n November of 2022, the city of Detroit passed Proposition E, decriminalizing the posession of ethnogens such as psilocybin and ayahuasca. Shaman Bobby Shu was deeply involved in this proposition, because he believes ethnogens can help many people with mental health and other challenges when used in an appropriate way.
Earlier this year, he becan work to open Soul Tribes Ministries on Southfield Rd in Detroit. Metro Times wrote an article on the church earlier this month, and last week Friday (September 25th), the Detroit police showed up at the church with a search warrant.
They seized over $700,000 in herbs that Shaman Shu says were blessed sacramental materials.
Shu’s church was expected to be fully operational by November, but his sacrement center (a shop that sells mushrooms in various forms) was opened Labor Day weekend. Now the doors of his facility are taped with tamper proof police seals, and he is not allowed inside.
The search warrant directs seizure of all drugs, all paperwork and files, and calls the sacrement center an illegal dispensary.
DPD has told other news outlets that the search may be related to an unlicensed dispensary, but has not given further details.
The city of Detroit reportly stated that the local ordinance does not take precendence over the federal laws about narcotics.
Shu points out that as a legally formed church with psilocybin as a documented sacrament, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act should apply, and they should not be subject to these laws. He plans to file a lawsuit to get permission to re-open.
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