ollowed up on the law in 1970, passing a massive ederal

criminal law29 (tenuously based on its power to regulate interstate

commerce), which, among other things, created a category o con-trolled substances denoted “hallucinogens.” The six compounds al-

ready labeled hallucinogenic by the earlier law were joined by eleven

152 Confgurations

25. On March 25, 1966, Lie magazine published a cover story titled “The Exploding

Threat o the Mind Drug That Got Out o Control,” reporting that “[a]t least one mil-

lion doses o LSD” would be taken in 1966, and concluding that “the genie o LSD,

with all its tantalizing possibilities or good and evil, is out in the open”; see http://

www.psychedelic-library.org/magazines/lielsd.htm. See also Edward M. Brecher and

the editors o Consumer Reports, “Chapter 50: How LSD was Popularized, 1962–1969,”in The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), pp.

366–374.

26. Drug Abuse Control Amendments o 1965, Pub. L. No. 89-74, 79 Stat. 226 (1965).

While the new law outlawed possession o hallucinogenic substances, not all posses-

sion was outlawed. An accompanying provision carved out a large exception, permit-

ting any person to possess hallucinogenic drugs so long as they were or his or her own

personal use or the use o a member o his or her household (sec. 511 [c]). In the all o

1968, the exception or personal use was eliminated (Pub. L. No. 90-639, 82 Stat. 1361

[1968]).

27. 31 Federal Register 4679 (March 19, 1966).

28. See letter o A. Cerletti, then-director o the pharmaceutical department o Sandoz,

dated August 23, 1965; reprinted in Homann, LSD (above, n. 3), pp. 62–64.

29. 21 U.S.C. sec. 801 et seq.



others30 declared by Congressional at to have “a high potential or

abuse,” “no currently accepted medical use” in the United States, and

“a lack o accepted saety,” even under medical supervision.31

* * *

By adopting the term hallucinogen(ic), the American legal system

orged into ederal criminal law the outdated psychotomimetic

characterization o the substances. By a simple selection o a word,

the states o mind elicited by the substances were relegated and re-

duced to the distorted and deranged broodings o the mad. By the

1970s, the term psychedelic was likewise over-saturated with mean-

ing, loaded with visions o swirling kaleidoscopic lettering on 1960s

rock posters and dark images o a wayward hippie counterculture.Asserting that neither o these labels “deserve greater longevity, i

our language is not to perpetuate the misunderstandings o the

past,” a group o ve scholars proposed yet another rhetorical recu-

peration in 1979. Their choice was “entheogen”:

In Greek the word entheos means literally “god (theos) within,” and was used to

describe the condition that ollows when one is inspired and possessed by the

god that has entered one’s body. It was applied to prophetic seizures, erotic pas-

sion and artistic creation, as well as to those religious rites in which mystical

states were experienced through the ingestion o substances that were transub-

stantial with the deity. In combination with the Greek root gen-, which denotes

the action o “becoming,” this word results in the term that we are proposing:


30. 21 U.S.C. sec. 812, subd. (c).

31. The substances initially listed in schedule 1 as hallucinogens were: 1) 3,4-methyl-

enedioxy amphetamine; 2) 5-methoxy-3,4-methylenedioxy amphetamine; 3)

3,4,5-trimethoxy amphetamine; 4) Buotenine; 5) Diethyltryptamine; 6) Dimethyl-

tryptamine; 7) 4-methyl-2,5-dimethoxyamphetamine; 8) Ibogaine; 9) Lysergic acid

diethylamide; 10) Marihuana; 11) Mescaline; 12) Peyote; 13) N-ethyl-3-piperidyl nez-

ilate; 14) N-methyl-3-piperidyl benzilate; 15) Psilocybin; 16) Psilocyn; and 17) Tetrahy-

drocannabinols (21 U.S.C. sec. 812, subd. [b] [1970]). As o January 2004, the number

o ederally prohibited hallucinogens had risen rom the initial six to a total o thirty-

two (21 C.F.R. 1308.11). But the reaches o the ederal law extend even urther. Any

“material, compound, mixture, or preparation, which contains any quantity” o a

scheduled hallucinogenic substance is likewise considered a controlled substance

(ibid.). Although this phrase was intended to reach street dealers who sell diluted or

“cut” drugs that contain more o the cutting agent (e.g., cornstarch) than the illegal

drug, ederal and state prosecutors have twisted its interpretation to include plants that

naturally produce controlled substances. Additionally, under a ederal law passed in1986, the denition o “controlled substance” was radically expanded to include “con-

trolled substance analogues,” designated in an Alice-in-Wonderland way as all new

substances that are “substantially similar” to those explicitly controlled (“Controlled

Substance Analogue Act,” 21 U.S.C. 813; 21 U.S.C. 802[32][A]).



entheogen. Our word sits easily on the tongue and seems quite natural in English.

We could speak o entheogens or, in an adjectival orm, o entheogenic plants or

substances. In a strict sense, only those vision-producing drugs that can be

shown to have gured in shamanic or religious rites would be designated en-theogens, but in a looser sense, the term could also be applied to other drugs,

both natural and articial, that induce alterations o consciousness similar to

those documented or ritual ingestion o traditional entheogens.32

Conclusion33

fade in

a close-up, low-angle shot of a sterile marble floor. the narrow depth

of field reveals what appears to be a long hallway, interrupted by out-of-

focus black movements that resolve into the shoes and slacks and deter-mined strides of professionals.

It could be the inside o a madhouse, or a courthouse.

Men34 are talking about simulations, about delusions, about various

orms o guilt. Their voices rebound and mix, an auditory montage

supplemented with discontinuous announcements over an intercom

system and overlaid with other sounds and noises o bureaucratic o-

ciousness. On a table rests an open manila older, a page reads:

synopsis: a forty year old man35

discovered in a private cabin under the influence of illegal hallucinogenic drugs. unrepentant. refuses to acknowledge guilt. claims that

these drugs are “entheogenic” sacraments essential for his religious practices.

154 Confgurations

32. Carl A. Ruck, Jeremy Bigwood, Danny Staples, Jonathan Ott, and R. Gordon Was-

son, “Entheogens,” Journal o Psychoactive Drugs 11:1/2 (1979): 145–146.

33. “The notion that sequences o real events possess the ormal attributes o the stories

we tell about imaginary events could only have its origin in wishes, daydreams, and

reveries. Does the world really present itsel to perception in the orm o well-made

stories, with central subjects, proper beginnings, middles, and ends, and a coherence

that permits us to see ‘the end’ in every beginning?”; see White, Content o the Form (above, n. 2), p. 24.

34. “You are undoubtedly aware that thanks to zooormalin one can temporarily be-

come—or rather, eel onesel to be—a turtle, ant, ladybug, or even a jasmine blossom,

with the help o a little botanil inforescine—subjectively o course, it is also possible

to undergo dissociation into two, three, our parts. When the number o personality

splits reaches a two-place gure, you obtain a thronging eect. At which point we are

no longer dealing with an ego, but a wego. A plurality o minds in a single body” (Stan-

islaw Lem, The Futurological Congress (rom the Memoirs o Ijon Tichy), trans. Michael

Kandel [New York: Seabury Press, 1974], p. 124). “I shall . . . imagine that I have an

opponent who ollows my arguments with mistrust, and here and there shall allowhim to interject some remarks” (Sigmund Freud, The Future o an Illusion, trans. James

Strachey [New York: Norton, 1961], p. 21).

35. “[M]an had been a gure occurring between two modes o language; or, rather, he

was constituted only when language, having been situated within representation and,



The deendant may believe what he will as to peyote and marijuana and he may

conceive that one is necessary and the other is advisable in connection with his reli-

gion. But it is not a violation o his constitutional rights to orbid him, in the guise

o his religion, to possess a drug which will produce hallucinatory symptoms similar to those produced in cases o schizophrenia, dementia praecox, or paranoia, and his

position cannot be sustained here—in law nor in morals.36

By using an illegal hallucinogenic drug under the guise o reli-

gion, this man has breached the social contract on just about every

level imaginable. The major active ingredient in peyote is mescaline.

Mescaline is a hallucinogen whose eects are similar to those o lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). It may produce alteration o consciousness, evi-

denced by conused mental states and dreamlike revivals o past traumatic

events, alteration o sensory perception, evidenced by visual illusions and distortion o space and perspective, alteration o mood, evidenced by anxi-ety, euphoria, or ecstasy, alteration o ideation, evidenced by impairment

o concentration and intelligence, and alteration o personality, evidenced by impairment o conscious and the breakdown o cultural and social in-

hibitions . . .37

But gentlemen, let’s not orget that unlike an actual madman

who’s hopelessly lost inside his mind, this man is able to control his

hallucinations. He’s operationally sane in all but one domain: hisproclivity or chemically inducing hallucinations, which he believes

have some religious import. But, as we know, these hallucinogenic

drugs merely simulate. To characterize their eects as “psychosis” or

as some sort o “religious” beatic vision, is in both cases to mistake

an articial model or the real. I, on the one hand, religion brings with

it obsessional restrictions, exactly as an individual obsessional neurosisdoes, on the other hand it comprises a system o wishul illusions together

with a disavowal o reality, such as we fnd in an isolated orm nowhere

else but in amentia, in a state o blissul hallucinatory conusion.38

I you mean to excuse his behavior, I disagree. Even under the

most generous interpretation, I see no reason to distinguish this

man’s actions rom those o a malingerer. Remember that character

in M*A*S*H? Colonel Klink? No, Corporal Klinger.


as it were, dissolved in it, reed itsel rom that situation only at the cost o its own

ragmentation: man composed his own gure in the interstices o that ragmented

language” (Michel Foucault, The Order o Things: An Archaeology o the Human Sciences,

trans. Alan Sheridan [New York: Vintage, 1970], p. 386).

36. State v. Bullard (1966), 148 S.E.2d 565, 569.

37. Peyote Way Church o God, Inc. v. Smith (1984), 742 F.2d. 193, 197.

38. Freud, Future o an Illusion (above, n. 34), p. 43.



The malingerer who akes a particular physical or mental illness

does not, o course, have that illness, but he has another illness, a

mental illness. This man, by taking a drug outside o medical super-

vision that mimics psychosis, is not actually psychotic. Yet, his pen-chant or inducing simulated psychosis is a orm o malingering,

which is itsel a mental illness. Usually the simulation o schizophreniais simply the prodromal phase o genuine illness. . . . The majority o such

patients will be suering rom the early stages o a genuine psychosis and should be managed accordingly.39

Psychosis a common condition in schizophrenia, is a state o mentalimpairment marked by hallucinations, which are disturbances o sensory

perception, and/or delusions, which are alse yet strongly held personal be-

lies that result rom an inability to separate real rom unreal experiences.40

What’s most troubling to me is his claim that his drug-induced

hallucinations have some sort o religious signicance. This is tanta-

mount to asserting that his hallucinations are more signicant than

reality itsel. He is worshipping an illusion, a chemical idol. Thou

shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness o any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the

water under the earth.41 In eect, he is displacing reality in avor o

unreal and distorted thinking. This reality displacement is a hall-

mark o psychosis.Clearly, his claims o religious signicance cannot be true, and

cannot even be entertained as such, because doing so would entail

the erasure o the reality principle, and with it the erasure o any

objective standards whatsoever. We can give him the benet o the

doubt on many things, but there can be no debate about the reality

principle. Using hallucinogens to simulate God is o greatest con-

cern. By His very nature, God cannot be simulated, and anyone who

truly believes (1) that a drug is capable o simulating God, and (2)

then mistakes such a aux “god” or God Himsel, is, by any reason-able denition, truly insane. Imagine i this were to catch on.

I steered clear o the theoapothetrias, with their aith-giving, grace-

bestowing, sin-absolving compounds, where with a gram o sancrosancti-monium you can be canonized on the spot. And while you’re at it, why not

a little dietary deitine, lo-cal allah-all, polyunsaturated brahmanox? Our

156 Confgurations

39. G. G. Hay, “Feigned Psychosis: A Review o the Simulation o Mental Illness,” British

Journal o Psychiatry 143 (1983): 8–10.

40. Grace Tsai, “Schizophrenia,” DiscoveryHealth.com, http://health.discovery.com/

centers/mental/schizophrenia/schizophrenia.html.

41. The Bible, King James Version, Exodus 20:4.



nazarine anointium, with Jehoshaphat, and a drop o sugar-ree decaein-

ated kingdom-come doues the rest. Glory hallelucinujah! Paradisiacs or the pious, mephistol and ereban or the masochists, Valhalla and valhell

. . . it was all I could do to keep rom storming into a pharmacopium onthe corner, where the congregation was kneeling devoutly, popping paster-

nostrums and taking orisol like snu.42

cut to medium shot of dark hallway, the flicker of cathode rays from

an open doorway illuminate a portion of the hallway

Next on NOVA. Scientists are continuing to uncover what some

are calling a “marvelous uroboric quality o the cosmos.” By study-

ing correspondences where particular processes and orms are reme-

diated across time and space, scientists, philosophers, and even

theologians are glimpsing what some are suggesting may be a un-damental divine code. “We’re very interested in exploring how cer-

tain things appear to cast echoes o themselves across other medi-

ums, both natural and articial,” explained one researcher at a ma-

jor university. Evolutionary biologists have long known that simula-

tion, which oten takes the orm o natural camoufage, provides

evolutionary advantages. These new studies, however, examine sim-

ulation and mimicry as remediation—the phenomenon o certain

processes or orms to extend themselves by maniesting across and

within dierent mediums: “These remediated echoes suggest a typeo communication modality—an echolocution system—in which

the medium becomes the message, the orm becomes the content.”43

cut back to table with open folder

Gentlemen, I suggest that we rerain rom devolving into a discus-

sion about metaphysics. I’m oended by the implicit suggestion that

the practice o religion can be equated to the practice o philosophy.

Smoking marijuana or taking LSD may provide philosophical odder,

but this must not be conused with a true religious experience.

Last time I read the First Amendment, it protected religion, not philosophy .

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment o religion, or prohibiting the ree exercise thereo .44


42. Lem, Futurological Congress (above, n. 34), p. 121.

43. “Rupert Sheldrake’s central notion is the idea o morphic resonance, the transmis-

sion o orms and behaviors through repetition in time. . . . Spanning the scale o cre-

ation rom protein molecules to galaxies, and rom the most primitive organisms to

human societies, this ground-breaking work suggests that nature operates less by xed

laws than by its own kind o memory” (rom the back cover o Rupert Sheldrake’s The

Presence o the Past [New York: Random House, 1988]).

44. U.S. Constitution, Amendment I.



Marijuana . . . appears merely to have served as the means by which

appellant ascertained particular states o mind characterized by him asreligious. Such conduct, even i perormed to attain what is considered a

sincere religious experience, is not protected by the First Amendment.45

There is no constitutional protection or theorizing. You can’t just

label your pet theories a “religion” and think that you’re thereby

entitled to use illegal drugs. For God’s sake we can’t permit this

man’s drug-induced fights o ancy to rewrite something as unda-

mental as the First Amendment.

There is no evidence that deendant’s belie was espoused by any orga-nization or was a principle, tenet, or dogma o any organization o which

he was a member. There is no evidence that deendant’s belie encom-

passes marijuana as an object o worship or that the use and distributiono marijuana except in limited ways would be sacrilegious. There is noevidence that deendant uses marijuana to communicate with any Su-

preme Being; no evidence that deendant’s use or distribution in any way involves any religious ceremony; no evidence that the use or distribution

involves any principle, tenet or dogma pertaining to the spiritual or eternaland, thus, nonsecular.46

The act that the use o drugs is ound in some ancient and some modern

recognized religions is an obvious point that misses the mark.47 Moreover,

the act that he’s not alone in his belies about hallucinogens, andthat he gathers together with others to take them, does not make

them a “church.” It is the opinion o the Hearing Ofcer ater review and

study o the record that the Church o the Awakening is not a religion in thetrue sense o the word, but a loose conederation o kindred souls whose

purpose is to explore the mystical boundaries o humanity through the useo hallucinogenic drugs and other means.48 The Free Exercise Clause is

not a get-out-o-jail-ree card or drug-using philosophers. . . . deen-dant has oered no evidence that his use o marijuana is a religious practice

in any sense o that term. In deendant’s discourse to the jury he did reer tothe Bible and to the practices o some Hindus, but in essence he was express-

ing only his own personal philosophy and way o lie.49

I might add, just or the purposes o argument, that even i we

were to grant that his drug use is producing an authentic religious expe-

rience, the law does not provide any protection or such articial

158 Confgurations

45. People v. Werber (1971), 19 Cal. App. 3d, 598, 608.

46. State v. Brashear (Ct. App. NM 1979), 593 P.2d, 63, 68.

47. Ibid., p. 68.

48. 35 Federal Register 2874 (February 12, 1970).

49. People v. Mitchell (1966), 244 Cal. App. 2d, 176, 182.



aids. The point is that the law does not bar the deendant rom practices

indispensable to the pursuit o his aith. Rather, it compels him to aban-don reliance upon an artifcial aid and to utilize other, perhaps sel-in-

duced means to attain the desired intensifcation o apperception.50

It’squite clear that the Free Exercise Clause o the First Amendment

doesn’t guarantee a person the right to use the most eective reli-

gious practices. Exercise entails natural eort, it cannot be reduced

to eciency or eectiveness, or to the ease o popping a pill. Granted,arguendo, that drugs can acilitate or precipitate a religious or mystical

experience, the record shows that the experience can be reached throughless convenient means such as asting, prayer, meditation, hypnosis, etc.

Thereore, denial o the exemption would not inringe on the rights o the

petitioners to exercise their religion.51

So ar, we’ve been assuming that he is operating in good aith;

that he sincerely, but mistakenly, believes that his drug-induced hal-

lucinations are o a religious nature. But, there is another possibility

that we must consider. It is possible that all this talk about religion is

a ruse. Ater all is not simulation inherently misleading, raudulent,

and deceptive? I do not want to impute dishonesty, but I think it is

our duty to consider that this man may be misrepresenting his hal-

lucinogen use as “religious” in a desperate eort to nd a legal sae

harbor or what is, in actuality, pure and simple illegal drug use. Thelaw [may] exert its orce in situations where, under guise o religion, indul-

gence is sought in acts oensive to law and morality alike, in the disin- genuous belie that they are constitutionally protected. There is no immu-

nity, o course, to devotees o such ancient observances as a dionysiansymposium or a bacchanalian orgy, even though conducted under a pro-

ane pretext o divine worship.52

There is a decided acility or drug abusers to enter into the membership

o the Church o the Awakening. This would provide a ready means to

acquire immunity rom the law i the petition were granted. “Bad aith” o uture members and monitors is a real problem under the proposed re-quirements enumerated by the Church. Granting o the exemption would

create serious breaches in drug abuse legislation and open the door to pseudoreligions conceived or the purpose o circumventing drug laws in-

tended to control the misuse o drugs.53

I am tempted to suggest that there may be multiple layers o deceit

here. Simulation upon simulation. Addiction upon addiction. We


50. People v. Collins (1969), 273 Cal. App. 2d, 486, 488.

51. Federal Register (above, n. 48).

52. State v. Hughes (1965), 209 App. 2d, 872, 881.

53. Federal Register (above, n. 48).



may be venturing along the edge o a catalytic collective addiction o

sorts, a reality-obliterating contagion, i you will. Indeed, I believe

this is o the utmost concern, and the reason why we simply cannot

compromise, even an inch, on this question o confating hallucino-genic drug experiences with religious experiences.

Let me try and explain.

The evidence suggests that hallucinogenic drugs have relatively

little physical addiction potential. We can’t equate them to drugs

like alcohol, nicotine, or crack cocaine. In a sense, however, they

pose an enantiomorphic danger. One might say that a person who is

addicted to a classically addicting drug such as crack cocaine or her-

oin lives in an amplied super-reality. Everything becomes more real,

not less.To be a confrmed drug addict is to be one o the walking dead. . . . The

teeth have rotted out, the appetite is lost, and the stomach and intestinesdon’t unction properly. The gall bladder becomes inamed; eyes and skin

turn a bilious yellow; in some cases membranes o the nose turn a aming red; the partition separating the nostrils is eaten away—breathing is di-

fcult. Oxygen in the blood decreases; bronchitis and tuberculosis develop.Good traits o character disappear and bad ones emerge. Sex organs be-

come aected. Veins collapse and livid purplish scars remain. Boils and

abscesses plague the skin; gnawing pain racks the body. Nerves snap; vi-cious twitching develops. Imaginary and antastic ears blight the mind and sometimes complete insanity results. Oten times, too, death comes—

much too early in lie. . . . Such is the torment o being a drug addict; suchis the plague o being one o the walking dead . . .54

To be sure, such a drug addiction makes the objective physicality

o every moment excruciatingly intense. Hunger, money, desire, de-

spair, the moments leading up to the x and the period during

which the drug’s eects are waning, all are experienced with height-

ened intensity. The realness o the world is amplied. The organismsquirms and screams or attention. Embodiment is inescapable. Even

during his high, the drug addict does not seek to escape his or her

body, but rather seeks to become immersed in it, to melt into the

warmth o his organs.

In short, the ratio o the unreal to the real is, in the case o a clas-

sic drug addiction, tipped decidedly in avor o the real. But, pre-

cisely the opposite occurs in the case o hallucinogen use. The hal-

lucinogen user alters the ratio between the unreal and the real, but

in the direction o the unreal. Dr. Fisher in his studies noted that the“most important characteristics o the drug-induced waking-dream

160 Confgurations

54. Robinson v. Caliornia, 370 U.S., 660, 672 (1962), J. Douglas, concurring.



state is its high sensory to motor ratio.”55 The hallucinogen taker is

inactive physically, lost in his mind.

In the midst o his hallucinogenic experience he escapes his or-

gans, losing himsel in articial dreams. He invests his hallucinationwith an ontological status that is supreme. Spirit alone is Reality. It is

the inner being o the world, that which essentially is, and is per se; it as-sumes objective, determinate orm, and enters into relations with itsel—it

is externality (otherness), and exists or itsel; yet, in this determination,and in its otherness, it is still one with itsel—it is sel-contained and sel-

complete, in itsel and or itsel at once.56 The religious hallucinogen

user believes he has cut directly to the ground o objective reality—

to God Himsel—which he substitutes or a gment o his chemi-

cally contorted imagination.[I] God himsel can be simulated . . . then the whole system becomes

weightless, it is no longer anything but a gigantic simulacrum—not un-

real, but a simulacrum, never again exchanging or what is real, but ex-changing in itsel, in an uninterrupted circuit without reerence or circum-

erence.57

This is precisely why hallucinogenic drugs are so damnably dan-

gerous. They encourage subjectivity to such a degree that they make

it impossible to distinguish religion rom madness, God rom hallu-

cination.In the end, it is always, I think, under this charge that the prohibition

is declared. We do not object to the drug users pleasure per se, but we can-not abide the act that his or hers is a pleasure taken in an experience

without truth. Pleasure and pain (now still as with Plato) are not in them-selves condemned unless they are inauthentic and void o truth.58

Because God is the touchstone or an ultimate objective reality,

widespread use o hallucinogenic drugs—which threaten to render

God indistinguishable rom a simulation—poses the ultimate threat:

that o annihilating reality itsel. You have to deend the religious illu-sion with all your might. I it becomes discredited—and indeed the threat to it is great enough—then your world collapses.59

There is . . . among some in the land today a view that the individual isree to do anything he wishes. A nihilistic, agnostic and anti-establishment


55. Fisher, “Perception-Hallucination Continuum” (above, n. 7), p. 164.

56. Georg Hegel, The Phenomenology o Spirit/Mind (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 86.

57. Jean Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulations,” in Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings,

ed. Mark Poster (Stanord, CA: Stanord University Press, 1988), p. 170.

58. Jacque Derrida, “The Rhetoric o Drugs,” in High Culture: Reections on Addiction and

Modernity (Albany: State University o New York Press, 2003), pp. 25–26.

59. Freud, Future o an Illusion (above, n. 34), p. 54.



attitude exists. These belies may be held. They may be expressed but

where they are antithetical to the interests o others who are not o thesame persuasion and contravene criminal statutes legitimately designed to

protect society as a whole, such conduct should not fnd any constitutionalsanctuary in the name o religion or otherwise.60 The hallucinogens

threaten to dissolve the very possibility o community, by turning

people inside and away rom rationally shared perceptions. In a

seeming paradox, however, they have a lure that draws others into

this interior nowhere. Were this potential contagion—the desire to

use hallucinogens—to reproduce itsel and spread, the inevitable re-

sult in the aggregate would be an externalized social obsession with

interiority. Society would racture and ssure as large segments o

the population “desocialize”61

or “drop out.”62

It would be difcult toimagine the harm which would result i the criminal statutes against

marihuana were nullifed as to those who claim the right to possess and trafc in this drug or religious purposes. For all practical purposes the

anti-marihuana laws would be meaningless, and enorcement impossible.The danger is too great, especially to the youth o the nation, at a time

when psychedelic experience, “turn on,” is the “in” thing to so many, or this court to yield to the argument that the use o marihuana or so-called

religious purposes should be permitted under the Free Exercise Clause. We

will not, thereore, subscribe to the dangerous doctrine that the ree exer-cise o religion accords an unlimited reedom to violate the laws o the

land relative to marihuana.63

We have seen something which in a way is most alarming, more alarm-ing than death in a way. And that is the loss o all cultural values . . .

these people . . . are deculturated, lost to society, lost to themselves.64

This is why, even today, we can permit Indians to ingest peyote in

their primitive ceremonies. Indians who practice the “old ways” are

inconsequential; they have chosen not to participate in our society

to any substantial degree. In eect they are lost in their mythicalworld, their radical subjectivity tolerated because they are o zero

import to organizing our wider society.65 They are separate and apart

162 Confgurations

60. United States v. Kuch (1968), 288 F. Supp., 439, 445–446.

61. Derrida, “Rhetoric o Drugs” (above, n. 58), p. 37.

62. Timothy Leary, The Politics o Ecstasy (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1968), p.

223.

63. Leary v. United States (1967), 383 F. 2d, 851, 860.

64. Sidney Cohen in testimony beore the U.S. Congress, as quoted in Jay Stevens,Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream (New York: Grove Press, 1987), p. 279.

65. It bears noting that even this marginalized subpopulation’s use o peyote is only

grudgingly permitted pursuant to a ew ederal laws and regulations; see “American



rom us; eectively quarantined. Hell, the Amish too could use a

hallucinogen i they wanted.

But this man is one o us. Give him smallpox in a blanket and we

will perish.66

. . . and so it was that the lotus eaters devised not death or our ellows,

but gave them o the lotus to taste. Now whosoever o them did eat thehoney-sweet ruit o the lotus, had no more wish to bring tidings nor to

come back, but there he chose to abide with the lotus-eating men, ever eeding on the lotus and orgetul o his homeward way.67

Revelations aside, we have entered the historical period o God in

the Age o Chemical Reproduction. As Kempis stressed,68 the imita-

tion o Christ is to be applauded; but God’s simulation must be

strictly prohibited.And so it was.

Case closed.

fade out

Editor’s Note to Author:

Indians who practice the old ways are inconsequential; they have chosen

not to participate in our society to any substantial degree. In eect they arelost in their mythical world, their radical subjectivity tolerated because

they are o zero import to organizing our wider society. They are separateand apart rom us; eectively quarantined. Hell, the Amish too could use

a hallucinogen i they wanted

Item 23. Please consider modiying the above sentences o your

article to include along with “Indians” and the “Amish,” the 130

members o the O Centro Espirita Benecente Uniao do Vegetal, in


Indian Religious Freedom Act,” 42 USC 1996; 21 CFR 1307.31. In 1990, the U.S. Su-

preme Court ruled that while statutes may protect religious use o peyote by Native

Americans, the Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause does not; see Employment Div., Ore.

Dept. o Human Res. v. Smith (1990), 494 U.S. 872. Three years later, Congress passed the

Religious Freedom Restoration Act o 1993, which prohibits the ederal government

rom substantially burdening a person’s exercise o religion, unless the government

“demonstrates that application o the burden to the person” represents the least restric-

tive means o advancing a compelling interest (41 USC 2000bb-1[b]).

66. Many Native American’s believe that their ancestors were given smallpox-inected

blankets by representatives o the U.S. government, and there is evidence that this may

have occurred; see E. Wagner Stearn and Allen E. Stearn, The Eect o Smallpox on the

Destiny o the Amerindian (Boston: B. Humphries, 1945), pp. 73–74.

67. Homer, The Iliad and the Odyssey , rendered into English prose by Samuel Butler

(Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952), bk. 9.

68. Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation o Christ (1425; reprint, Middlesex, UK: Penguin,

1975).



light o the decision by the United States Supreme Court on February

21, 2006.69 As explained by the Court in that opinion:

O Centro Espirita Benecente Uniao do Vegetal (UDV) is a Christian Spiritist

sect based in Brazil, with an American branch o approximately 130 individuals.

Central to the UDV’s aith is receiving communion through hoasca (pronounced

“wass-ca”), a sacramental tea made rom two plants unique to the Amazon re-

gion. One o the plants, psychotria viridis, contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT),

a hallucinogen whose eects are enhanced by alkaloids rom the other plant,

banisteriopsis caapi. DMT, as well as “any material, compound, mixture, or prep-

aration, which contains any quantity o [DMT],” is listed in Schedule I o the

Controlled Substances Act. § 812(c), Schedule I(c).70

Applying the Religious Freedom Restoration Act o 1993,71

the Su-preme Court unanimously armed the grant o a preliminary in-

junction or the UDV members ater the ederal government seized

a shipment o the sect’s hoasca, which was sent to U.S. members

rom the Amazon.

In the lower court, the government conceded that prohibiting

the UDV members rom using hoasca “would substantially burden a

sincere exercise o religion by the UDV,”72 and proceeded instead on

the theory that the Controlled Substances Act’s “description o

Schedule I substances as having a ‘high potential or abuse,’ ‘no cur-rently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,’ and

‘a lack o accepted saety or use . . . under medical supervision,’ 21

U.S.C. § 812(b)(1), by itsel precludes any consideration o individu-

alized exceptions such as that sought by the UDV.”73 “According to

the Government, there would be no way to cabin religious excep-

tions once recognized, and ‘the public will misread’ such exceptions

as signaling that the substance at issue is not harmul ater all. . . .

Under the Government’s view, there is no need to assess the particu-

lars o the UDV’s use or weigh the impact o an exemption or thatspecic use, because the Controlled Substances Act serves a compel-

ling purpose and simply admits o no exceptions.”74

164 Confgurations

69. Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Benefcente Uniao do Vegetal (2006), 546 U.S. 418 126 S.

Ct. 1211; 163 L. Ed. 2d 1017; 2006 U.S. LEXIS 1815; 74 U.S.L.W. 4119.

70. Ibid., 126 S. Ct. 1211, p. 1217.

71. See note 65 above.

72. Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Benefcente Uniao do Vegetal (above, n. 69), 126 S. Ct.1211, p. 1217.

73. Ibid., p. 1220.

74. Ibid.



But, the government’s actions proved otherwise. Congress had

made a legislative exception or Native Americans who use peyote in

religious ceremonies. This exception, pointed out Justice Scalia,

“shows that it’s not all that important that nobody be able to use asubstance banned by category 1. I mean . . . it’s a demonstration

that you can make an exception without the sky alling.”75 “The

peyote exception . . . has been in place since the outset o the Con-

trolled Substances Act, and there is no evidence that it has ‘under-

cut’ the Government’s ability to enorce the ban on peyote use by

non-Indians.”76

Rebung the government’s argument, the Supreme Court com-

mented: “The Government’s argument echoes the classic rejoinder

o bureaucrats throughout history: I I make an exception or you,I’ll have to make one or everybody, so no exceptions.”77

Having relied entirely on its “no exceptions” argument, the gov-

ernment had not addressed the particular reasons why an exception

or the UDV’s use o hoasca would actually hinder the broader en-

orcement o the Controlled Substances Act or otherwise bring down

the sky. As a result, the Supreme Court armed the preliminary in-

junction in avor o the UDV, baring the government rom interer-

ing with the church’s importation and religious use o hoasca, and

remanded the case or urther proceedings in the lower court.


75. Ibid., transcript o oral arguments (November 1, 2005), p. 8.

76. Ibid., 126 S. Ct. 1211, p. 1223.

77. Ibid.

mimetics hostilis: an assemblage of law, psychiatry, and chemical artifice

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