A California church is suing the city of Oakland and the Oakland Police Department, alleging that a raid in 2020 violated their first amendment religious rights by seizing the church’s designated sacraments and not returning them when no charges were filed.
The sacraments taken by police included about $200,000 worth of cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms.
The Zide Door church of entheogenic plants doles out marijuana to its congregation, which then smokes it to aid in their connection with a higher power.
The church has been in operation since early 2019, serving as a physical place of worship for the Church of Ambrosia, whose website describes it as “a nondenominational, interfaith religious organization that supports the use and safe access” or naturally-occurring psychedelic substances.
Zide Door’s lawsuit described its utilization of cannabis and mushrooms as “sacramental use” and a way to commune with “a higher consciousness, their own eternal souls, spiritual beings and God.”
Recreational marijuana is legal in the state of California, and as of 2019, certain natural hallucinogenics have been decriminalized. That includes mushrooms, though they are not allowed to be sold.
News reports indicate that the reason for the raid of the church in August 2020 was a claim that the place of worship was, in reality, acting like an illegal dispensary for its congregation.
According to the church’s founder, the Zide Door does not sell drugs.
Dave Hodges told the Chronicle that there is a monthly $5 membership fee to be a part of the congregation. The church then gives out its “sacraments” in return for donations. Hodges said the Zide Door services as many as 200 congregants a day.
And while the religious institution halted its church services due to the COVID pandemic, it did at one point hold service every Sunday at 4:20 p.m.
“This is not just an excuse to sell drugs,” Hodges told the Chronicle. “This is what we truly believe is the origin of all religion and really what religion should be.”
Footage of the raid from the church’s surveillance cameras has been posted to Hodges’s Instagram account and show police swarming into the building with weapons drawn.
The footage also shows firefighters working on opening locked safes with heavy machinery.
Among the items taken, according to the lawsuit: a computer, documents, cannabis products, mushrooms and cash. The suit alleges that the police action was in violation of the “sincere exercise of religion.”
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