Church of Cognizance founders can’t escape drug charges

Dan and Mary Quaintance in 1991 founded the Church of Cognizance, organized around the principle that marijuana is a deity and a sacrament.
A federal district court in New Mexico found that the couple’s beliefs were not religious and added that they failed to show that those beliefs were sincerely held.
On appeal, a unanimous three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on May 19 affirmed the denial of the couple’s RFRA defense in United States v. Quaintance.