White Cloud, Mich. ? Jon Fowler wants his 4-year-old son to have the right to take peyote with him. It’s a matter of religious freedom, he says.

A member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Jon Fowler belongs to the Native American Church of the Morning Star, where the hallucinogen is taken as a sacrament. Fowler wants his son to join him in the rite, if the boy wishes.

But a judge may bar Fowler from doing so, in a case that pits the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom against a mother’s wish to protect her child.

Fowler’s ex-wife, Kristin Hanslovsky, a 31-year-old Montague resident who is not an American Indian, fears peyote would harm her son and doesn’t want him anywhere near it.

Fowler, a 35-year-old resident of Traverse City who earns a living by selling food and crafts at powwows, credits his use of peyote with helping him overcome alcoholism and forge a relationship with God.

Judge Graydon Dimkoff, who two years ago gave physical custody of the child to Fowler, prohibited him from allowing his son to be given peyote. The father appealed and after hearing arguments, the Michigan Court of Appeals returned the case to Dimkoff, directing him to determine whether peyote use could harm the child. The next hearing is set for March 21.

Part of culture

Peyote, a bitter-tasting cactus that grows in southern Texas and northern Mexico, has been a part of Indian culture for thousands of years. Those who ingest the plant — usually drunk as a tea or eaten as a greenish paste — believe it provides enlightenment and other spiritual and physical benefits.

The plant’s active chemical ingredient is mescaline, a hallucinogen. The U.S. criminal code classifies peyote as a controlled substance, and in most instances a person caught with more than 4 ounces faces the possibility of a 20-year prison sentence.

But during the last century, peyote’s use in religious rites spread among Indians throughout the United States, including the upper Midwest. Congress recognized this sacramental use of peyote eight years ago by amending the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 to protect the practice in all 50 states.

JON FOWLER, RIGHT, and his son, Ishkwada, 4, pose in traditional tribal attire. Fowler, an Indian who belongs to the Native American Church of the Morning Star, says the courts are restricting his religious beliefs by prohibiting him from giving peyote -- taken in his church as a sacrament which contains a hallucinogen -- to his son.

Protecting rights

Fowler’s attorney, Thomas Myers of Michigan Indian Legal Services, said the case was about ensuring that “rights guaranteed to Native Americans by treaty or statute are secured, and I think that would include constitutional rights.”

Martin Holmes, a North Muskegon attorney representing Hanslovsky, did not return a call to his office. Hanslovsky has said she does not want to violate anyone’s religious freedom, but that feeding the boy peyote “could cause him harm or long-term neurological defects.”

Testifying on Fowler’s behalf at a court hearing last month, John H. Halpern, a psychiatrist and researcher at Harvard Medical School, said he has found no evidence of a child or adult being harmed by the use of peyote in Indian religious services.

“This is a sacred ceremony,” said Halpern, who has conducted an extensive study of peyote use among Indians. “It’s not something to entertain people.”

About 300,000 Indians who belong to the Native American Church of North America, the nation’s largest church for indigenous peoples, ingest some form of the cactus, he said.

But some members of these types of congregations do not believe children should take the substance.

Anne Zapf, who with her husband runs the Peyote Way Church of God in Klondike, Ariz., feels children should be allowed to attend spiritual ceremonies where peyote is dispensed, but should not ingest it.

At Zapf’s church, where peyote is used once or twice a year, a person must be at least 18 — or 14, with parental permission — to take it.

“I’m not even into handing peyote to anybody who’s under 30 because most people aren’t emotionally mature enough or prepared by life enough for the experience,” she said.

“Peyote is an introspective experience. It’s a God experience and generally you have to have a few sins under your belt.”

Most children also would not enjoy the acrid taste, she said.

“It tastes bad and it makes you throw up,” she said.

Halpern, the Harvard psychiatrist, questioned the court’s decision to take up the matter, since the federal government has affirmed the sacramental use of peyote. He views the case as potentially harmful to American Indian culture.

“We have to protect these people’s traditions and ways,” he said.