INDIANAPOLIS — A Green Party presidential candidate made a $300 payment to the First Church of Cannabis and, understandably, the Federal Election Commission is skeptical.
A Raw Story review of public records shows the FEC sent Jill Stein for President 2024 a letter questioning the legitimacy of the transaction and soliciting an explanation.
Jason Call, a spokesman for Stein’s campaign, told Raw Story that the payment to the Church of Cannabis was for rental of the building for a campaign event during the eclipse.
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Bill Levin, a 68-year-old former punk rock promoter and leader of the church — title: "grand poohbah" — said he told the Stein campaign that an event on the day of the eclipse might be, well, eclipsed by the rare event of the moon obscuring the sun in the middle of the afternoon.
"The campaign came here with three, four, five people," Levin said in an interview with Raw Story. "A bunch of people, maybe 25, heard Jill Stein was going to be here. The campaign people said, 'Jill's going to give a speech after the elipse.' As soon as the eclipse was over, everyone left. She sat and talked to the five people and me. My wife might have come in and out."
Stein was the Green Party’s presidential nominee in 2012 and 2016 and is a leading contender to become the party’s presidential standard bearer during its national convention in July. If nominated, she would join Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West among independent and minor-party candidates running alongside President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Stein's 2024 campaign platform calls for fully legalizing cannabis "for recreational and medicinal use with similar restrictions to alcohol" and "federal legalization and funding of cannabis medicinal research"
Stein’s political finances have previously come under federal scrutiny. Following her 2016 run, her campaign failed for years to pay numerous election law violation fines.
Stein’s 2016 campaign, which many Democrats credit for hurting Hillary Clinton in her race against Donald Trump, also came under fire for using much of the millions of dollars it raised for recount efforts to instead pay staff salaries, bonuses and Stein’s legal defense.
Stein became a subject of a U.S. Senate investigation into Russian election influence following a dinner she had in 2015 with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which Trump acolyte Michael Flynn also attended. (Stein maintains that she is “not a Russian spy.”)
Grassroots
The First Church of Cannabis’ connection to Stein is hardly its first foray into politics.
The church grew out of former vice president and then-governor of Indiana Mike Pence’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, which religious conservatives celebrated but which critics said would, for example, allow businesses to discriminate against gay people.
Levin saw an opening for his twist on the law.
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Government could not infringe on Individuals and companies practicing religion without a compelling reason. And even then, the government had to find the least restrictive way to enforce the law.
In 2015, the Internal Revenue Service officially recognized the First Church of Cannabis as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization.
The first service was the day RFRA became law, and it was a spectacle that attracted a heavy police presence, not to mention that of local churches, neighbors, curious onlookers, and national and international media.
Even without cannabis — officially, at least — the show went on.
And it was a show. A band played songs such as Rick James’ “Mary Jane” and Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” There was dancing and balloons batted in the pews of the former Christian church. People gave testaments to the healing power of cannabis. Ministers of Love, Music, and Education were introduced. There was a comedian.
The Congregants recite the “Diety Dozen,” a stoners’ version of the Ten Commandments, which includes “Don’t be an a–hole” and “Laugh often, share humor.”
“I’m not a criminal,” Levin said of his legal wranglings. “I’m a religious figure.”
