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OREGON SANTO DAIME IS FREE

A perfect Thanksgiving announcement. Oregon Santo Daime is free. The government will not appeal. The US Department of Justice has decided NOT to challenge the court decision that gave religious freedom to the Santo Daime churches of Oregon.

Here is the statement from the Legal Victory Committee of the Santo Daime Churches in Oregon:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

A legal update:

It has been some time since we have sent a report of our legal progress to our community. We are pleased and honored to be writing now with good news.

As we know, in March of this year the Oregon Santo Daime churches prevailed in federal district court in our lawsuit against the Department of Justice. The result of the judge's decision is that our right to legally practice our religion was affirmed under federal law.

The government then chose to appeal their loss and informed us of this in August.

Since that time, our lawyer Roy Haber has worked brilliantly and tirelessly to present our perspective to decision makers in the DOJ, seeking to bring what we knew was the Obama administration's more humane and rational sensibility to bear on the decision to appeal, which was a hold-over from the previous administration.

This week we took a very important step towards being completely free to practice our religion without any potential government interference.

The Department of Justice has explicitly agreed not to challenge the federal court ruling that the Oregon Churches may import Daime and ingest it as the sacrament at our services.

This is the basic and most important part of the judge's decision, as it solidifies our legal status and protects our rights in the future. This a great victory for all of us.

We are still negotiating with the government about a few items regarding oversight, but it looks as if we will be able to settle all of this out of court.

We would like to recognize our lawyer Roy Haber for his steadfast dedication and commitment to our cause. This moment is the direct result of the strategy that he led us to adopt, and the victory we have gained is exactly as he planned for and that we had faith would occur.

We would also like to thank all of you who have supported this process with your prayers and your contributions, and most importantly with your willingness to join us in the union that has made us worthy of this victory.

Thank you for your support up until now. And we have many bills still to pay. It is clear to us that this legal effort centered in Oregon is only the first of many steps in our unified ongoing effort.

Please be inspired to send tax deductible contributions to:

CHLQ
PO Box 911
Ashland Oregon
97520

Viva the Liberation of Santo Daime!

Blessings,

The legal victory committee for the Santo Daime churches of Oregon