Federal Judge Calls Out DEA Over Delay On Psychedelic Church’s Petition To Use Ayahuasca In Religious Ceremonies

Ayahuasca religious exemption collides with DEA delay, and the D.C. Circuit isn’t buying the wait

For six long years, a small Iowa congregation has been stuck on hold. The Iowaska Church asked the Drug Enforcement Administration for an ayahuasca religious exemption, a narrow carveout under the Controlled Substances Act and RFRA that would let them import, brew, and sip their sacrament without looking over their shoulder. Instead, they got purgatory. On Friday, a federal appeals panel finally lit a match under the backlog, grilling DEA over why a “months-long” review ballooned into something that feels geological. The agency’s lawyer talked about safety, supply chain vetting, and complexity; the judges talked about calendars, accountability, and the kind of institutional drift that turns faith into paperwork. You can hear the skeptical cadence yourself in the recording of the oral argument, timestamped and public, if you want to taste the tension straight from the source (video: U.S. Court of Appeals argument; coverage noted by Law360). This is a fight about religious liberty, psychedelic risk, and bureaucratic time—how much of it we have, and how much gets wasted.

The government’s position is familiar: ayahuasca contains DMT, and DMT sits in Schedule I, the cupboard labeled “no accepted medical use and high potential for abuse.” That’s the same shelf where cannabis used to live until the rescheduling tremors began shifting the furniture. DEA says it needs to verify every link in the supply chain—down to the Peruvian cultivator the church identified—to ensure no diversion, no corner-cutting, no tragedies at ceremony. Sensible as a concept. But process without urgency calcifies into denial by delay, and the panel’s tone suggested they know the difference. Meanwhile, another storyline hums alongside this one: years-long stalls in cannabis research permissions, like MMJ BioPharma Cultivation’s claim that it has been hung up since 2018 seeking bulk-manufacturer status for research-grade marijuana (company statement). If there’s a common denominator, it’s that federal drug policy often moves at the pace of a foggy Sunday after a hard Saturday night—slow, defensive, and suspicious of anything new. It’s why reformers like Cory Booker Will ‘Accept Any Progress’ On Marijuana, Saying There’s A ‘Common Purpose’ For Reform Across Parties keep preaching incrementalism: if you can’t flip the table, at least scoot it an inch.

In the church’s case, the timeline reads like a Kafka outline scribbled on government letterhead. The petition hit DEA inboxes in 2019. Then: a long, “concerning” period of inaction, by the agency’s own admission. At some point, Sen. Chuck Grassley—a man not known for psychedelic evangelism—helped nudge the process in 2021, an unlikely ally who understood that rules are rules, but clocks are clocks. The record shows the church later had its own 16-month stall supplying information, ammunition that DEA could’ve used to deem the application abandoned. Still, the bench kept circling back to the central problem: a review that should take months, not years, keeps ballooning. And next to that purgatory, there’s a counterexample: a Washington State church reportedly secured DEA approval to use ayahuasca in ceremonies this spring without having to sue—proof the process can work when someone, somewhere, decides to pick up the pen. Religious freedom shouldn’t hinge on whether your file lands on the right desk during the right lunar phase.

It’s not just psychedelics tangled in this thicket. Hemp and cannabis policy still reads like America is arguing with itself in the mirror. On one hand, you have a former governor crossing the Rubicon of public perception—see Former North Carolina Governor Appears In Ad For Son’s Hemp Company—a sign that hemp’s gone from taboo to table talk. On another flank, Congress members keep trying to put guardrails on overreaching bans and murky enforcement, like Nancy Mace Circulates Bill To Block Hemp THC Ban That Trump Signed Into Law. Then you zoom in further and see the collateral damage of sloppy policy design: veterinarians warning that Pets Will ‘Suffer Needlessly’ If Federal Hemp Ban Takes Effect And Limits CBD Access, Veterinarian Says. It’s the same American paradox: we lionize freedom but tolerate administrative purgatory; we celebrate innovation but send it through a maze; we insist on safety but pretend that paralysis is a form of care. Whether it’s cannabis research or an ayahuasca ceremony, the human stakes don’t disappear just because the form is still pending.

So what’s the fix, beyond judicial exasperation? Deadlines, for starters. If DEA insists the ayahuasca religious exemption is “complicated,” fine—set a transparent, finite clock with clear milestones: initial review, source verification, site inspection, final decision. Publish the criteria, the queue length, the average wait. Create a RFRA-specific desk with people fluent in both the Controlled Substances Act and the messy realities of religious practice. And when legitimate safety concerns arise, treat them with the urgency they deserve—weeks, not years—because every day of drift turns constitutional protections into wishful thinking. The D.C. Circuit has made noise; now we see if the agency hears it. In the meantime, consumers, patients, researchers, and faith communities keep navigating the uneven borderlands of reform and regulation—one more reminder that when systems move slow, people get hurt. If you’re ready to explore compliant, high-quality options while policymakers sort themselves out, take a look at our curated selections here: https://thcaorder.com/shop/.