The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state's interest in banning marijuana outweighed beliefs of people who want to use it as a religious sacrament wherever and whenever they wish.

Danny Ray Hardesty, 43, formerly of Thatcher, was pulled over by police in Yavapai County in 2005 for driving with a burned-out headlight on his van. The officer smelled burned marijuana, and Hardesty admitted he was smoking a joint and had thrown it out the window. The officer found the joint and seized a baggie of marijuana from the back of Hardesty's van. Hardesty was then charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia – class six-felonies.

Hardesty appealed his subsequent conviction and took his case all the way to the State Supreme Court, where he lost his appeal for his right to smoke cannabis in any amount, anywhere and at any time. Hardesty said his membership in the Church of Cognizance granted him use of cannabis wherever because it is the church's sacrament. He equated it to the Catholic communion of a sip of sacramental wine.

Church of Cognizance co-founders Daniel and Mary Quaintance describe the church as being a neo-Zoroastrian faith and experienced-based ethno-socio-religious organization. The church uses cannabis and hemp in a variety of manners. Industrial hemp is a cousin plant of marijuana that contains no psychoactive properties and has been used in numerous applications throughout history, including uses as fuel, clothing, paper, biodegradable plastics, construction and food. The original draft of the Constitution of the United States was printed on hemp paper, and today it is used in thousands of products.

Daniel and Mary pleaded guilty in September 2008 to conspiracy with intent to distribute marijuana. The couple was arrested Feb. 22, 2006, after Border Patrol agents located approximately 172 pounds of marijuana in a sedan that was traveling in tandem with a minivan the Quaintances were in near Lordsburg, N.M.

The pair asserted they should be exempt from the federal regulation of marijuana due to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, but New Mexico federal Judge Judith C. Herrera rejected the couple's religious-freedom arguments. Daniel was sentenced to five years in prison, and Mary was sentenced to two to three years.

Chief Justice Rebecca White Berch disagreed with Hardesty's claim as well and said his statements of being able to use cannabis wherever and whenever, including while driving, led the court to conclude an outright ban is the "least restrictive means" for the government to protect the public.

The ruling does not, however, limit others from claiming use of marijuana as a religious sacrament.

Hardesty cited the Arizona Free Exercise of Religion Act and other statutory and constitutional provisions for his defense. The act, passed in 1999, prohibits the state government from burdening a person's exercise of religion except when there's a compelling governmental interest and when government uses the least restrictive means.

Berch pointed out that under the act courts have allowed groups such as the Native American Church to use peyote – a cactus that contains the hallucinogen mescaline – in religious practices and the same argument could be made for the use of marijuana. The Hardesty case, however, did not meet the same criteria, according to Berch.

"Members of the Native American Church assert only the religious right to use peyote in limited sacramental rites," Berch wrote. "Hardesty asserts the right to use marijuana whenever he pleases, including while driving."

Peyote has been used for religious and medicinal practices by indigenous peoples of the United States and Mexico for thousands of years. According to some scholars, the use of cannabis for religious and medicinal purposes has been practiced for just as long, with evidence of its being used in religious practices of ancient shamanic, and pagan religions as well as ancient Hebraic use, and the Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim religions.

The most well-known use of cannabis for religious reasons comes from those involved in the Rastafari movement.

On Feb. 2, 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that under the Religious Freedom of Restoration Act of 1993, Rastafarian defendants should be allowed to show that they use marijuana for bona fide religious reasons in their defense against charges of possession of marijuana.

Whatever subsequent rulings about the validity of the use of marijuana for religious practices may come, Arizona's Supreme Court did not believe Hardesty was practicing a religion as he drove his van through Yavapai County, and he was convicted and placed on probation for 18 months.