Cannabis is `our cross, tree of life,’ say accused pot priests

TORONTO (RNS) Two self-described priests who use cannabis as a sacrament are challenging Canada’s drug laws after a police raid found marijuana and hashish at their church. The Rev. Brother Peter Styrsky and the Rev. Brother Shahrooz Kharaghani, who belong to the Assembly of the Church of the Universe, say the cannabis plant is sacred […]

TORONTO (RNS) Two self-described priests who use cannabis as a sacrament are challenging Canada’s drug laws after a police raid found marijuana and hashish at their church.

The Rev. Brother Peter Styrsky and the Rev. Brother Shahrooz Kharaghani, who belong to the Assembly of the Church of the Universe, say the cannabis plant is sacred to their religion.

In a court challenge that is expected to take about a month, the men argued before Ontario Superior Court Justice Thea Herman that they should be exempt from marijuana legislation because the laws violate their freedom of religion under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.


The court is expected to hear from experts who will offer opinions on whether the COU is a legitimate religion.

Styrsky testified in court on April 7 that consuming the drug brought him closer to God.

“It’s the most spiritual thing that has ever happened to me,” said Styrsky, adding that the cannabis plant was the basis of his religion. “In a nutshell, that’s our cross. It’s a tree, tree of life, tree of knowledge.”

Styrsky and Kharaghani were charged with drug trafficking in 2006 after police raided their Toronto church, the G13 Beaches Mission of God, which claims 500 members. G13 is a particular strain of the cannabis plant.

On the G13 Web site, proponents of the Church of the Universe (COU) suggest they have only one rule: “do not hurt yourself and do not hurt others … That is the universal rule that all faiths are in tune with.”

Federal prosecutors, however, challenged the notion that the men belonged to any church.

“The COU is about using marijuana in whatever way the user chooses. This hardly conforms to the basic purpose of religious movements,” government lawyers said in documents filed with the court.


“Simply put, the mere fact that one profoundly enjoys using marijuana does not beget a constitutional right to traffic it commercially.”

Last April, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear the appeal of two COU priests from Hamilton, Ontario, who were convicted in late 2007 of trafficking marijuana; they sold $70 worth of pot to a plainclothes police officer.

The judge in the 2007 case dismissed the priests’ religious argument, calling their operation “a marijuana convenience store that operates for profit like a prohibition-era speakeasy, but disguised as a church.”

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