	Religious Freedom Restoration Act

The genesis of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) lies in the Supreme Court's decision in Employment Division, Oregon Department of Human Resources v. Smith . Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita

O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal (UDV) is a religious sect with origins in the Amazon Rainforest in which members of the church receive communion by drinking a sacramental tea containing a hallucinogen ( hoasca ) regulated under the Controlled Substances Act by the federal government. The Court made it clear that the government could not establish a compelling interest in simply enforcing an existing statute; there must be some other justification for the burden on religious expression.
On February 21, 2006, the Supreme Court issued an opinion in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal (UDV), a case addressing the use of an hallucinogenic tea in the context of religious ceremonies conducted by a religious sect in New Mexico. In its decision, the Court determined that under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the federal government could not prohibit the sect's use of the tea absent a compelling government interest in doing so, and that the federal government had failed to establish a compelling interest. This report provides an overview of RFRA and the O Centro Espirita case.