The Church of the Eagle and the Condor and the US government continue to lock horns, following a settlement in April where the ayahuasca church was granted permission to work with the brew for religious purposes.
The Church filed a lawsuit claiming that its religious freedom was being unfairly restricted by federal agencies, winning a settlement that allowed them to import, manufacture, and use ayahuasca solely for religious purposes. The agreement also included provisions for government inspections and audits to ensure compliance.
Following the settlement, the Church sought $2.2 million in attorneys’ fees and costs, arguing that their legal team deserved an “appropriate bonus” for their efforts, according to a report by Law360. The Department of Justice (DOJ), representing the government, responded by urging the court to deny the fee request. The DOJ argued that the lawsuit was unnecessary, contending that the Church could have simply applied for religious exemption from the Drug Enforcement Agency and received the legal permission to serve ayahuasca that it was looking for.
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However, the DOJ’s argument that the Church could have simply filed a petition and followed the usual legal route contradicts its own historical precedents. Only three churches besides The Church of the Eagle and Condor have been granted exemptions from the Controlled Substance Act: the Santo Daime, the União do Vegetal, and the Native American Church. Martha Hartney, a Colorado-based attorney who has been working with the Church of the Eagle and the Condor, explained in a 2021 Chacruna interview that these two churches’ victories did not settle the issue for everyone else. “These two churches only received exemptions through litigation, not by petitioning or asking nicely,” Hartney said. “They had to fight for their right to use this sacrament.”
The DOJ also criticizes the fee request from the Church’s legal team, claiming that it includes unreasonable billing hours and rates and costs related to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. In its dispute, the DOJ says that the information the church is seeking will be released anyway. It denies that the government is stonewalling these FOIA requests and says that COVID-19-related issues have caused delays.
In response, Gilbert Paul Carrasco, representing the Church, defended their fee request, citing the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act. In his statement to Law360, Carrasco said that lawyers had worked tirelessly for three years to win everything that their clients’ had desired, and the government’s suggestion that these lawyers’ efforts are not worthy of attorney fees is “shocking.”
