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Cannabis Church Cites Religious Freedom Amid Shutdown

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[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]M[/dropcap]embers of the Vault Church of Open Faith will protest on Aug. 24 after local government officials ordered the church to close its doors. Riverside Superior Court Judge Sunshine Sykes approved a lock-out order on Aug. 15.

Jurupa Valley, California-based Vault Church of Open Faith is “Christ-based,” but its members come from backgrounds including Muslim and Buddhist belief systems. About 50 members gather weekly. The church is a member of the Association of Sacramental Ministries.

After the court order, church members were left bewildered. “[The judge] didn’t understand why we had to have cannabis,” the church’s lead minister Gilbert Aguirre told The Press-Enterprise. “It’s like asking Catholics to worship without bread and wine.”

The church sells its sacrament, in the form of dozens of cannabis strains, to members with a valid ID. Jurupa Valley City Manager Gary Thompson said that he doesn’t take the church’s sacrament seriously, since its members pay to partake.

“We’ll execute the order based on the timing of other things we have going on—we’re working on several other dispensaries at the same time,” Thompson said on Aug. 21. Jurupa Valley voters recently rejected a bill to allow cannabis businesses in the city, but voters will have another chance to regulate and tax cannabis businesses this November. As of Aug. 21, however, there were eight active dispensaries in the city, including the church.

Chris Bennett personally spearheaded the concept that Jesus of Nazareth used cannabis to prepare Holy anointing oil, publishing several books on the topic on the spiritual use of cannabis. “The ancient recipe for this anointing oil, recorded in the Old Testament book of Exodus 30: 22-23 included over nine pounds of flowering cannabis tops, Hebrew ‘kaneh-bosm,’ extracted into a hind (about 6.5 litres) of olive oil, along with a variety of other herbs and spices,” Bennett wrote. “The ancient chosen ones were literally drenched in this potent cannabis holy oil.”

A passionate protest is planned for Friday at 1 p.m. outside the Riverside County Historic Courthouse at 4050 Main St. in Riverside, California.

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