Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith

Facts

Oregon law made it a crime to knowingly or intentionally possess a controlled substance unless a medical practitioner had prescribed it. The law defined controlled substances by reference to the federal drug schedules, as modified by the State Board of Pharmacy. Possessing a Schedule I drug was a Class B felony, and Oregon's Schedule I included peyote, a hallucinogen derived from a plant. Alfred Smith and Galen Black worked for a private drug rehabilitation organization. Both were members of the Native American Church. They ingested peyote for sacramental purposes at a church ceremony, and they were fired for it. They applied to the Employment Division for unemployment compensation. The Division found them ineligible because they had been discharged for work-related "misconduct." The Oregon Supreme Court later confirmed that the state drug law made no exception for sacramental use of peyote. The question was whether the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment required Oregon to exempt religious peyote use from its drug law, and so to pay Smith and Black unemployment benefits.

Issues

1. Does the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment bar Oregon from applying its general criminal prohibition on peyote to religiously inspired use, and so from denying unemployment benefits to people fired for that use?
2. Must a free exercise challenge to a generally applicable criminal prohibition be tested under the Sherbert compelling-interest test, so that religious users can claim an exemption?

Holding

Oregon's drug law is a generally applicable criminal prohibition, and the Free Exercise Clause does not exempt religiously motivated peyote use from it. Because the prohibition is constitutional, Oregon may deny unemployment compensation to people dismissed for using the drug.