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.

http://eabicbahamas.ning.com/profiles/blogs/rastafarians-pot-conviction-reversed-court-oks-religion-defense

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