Religious use of Plants and Fungi

Rep. Jeff Ship­ley has been a long-time advo­cate for plants, fun­gi, and reli­gious free­dom, so I sent him a copy of my last blog post, STRAIGHT OUT OF THE GATE: Reli­gious Free­dom Restora­tion Act fails to pro­tect reli­gious free­dom.

Last year, the Iowa Dis­trict Court refused to apply the Reli­gious Free­dom Restora­tion Act, 2024 Iowa Acts ch. 1003, April 2, 2024, to my request for rules allow­ing reli­gious use of plants and fun­gi in the Iowa Con­trolled Sub­stances Act.

The Iowa Depart­ment of Inspec­tions, Appeals, and Licens­ing said it would need explic­it author­i­ty from the leg­is­la­ture to adopt rules allow­ing reli­gious use of plants and fun­gi.

Rep. Ship­ley respond­ed by ask­ing me to draft a bill, so I did.

Here are some of Rep. Ship­ley’s pre­vi­ous bills regard­ing psilo­cy­bin and psilo­cyn:

House File 248, Feb­ru­ary 6, 2019

House File 459, Feb­ru­ary 9, 2021

House File 240, Feb­ru­ary 8, 2023