A The Legal Case of the União do Vegetal vs. the Government of the United States

Abstract

This article examines one of the most important cases on the scope of reli-gious freedom judged by the country's Supreme Court in the XXth century. União do Vegetal, the lawsuit’s plaintiff, is a religious institution that is active in over ten coun-tries and makes sacramental use of Hoasca tea. Popularly known as ayahuasca, the con-coction contains trace amounts of dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychoactive alkaloid included in Schedule I of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and pro-hibited by American law. The Supreme Court unanimously confirmed the decision of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, which authorized the use of the Hoasca tea in the União do Vegetal rituals.