The RFRA Trap: Litigation Sequencing and the Structural Limits of State Religious Freedom Claims in Drug Law
Why arguing state RFRA before federal constitutional claims can foreclose Supreme Court review — and how litigation order determines survival.
By Jason Karimi | WeedPress
February 15, 2026
State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs) are often misunderstood as constitutional shields. Structurally, they are not.
State RFRAs exist because the U.S. Supreme Court held in City of Boerne v. Flores (1997) that the federal RFRA could not be applied to the states. In response, states enacted their own versions, restoring a statutory strict scrutiny standard at the state level.
That move created a subtle but dangerous litigation trap.
A state RFRA imposes a statutory strict scrutiny test. But that standard is not embedded in the federal Constitution. It is not binding on federal courts as a First Amendment rule. And it does not replace the Supreme Court’s Free Exercise doctrine under Employment Division v. Smith.
When litigants argue that state RFRA resolves their constitutional injury, they often win — if at all — only within the boundaries of state statutory law. They may secure temporary relief. They may even obtain injunctions.
But they foreclose something larger.
If your goal is to reach the U.S. Supreme Court and challenge federal constitutional doctrine, leading with state RFRA can structurally prevent that pathway. The federal question disappears. The constitutional claim collapses into a statutory one. The appellate ladder shortens.
Litigation sequencing determines survival.
The current appeal in Bridger Lee Jensen v. Utah County illustrates the tension. It is unusual to see a state RFRA functioning inside federal court posture. The briefs themselves, however, reveal something instructive: the strongest arguments are laid out in descending order — federal Constitution, then state Constitution, then state statute.
That hierarchy is not accidental.
Constitutional litigation is architectural. You build from the highest authority downward. If you reverse the order, you risk insulating the very doctrine you hope to challenge.
This is not an argument against state RFRA as a policy tool. It is an argument against confusing statutory relief with constitutional transformation.
If you are litigating only for localized relief, state RFRA may suffice.
If you are litigating for doctrinal change, it will not.
Seventeen years of studying cannabis law — federal scheduling mechanics, preemption doctrine, administrative procedure, religious exemption case law — leads to one unavoidable conclusion:
Power in the marijuana movement has shifted.
It is no longer primarily legislative.
It is litigative.
And litigation requires precision.
The WeedPress Policy Series was built as a structural outline of federal drug law architecture — statutes, regulations, scheduling mechanisms, administrative record vulnerabilities, vertical and horizontal federalism pressures.
Statutes and regs matter more than slogans.
Arguments must be sequenced correctly.
If you intend to move doctrine, you must preserve the federal constitutional question from the first filing through the final appeal. Otherwise, you may win a skirmish and lose the battlefield.
Six installments of the WeedPress Policy Series are live. The remainder are written and undergoing citation verification before publication.
This project is not activism. It is structural analysis.
Whether or not courts ultimately recognize a religious cannabis exemption, the constitutional process must be tested carefully, methodically, and in the proper order. Case law develops slowly. Appellate doctrine evolves over decades, not headlines.
WeedPress will continue to study and publish at the intersection of religious liberty and federal drug law.
This publication is a public service project.
It is educational analysis, not legal advice.
Consult licensed counsel before acting on any litigation strategy.
The state RFRA is dangerous, because it responds to the U.S. Supreme Court invalidating the federal RFRA as applied to the states.
It adds a strict scrutiny standard that is not accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court, which means it won’t receive First Amendment protection in any federal court. The Jensen case is odd, because it’s a state RFRA in a federal court. I’m going to watch the case but I don’t want to tie arguments strongly to the case as I can’t see if it wins loses or how it will be decided. I do like how the case briefs lay arguments out from strongest to weakest – Fed constitution then state constitution then state statute/RFRA law.
Let’s use a pending case in Utah as an example. This is the 10th Circuit case known as Jensen involving psilocybin mushroom religious arguments.
Here’s the PACER downloaded Appellant brief filed December 10th in the Jensen case:
The Jensen case serves as a compelling illustration. Based on the appellant brief filed December 10, 2025, in the Tenth Circuit (Case No. 25-4115), the defendants (Utah County, Provo City, and Jeffrey Gray) are appealing a district court order that denied their motion to dismiss and granted an anti-suit injunction halting a parallel state criminal prosecution against Bridger Lee Jensen. The underlying dispute centers on Singularism, a religious organization founded by Jensen in 2023, which incorporates psilocybin as a central sacrament for spiritual practices. Psilocybin remains a Schedule I controlled substance under both federal (21 U.S.C. § 812) and Utah law (Utah Code Ann. § 58-37-4), but plaintiffs assert exemptions under the federal Free Exercise Clause, the Utah Constitution, and Utah’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (URFRA, Utah Code Ann. § 63G-33-201 et seq.), enacted in 2024.
Key Elements from the Appellant Brief
The brief structures its arguments in a descending hierarchy of authority, starting with federal constitutional claims and descending to state-law issues—a sequencing arguably preserving the federal question for appellate escalation:
• Federal Free Exercise Claim (pp. 26-34): Appellants argue that Utah’s Controlled Substances Act is a neutral, generally applicable law under Smith, subject only to rational basis review, which it easily survives given the state’s interest in public health and safety. They contend no exemptions (e.g., for medical or research use) render it non-general, distinguishing it from cases like Fulton v. City of Philadelphia where individualized exceptions triggered strict scrutiny. If upheld, this would reinforce Smith‘s framework without needing to invoke URFRA’s stricter standard.
• Federal Fourth Amendment Claim (p. 34): Appellants assert the search warrant was validly issued based on probable cause, defeating any unlawful search claim as a matter of law.
• State-Law Claims (pp. 35-37): Here, appellants urge remand to Utah state court rather than federal adjudication, emphasizing comity and avoidance of unnecessary federal entanglement with state statutes like URFRA. This placement subordinates state RFRA to federal issues, avoiding the trap WeedPress describes by not letting statutory claims eclipse constitutional ones.
• Anti-Suit Injunction (pp. 37-60): Appellants challenge the district court’s application of Younger abstention, arguing the injunction improperly interferes with ongoing state criminal proceedings. They claim no bad faith or irreparable harm justifies the exception, and that defendants did not waive Younger arguments.
The brief’s attachments reveal how the district court (Judge Jill N. Parrish) leaned on URFRA in earlier rulings. For instance:
• The December 18, 2024, TRO (Attachment C) granted relief based on URFRA’s substantial burden test, finding psilocybin essential to Singularism’s sincere practices.
• The February 20, 2025, preliminary injunction (Attachment B) explicitly resolved on URFRA grounds, deferring full analysis of constitutional claims pending the Utah Attorney General’s response.
• The August 4, 2025, order denying dismissal (Attachment A) addressed federal Free Exercise but noted its strict scrutiny analysis mirrored URFRA’s, potentially blending the standards in a way that risks diluting the pure federal question.
This reliance on URFRA in the lower court exemplifies WeedPress’s observed “trap”: by granting relief under the state statute, the district court provided localized protection but may have reduced the urgency or purity of the federal constitutional challenge, complicating certiorari if the case escalates. Appellants’ brief counters this by prioritizing federal arguments, aiming to force a Smith-centered review.
Current Status of the Appeal
As of mid-February 2026, the appeal remains pending in the 10th Circuit. Oral argument was requested in the December 2025 brief, but no date has been set. The district court granted a stay of proceedings on October 7, 2025, pending resolution. Recent commentary highlights the case’s novelty, including the court’s use of the United States v. Meyers five-factor test to evaluate Singularism’s religious sincerity. No dispositive ruling has issued, but appellants continue to press for reversal of the anti-suit injunction, arguing it was erroneously based on bad faith findings.
This sequencing matters for broader doctrinal shifts, especially post-rescheduling dynamics where medical exceptions could further erode Smith’s application to Schedule I substances. If the Tenth Circuit affirms on URFRA grounds without squarely addressing federal issues, it could exemplify the insulation WeedPress is warning about—winning the case but limiting precedent for national reform.
Weedpress Policy Series:
No. 1 — Legal Memorandum: Common Misconceptions in Cannabis Activism Regarding Federal Drug Law (January 25, 2026)
No. 2 — The Path to a Religious Cannabis Exemption: How Medical Cannabis Systems Change the RFRA Equation (January 27, 2026)
No. 3 — Structural Contradictions and Prospective Litigation Risk in Post-Rescheduling Cannabis Policy (February 6, 2026)
No. 4 — The Controlled Substances Act Is Not a Blunt Instrument — It Is an Architecture of Exceptions (February 13, 2026)
No. 5 — The Limits of § 822(d): What It Does — and Does Not — Authorize (February 13, 2026)
No. 6 — The Major Questions Doctrine and Cannabis Reform: Delegation, Scale, and Judicial Review (February 14, 2026)
No. 7 — Chevron’s Collapse and Cannabis Regulation: Judicial Review After Loper Bright (February 17, 2026)
No. 8 — Administrative Procedure Act Vulnerabilities in DEA Rescheduling (February 20, 2026)
No. 9 – No. 9 — Dormant Commerce Clause, Circuit Splits, and Cannabis Federalism (February 23, 2026)
No. 10 — Federal Preemption After Rescheduling: Conflict, Obstacle, and Cannabis Federalism (February 27, 2026)
No. 11 — Equal Protection and Economic Protectionism in Cannabis Licensing: Classification, Remedial Design, and Constitutional Limits (March 3, 2026)
No. 12 — Federal Rescheduling as a Preemption Trigger: Rational Basis, Conflict, and State Schedule I Exposure (March 6, 2026).
No. 13 — Criminal Prosecution After Federal Medical Recognition: Motions Practice, Rational Basis, and Schedule I Litigation Exposure (March 10, 2026).
Jason Karimi, Cannabis Federalism After Medical Recognition: Administrative Record, Rational Basis, and Vertical Separation of Powers, WeedPress White Paper No. 1 (Mar. 17, 2026).
Coming summer 2026 on Amazon is this book as well:
WeedPress: The Paper Trail 
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