Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
PROVO, Utah (AP) -- A Utah County man wants federal authorities to give him back his peyote.
James "Flaming Eagle" Mooney fought in court to be able to use the hallucinogenic drug in religious ceremonies.
The Utah Supreme Court threw out a drug conviction against Mooney, but a lawsuit he filed against the county was thrown out of federal court two years ago.
Mooney says the U.S. Attorney's Office returned a peyote cactus that can be used in religious ceremonies, but not ingested. He says the federal investigators never returned the 15,000 peyote buttons that were seized from his church.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Salt Lake City says the peyote is contraband and will not be going back to Mooney.
------
Information from: The Daily Herald
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
