RASTAFARIANS' POT CONVICTION REVERSED\Court OKs religion defense against possession of drug.

Byline: Associated Press 

Rastafarians can use their religious belief, that marijuana is a sacrament, as a defense against a charge of possessing marijuana, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

Citing the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned three marijuana-possession convictions in Montana because the judge had barred evidence of the defendants' religious views. The court, however, upheld the convictions and prison sentences of seven defendants on drug trafficking and related charges.

The possession charges were a small part of a case against members of an organization accused of conspiring to import thousands of pounds of marijuana from Mexico to Billings, Mont., for a decade. The alleged leader, Cameron Best, convicted of operating a continuing criminal enterprise, was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 1994, a sentence left intact by the court.

Legally, however, the ruling was significant for its overturning of a drug conviction based on the 1993 law, which strengthened defenses against criminal prosecutions that interfere with religious practices.

The court did not cite any previous appellate decision that had used the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to reverse a drug conviction, and a lawyer who has been a longtime advocate of liberalizing drug laws said he was unaware of any such ruling.

"This is a legitimate religious issue for Rastafarians," said attorney Kevin Zeese, leader of a Washington, D.C.-based organization called Common Sense for Drug Policy. "They can't reach an appropriate religious state without ganja (marijuana). It's like taking the wine out of the Catholic Church.

"It's a foreign concept to many people in the United States, but it's a legitimate religious need, and I'm glad to see the 9th Circuit finding a way to recognize it."

Rastafarianism, which originated in Jamaica, considers marijuana to be a religious sacrament that brings believers closer to divinity and enhances their spiritual unity, the court said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Seykora declined comment on the ruling.

RFRA, as the law is known, was passed in response to a 1990 Supreme Court ruling that allowed a peyote prosecution despite a claim that using the drug was central to an American Indian religion. The 1993 law requires the government to prove a compelling justification for any prosecution that substantially burdens the defendant's exercise of religion.

The law was signed by President Clinton during the Montana trial in November 1993 and was cited by three defendants - Calvin Treiber, Dawn Meeks and Lexi Bauer - in seeking dismissal of marijuana-possessio n charges.

U.S. District Judge Jack Shanstrom found that the law against marijuana substantially burdened the Rastafarian religion but barred evidence of the defendants' religious purposes and upheld the convictions. He cited earlier rulings that said the government has an overriding interest in regulating marijuana.

But the appeals court said RFRA requires the prosecution to show that the government has a compelling interest not only in regulating marijuana, but also in prosecuting these particular defendants for possession of the drug. Since no such proof was offered, and the evidence of religious practices was barred, the convictions must be reversed, the court said.

The court said the three defendants could be retried and required to show that they are Rastafarians who possessed the drug for religious purposes. Because the reversals do not affect the defendants' sentences, a retrial is unlikely, but the ruling could be used in future drug cases in the nine Western states covered by the court.

The religious defense does not apply to the more serious drug charges such as conspiracy to distribute, said the opinion by Judge John Noonan. "Nothing before us suggests that Rastafarianism would require this conduct," he said.

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Photo John Noonan Overturned possession ruling