For Rastafarians, Marijuana Is Sacred. Should the Law Account for That?

For Rastafarians like Richard Chung, a leather craftsman with a bundle of salt-and-pepper dreadlocks, marijuana has long been both sacred and a livelihood.

Those dual uses made Rastafarians instrumental in building New York’s illegal cannabis market, and made them frequent targets of the police. Mr. Chung, now 70 and known by his spiritual name, Ras Opio, was arrested several times over the decades that he sold weed. On one occasion, he said, officers cut off one of his dreadlocks and hung it at the station house like a trophy.

New York legalized recreational cannabis use in 2021, seeking to turn the illicit trade into a legitimate industry benefiting those who had been harmed by enforcement of drug laws. But while the law sought to give people like Mr. Chung an opportunity to profit from their difficult experiences with the police, it did not make accommodations for those whose faith was intertwined with that history.

Now, as the legal market approaches $1 billion in sales, there is an emerging push for the state to recognize cannabis’s sacramental use so that members of ritualistic cultures like Rastafarianism can grow and sell it in accordance with their beliefs. Places like Jamaica, where Rastafarianism originated in the 1930s, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have taken such steps.

The effort is led by Rastafarians who want sacramental use defined in the law, licenses to cultivate and dispense cannabis set aside specifically for religious communities, and other changes that allow them to sell and consume cannabis during ceremonies.

“We started the trade,” Mr. Chung said. “At least they could give us some part of it,” he added.