A Southern California lawyer and church leader has filed a lawsuit against the county of Humboldt and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, alleging they violated his client’s rights to religious freedom when they raided a cannabis grow and eradicated five greenhouse’s worth of weed last month. In the lawsuit filed June 27, Matthew Pappas alleges that his client, the Redwood Spiritual Healing Ministry, described as a "nonprofit religious entity," was using its property to "grow cannabis in a manner that meets exacting religious requirements for spiritual cannabis of church and its related association," the Association of Sacramental Ministries, a nonprofit made up of member churches. "The primary and central belief of (the church) centers around the sacramental use of cannabis, its properties as an entheogen and the healing powers of cannabis," the lawsuit states. "(The church) uses church property in part to cultivate, in accordance with strict requirements for spiritual cannabis used by its members in branches in California, cannabis sacrament that is used by thousands of church members that are part of the church association." The trouble — in the eyes of the county and the state — is that while the church may have been […]
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