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Here's a very interesting case I've come across involving a gentlemen from Iowa who was sentenced to prison for 20yrs for possession of shrooms. This case brings up some really good reading vs Shrooms in their natural state not being scheduled and some really good reading on the religious freedom restoration act and this individual's memberships in The Fane of the Psilocybe Mushroom, a Canadian recognized and chartered religious organization, and, the Sacred Mushroom Church. Its kinda a long read, so, even this excerpt is a small sample: The rule of lenity should be used to construe an ambiguous statute of this type in favor of Petitioner. Since "material," as interpreted by the Iowa Supreme Court, does lead to such absurd results, it raises a "reasonable doubt" about legislative intent. Moskal v. United States, supra at 108. The term "material" given the dictionary meaning of "consisting of matter," State v. Patterson, 679 P.2d 416 (Wash.App. 1984) (citing Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 1392 (1975)), would prohibit any and all of the plants and organisms which endogenously contain a listed substance, and such a broad scope could not have been the legislative intent. Further evidence that such was not the legislator's intent can be discerned by a review of the statute and the substances they did list. Applying this Court's analysis in Chapman, supra at 454, ("Congress knew how to indicate that the weight of the pure drug was to be used to determine the sentence" "and did not make that distinction with respect to LSD."); the legislative intent can be discerned in respect to mushrooms, where they "knew how to indicate that" a plant was prohibited "and did not make that distinction with respect to any mushroom.
The legislature specified the plants it wanted to outlaw as well as their chemical: Peyote & mescaline; coca leaves & cocaine; Papaver somniferum L. (opium poppy) & opium and codeine; Tabernanthe iboga & ibogaine are all examples. More telling of the legislative intent is marijuana, and THC, which are not only both listed, but in Iowa, and most states, the natural plant has a much less severe penalty than the extracted, (or synthesized) THC chemical it endogenously contains.
The meaning of this double listing of certain plants, as well as their separated chemical speaks volumes as to legislative intent. When the legislature wanted to outlaw a plant, they did so specifically. Had they intended "material" to be so broad as to encompass "anything" there would have been no reason to list any plant at all.
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As in Chapman, supra at 459, a reading of the statute confirms that "material" was not meant to be so broad as to encompass an unlisted plant. The legislature has specifically enumerated certain chemicals, and where they desired, certain plants, as "controlled." It is unreasonable to assume any other plant, any other chemical, or any other life-form is a "controlled substance" if not specifically listed as such. No person of common and ordinary intelligence, in examining the statute, would come to the conclusion that silver maples, morning glories, or mushrooms were intended to be outlawed, even with the "knowledge" of their endogenously containing a listed controlled substance gained from this Petition.
A simple test will confirm this. Going to the statute with the "knowledge" contained herein, does the statute prohibit morning glories (Lysergic acid); San Pedro cacti (mescaline); sensitive plants (DMT); or mushrooms (psilocybin)? Since none of these plants are listed we must look further to discern what the statute prohibits. The Code of Iowa § 124.101(16), "manufacture" defined, says in part, "extraction from substances of natural origin" (of a scheduled substance) is prohibited. But the language, "from substances of natural origin," indicates that the legislature intended to differentiate, and not outlaw, the "substances of natural origin" unless they specifically listed them. The conclusion, of the person of common and ordinary intelligence, would be that it is legal to grow, possess, or sell morning glories, San Pedro cacti, sensitive plant - and there is no reason to conclude otherwise as to mushrooms. Processing any of the above to "extract" the substances scheduled is what the statute clearly prohibits. There would have been no reason for the phrase "extraction from substance of natural origin" if the legislature had not intended to differentiate between "legal plants of natural origin" and the scheduled substances obtainable by "extraction."
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With law enforcement armed with an interpretation of "material" broad enough to include mushrooms, which, by implication includes all of the above plants and organisms, where does this leave the concept of specific guidelines for enforcement? If morphine occurs in hay and lettuce, in every one of our bodies, even in all the milk sold ... on what basis can a cultivator of mushrooms be punished, without also punishing cultivators of lettuce and hay, tobacco growers, flower growers, and the corner Mom and Pop grocery for illicit trafficking in controlled substance?
As this Court said 25 years ago in Graynard v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 108-109 (1972):
A vague law impermissibly delegates basic policy matters to policemen, judges and juries for resolution on an ad hoc and subjective basis, with the attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application.
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The history of the religious use of the Sacred Mushrooms goes far back. R.G. Wasson, in his book Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality has been accepted as proving that the god-plant Soma of the ancient Aryan civilization was the sacred mushrooms. The Aryans swept down from the north into what is now Pakistan and Northern India in the second millennium B.C., and settled in the Indus Valley. They composed a conan of sacred hymns called the Vedas, which have become the foundation of Hinduism. The earliest of the four Vedas, the Rg Veda, deals at length with soma, which was at once a god, a plant, the juice of the plant, and the urine of a priest who had ingested the plant. (Note: the active chemicals in the mushrooms are excreted relatively unchanged in the urine of one who ingests them.)
In the New World, as early as 300 AD there are stone figurines of shamans with mushrooms from what is now Tenenexpan, Veracruz, Mexico. Over 200 stone icons have been discovered in Central America, carved in the shape of mushrooms, with human or animal figures emerging from the "stems." It has been suggested that these "mushroom stones" were emblematic to the Sacred Mushroom Cult in the Maya area. These and other artistic representations show the Indians esteemed the mushrooms with the utmost awe and reverence.
Quite a different attitude was expressed by Spanish friars like Sahgun to these "harmful little mushrooms that intoxicate the same way as wine." As friar Motolinia (Motolinia, F. de, originally published in 1541), put it:
They called these mushrooms teunamucatlh in their language, which means "flesh of God," or of the Devil that they worshipped, and in this manner, with this bitter food, they received their cruel god in communion.
Teunamucatlh, or "teonanacatl" was the name of the mushrooms in Nahuatl, the language of the Nahua, Mexica or Aztecs. The word would translate more accurately as "sacred mushrooms." We learn from the writing of the Spaniards that the mushrooms were bitter, induced visions, and that several species were known to the Indians.
But this was the age of witchcraft, and on 19 June 1620 the Holy Office of the Inquisition formally decreed in Mexico that the ingestion of inebriating plants was a heresy, stating in no uncertain terms:
The use of the Herb or Root called Peyote ... is a superstitious action and reproved as opposed to the purity and sincerity of our Holy Catholic Faith ... We decree that henceforth no person ... may use or use of this said herb, this peyote, or of others for said effects, nor others similar ... being warned that doing the contrary, besides incurring said censures and penalties, we will proceed against whoever is rebellious and disobedient, as against person suspect in the Holy Catholic Faith.
Over the next 265 years, there were at least 90 autos de fe of the Inquisition for the use of peyotl, and numerous autos de fe involving teonanactl, the sacred mushrooms, , and obliuhqui, or morning glory seeds which, even more that peyotl or teonanacatl, attracted the brutal torture and hideous executions of the Inquisition.
In modern America, the NAC is given an exemption of peyote use by the Federal Government and 21 states; morning glory seeds are sold openly, and grown by many home owners; and Petitioner sits in a prison cell where he has been sentenced to 20 years for his religious sacrament - and its not even listed as illegal. While it is not the torture of the Inquisition, neither is it Due Process to be deprived of liberty without "fair notice."
http://www.druglibrary.org/olsen/dpf/atley-01.html
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