Psychedelics church sues cops over $200,000 botched magic mushroom raid

A magic mushrooms church is suing cops over police raids

Magic Mushrooms are one of the most powerful entheogenic plants known to man. It is therefore not surprising that people have actually started a church that uses magic mushrooms to communicate directly with God.

Last week, the Zide Door Church of Entheogenic Plants in Oakland, Calif., sued both the city and the police over a 2020 raid they say violated their religious rights. Cops seized about $200,000 worth of magic mushrooms and marijuana from the church, Vice reports. According to the church, it is “a non-denominational, inter-faith religious organization that supports the use of and safe access to all entheogenic plants, with a focus on cannabis and fungi.” Church members believe that psychedelic mushrooms are essential to the development of religion and communication.

Dave Hodges, founder of Zide Door Church, told Vice that the church was raided by Oakland police back in 2020, although no arrests were made. Oakland decriminalized magic mushrooms by 2019, and marijuana use is already legal in California. However, it is still not legal to sell these substances, although the church is one of the few places in the country where customers can buy magic mushrooms without having to pay taxes or fines as long as they are members.

Hodges revealed to the San Francisco Chronicle that they don’t actually sell these drugs. The approximately 60,000 members of the church pay $5 a month in membership dues to receive the “sacrament,” which is mushrooms and marijuana grown by the church.

However, according to the Oakland Police Department, a significant amount of smoke billowed from the church during their Sunday service at 4:20 p.m. that day in August 2020. This even prompted the Alameda County Health Department to complain that they “cause respiratory health problems.” for the children in the area.

“I was about five minutes from the church when I got a call that the police were there. When I arrived they were still clearing people out of the building. I started yelling at them that they were violating city order and my freedom of religion and that I was responsible for all of this,” he told Oaklandside of the incident. “Basically, I told them to just arrest me,” he says.

“It wasn’t about whether we did anything wrong,” Hodges told Oaklandside. “It was about how the police can take money from something they think is wrong.”

Although the Oakland Police Department did not respond to Oaklandside, Police Captain Rendell Wingate told CBS News about Alameda County’s complaint. “We have several churches in the city of Oakland that are not for profit and are not known to sell cannabis or mushrooms,” he said. “This is the first for-profit religious organization I’ve seen in my 28 years as a police officer in Oakland.”

Are Magic Mushrooms and Entheogenic Drugs a Religious Right?

Ancient civilizations and shamans in Mesoamerica have used entheogenic drugs for centuries and continue to do so. Magic mushrooms and peyote are just a few of these herbal medicines that are widely used in these nations for spiritual and religious purposes.

So why did the US government – or our police force – decide that the use of entheogenic substances should be banned?

Finally, magic mushrooms and cannabis are legal in both Oakland and the rest of California. Going back to the day of the robbery, it might have been prudent to ask the Zide Door Church to curb their smoking if they were using such drugs as part of their ceremonies. Although there are schools and young children in the area, it still seems fair to ask individuals not to consume in public to prevent second-hand exposure of young children. But shouldn’t there be anything wrong with the church asking for $5 membership and distributing entheogens as it sees fit?

Also, entheogenic and psychedelic drugs have come a long way: they were once thought of as drugs that would fry your brain (thanks to the War on Drugs), but now they have solid science to back claims about their numerous mental health benefits .

They could soon be a legal right

President Joe Biden’s administration recently announced that psilocybin and MDMA could be approved by regulators within the next two years as designated breakthrough therapies specifically for the treatment of depression and PTSD, respectively.

A federal letter issued in May 2022 says senior government officials are preparing to approve psychedelics. It has been a long time since former US President Richard Nixon demonized the hippie movement of the late 1960s and launched the endlessly ineffective and dangerous war on drugs. Thanks to mounting scientific and medical evidence that controlled substances can actually have benefits, the war on drugs is slowly but surely dying down.

“Studies have shown that psilocybin significantly and sustainably reduces depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer,” Sen. Cory Booker said in a statement. “While terminally ill patients typically have access to drugs that are in FDA clinical trials, they are denied access to Schedule 1 drugs despite their therapeutic potential,” he wrote.

While there is still so much work to be done by state and state governments alike, cases like that of the Zide Door Church can still happen. Hopefully, as federal regulations relax, more people will be able to exercise their right to consume entheogens as they please — although we still think it’s reasonable not to want to allow people to smoke in public.

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