Maine Church Lawsuit Highlights RFRA Risks for Attorneys

For anyone looking for a Maine church ayahuasca lawsuit religious freedom ruling, the first correction matters: Pachamama Sanctuary v. Blanche is not a new merits decision. It is a newly filed federal case in the District of Maine, brought on May 19, 2026, by a Casco-based religious organization that says federal agencies interfered with its sacramental ayahuasca practice; as of July 31, 2026, no court has ruled that Pachamama is entitled to RFRA protection, and no substantive religious-freedom ruling has been issued. Press coverage describes allegations that federal officials seized ayahuasca-related plant materials and that DEA agents made threatening visits to the church over a period spanning several years.[1][2]

That does not make the case unimportant. It makes it useful in a different way. Pachamama is a live risk trigger for lawyers asked to advise churches, retreat organizations, or other religious entities that want to use ayahuasca while the Controlled Substances Act, RFRA, tax law, tort law, DEA petition practice, and agency rulemaking still do not line up cleanly.

This article is a risk analysis for counsel, not legal advice. The immediate professional question is not whether RFRA arguments can be powerful. They can be. The question is whether a lawyer can safely treat that proposition as the whole engagement.

O Centro Is the Floor, Not the Map

The RFRA starting point remains Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal. In 2006, the Supreme Court unanimously held that the federal government had not shown a compelling interest sufficient to bar a religious group’s sacramental use of hoasca, an ayahuasca tea, under RFRA.[3] That is why serious lawyers still discuss direct litigation as a possible path rather than dismissing ayahuasca exemption claims as inherently marginal.

But O Centro did not give every later organization a portable permission slip. It was a Supreme Court case with its own record, its own injunction posture, and its own showing on sincerity, burden, and government interest. A lawyer counseling a new client still has to decide who can grant relief now, what record exists now, and what will happen while the client waits.

Pachamama’s value is that it collects the problem in one docket without yet solving it. The alleged facts include seizures, agency visits, and sacramental practice. The legal environment includes a Supreme Court RFRA precedent, a D.C. Circuit tax-status loss, a DEA petition process criticized by GAO, at least one later DEA-granted petition, unresolved rulemaking, and a separate wrongful-death judgment in the ayahuasca church space. Those are separate risks.

The Procedure Problem Counsel Cannot Paper Over

The hardest counseling question is often the least satisfying one for a client: where must the organization go first? O Centro supports direct litigation in a properly framed RFRA challenge. Yet Iowaska Church of Healing v. Werfel shows how a different forum can turn procedure into the decisive issue. In 2024, the D.C. Circuit affirmed the denial of Iowaska’s federal tax-exempt status because the organization’s ayahuasca use lacked a Controlled Substances Act exemption; it also dismissed RFRA claims for lack of jurisdiction.[4]

That outcome matters for engagement risk because it separates the constitutional merits question from the forum question. A client may believe it has a sincere RFRA claim. A lawyer may agree that the claim deserves to be litigated. But an IRS dispute over exemption status is not the same procedural vehicle as a direct challenge to DEA enforcement. If the client operates first and sorts out the exemption later, the next tribunal may not be the tribunal the lawyer had in mind.

The D.C. Circuit did not erase O Centro. It did make careless sequencing more dangerous. For a risk partner, the file should show whether counsel evaluated a DEA petition, a direct RFRA action, a tax-exemption application, or some combination. It should also show why an option was rejected. “O Centro exists” is not a petition strategy, a jurisdictional memorandum, or a tax opinion.

DEA Petition Practice Has Been Slow, Opaque, and Only Recently Productive

The petition pathway is not imaginary. It is also not a reliably timed administrative product. GAO reported in May 2024 that 24 RFRA exemption petitions involving controlled substances had been filed from fiscal year 2016 through January 2024; none had been granted by that point, some had been pending for nearly eight years, and DEA lacked written procedures and timeliness standards for processing them.[5]

That finding is the kind of institutional fact that changes advice. A lawyer who tells a client to petition DEA must be able to discuss delay, uncertainty, interim enforcement exposure, document preservation, operational pause points, and client communications. A lawyer who tells a client to bypass DEA must be able to explain why the agency process was inadequate, unnecessary, unavailable, or strategically inferior in that client’s posture.

The later Church of Gaia development narrows, but does not eliminate, the problem. In 2025, reporting described Church of Gaia in Spokane as receiving the first DEA-granted RFRA exemption for ayahuasca through the petition process without litigation.[6] That is a material fact for counsel because it shows the administrative route can work. It is not enough to rebrand the route as predictable, especially against GAO’s prior account of pending and unresolved petitions.

Tax Status Is a Separate Exposure, Not a Footnote

Iowaska is easy to misread if the only lens is RFRA merits. The practical hit was tax status. The organization sought recognition under section 501(c)(3), and the denial was affirmed because its ayahuasca use lacked a CSA exemption.[4] For an attorney advising a religious organization, that means the collateral forum can punish the client even before a court decides the religious-exemption question the client cares about most.

That risk changes the intake conversation. If the client is already soliciting donations, issuing donor-facing statements, promising tax treatment, paying staff, buying property, or expanding ceremony operations, the advice cannot be confined to controlled-substances defense. The lawyer needs to know what the organization has represented to donors, banks, insurers, landlords, payment processors, and state regulators.

The dangerous sentence is the one that says, in substance, “we have a strong RFRA claim, so the tax piece should follow.” Iowaska shows why that sequence can fail. The tax authority may ask whether a CSA exemption exists, not whether the client has a plausible future RFRA argument.

Safety Facts Do Not Stay Outside the RFRA File

A constitutional brief may prefer clean facts: sincere belief, sacramental use, substantial burden, government interest. A malpractice file, insurance file, or wrongful-death file will not be so tidy. Counsel advising ayahuasca ceremonies has to ask who screens participants, who reviews medications and contraindications, who supervises the ceremony, who responds to medical distress, what waivers say, and whether the organization’s public messaging outruns its controls.

Soul Quest is the hard reminder. Its RFRA challenge was dismissed by the Eleventh Circuit as untimely in 2023.[7] Separately, reporting described the church as closing in August 2024 after a $15 million wrongful-death judgment and bankruptcy.[8] Those two outcomes belong in different columns. The RFRA timing problem did not exhaust the organization’s legal exposure; the ceremony-safety litigation became its own existential event.

That distinction should affect how lawyers write advice. A memo that only analyzes RFRA and the CSA may be technically impressive and still incomplete for the engagement. If the client conducts ceremonies involving a psychoactive substance, safety protocols are not an operational afterthought. They are part of the foreseeable risk record.

Seizure Cases Show Why Interim Conduct Matters

Pachamama alleges government interference before any merits ruling in its favor. That is the ordinary posture, not an anomaly. A client often wants to know what it can do while the petition is pending, while the complaint is being drafted, while service is underway, or while preliminary relief has not yet been granted. The lawyer’s answer has to account for the possibility that plant materials are seized, ceremonies are interrupted, members are contacted, or agency pressure changes the client’s operating facts.

Other matters show that hybrid paths exist. Reporting on Church of the Celestial Heart described legal protection obtained after litigation involving a DHS seizure of ayahuasca and the arrest of a member.[9] That helps counsel explain that organizations are not limited to one theoretical path. It does not remove the cost of seizure, arrest risk, delay, public filings, or factual development while the case proceeds.

This is where client expectations become a professional-risk issue. A lawyer may be comfortable arguing that the government lacks a compelling interest under RFRA. The client may hear that as permission to continue operations as usual. The engagement file should close that gap in writing.

Rulemaking Is Not a Substitute for Current Advice

DEA has had a long-term action identified as RIN 1117-AB66 to create a registration pathway for religious organizations seeking RFRA-based controlled-substance exemptions. As of the July 2026 Unified Agenda discussion cited in practitioner coverage, the item remained in long-term action status with no publication timeline.[10]

That is relevant, but it is not advice. A proposed or anticipated rule can inform monitoring, budgeting, and engagement scoping. It cannot tell a client whether to import materials, schedule ceremonies, represent tax deductibility, expand to another state, or rely on a petition that may not be resolved on the client’s timeline.

The more prudent use of rulemaking uncertainty is narrower: counsel should identify who is responsible for monitoring the docket, what client conduct would need to change if DEA publishes a proposed rule, and whether the engagement includes commenting, compliance redesign, or only litigation advice.

What the Pachamama Filing Should Put in the Engagement File

The Maine case does not yet change the law. It does, however, mark the questions that should be answered before a lawyer blesses, challenges, or remains silent about sacramental ayahuasca operations.

• Jurisdictional posture: Which court or agency can grant the relief the client actually needs, and what claims might be dismissed for timing, exhaustion, or forum reasons?
• DEA petition strategy: Has the client petitioned, will it petition, or is counsel recommending direct litigation despite the administrative pathway?
• Tax-status exposure: Is the organization seeking or representing 501(c)(3) status while lacking a CSA exemption?
• Tort and safety controls: Who screens participants, supervises ceremonies, responds to medical risk, and reviews public-facing claims?
• Rulemaking uncertainty: Who monitors RIN 1117-AB66, and what advice changes if DEA publishes a proposed registration pathway?

Those questions do not diminish the religious-liberty stakes. They define the lawyer’s job. RFRA may be the centerpiece of the merits argument, but it is only one of the decision systems that can affect the client. Pachamama is pending, not decided; until that changes, it should be treated less as a ruling and more as a live checklist for jurisdiction, DEA process, tax status, ceremony safety, and regulatory delay.

References

1. Casco church sues federal agencies over alleged ayahuasca interference, Portland Press Herald, May 21, 2026.
2. Casco Maine Pachamama Sanctuary ayahuasca lawsuit, Bangor Daily News, May 20, 2026.
3. Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao Vegetal, Becket Fund.
4. Iowaska Church of Healing v. Werfel, Justia, June 21, 2024.
5. Religious Exceptions for Controlled Substances: DEA Should Establish a Process to Receive and Evaluate Petitions, U.S. Government Accountability Office, May 2024.
6. DEA Approves Church’s Petition To Use Psychedelics In Religious Ceremonies Without The Need For A Lawsuit, Marijuana Moment.
7. Soul Quest Church of Mother Earth’s Ayahuasca Challenge Untimely, Justia, December 18, 2023.
8. Soul Quest Church of Mother Earth’s Ayahuasca Challenge Untimely, Bloomberg Law.
9. Church of the Celestial Heart Wins Legal Protection for Ayahuasca Use, Chacruna.
10. DEA’s 2026 Rulemaking Agenda: An Already Thin Agenda Gets Downright Skinny, DeKo Law.