# Was there communion wine during prohibition? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 14, 2004, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704 "2004-12-14T01:28:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/21 "2004-12-14T19:16:41Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > I can’t find a specific cite, but during Prohibition there was an exemption for home winemaking so long as the amounts were low, as in for personal consumption. There was an exemption, but it was not for wine. From the [Volstead Act](http://tucnak.fsv.cuni.cz/~calda/Documents/1920s/Volstead.html): > [@](#): > > The penalties provided in this Act against the manufacture of liquor without a permit shall not apply to a person for manufacturing nonintoxicating cider and fruit juices exclusively for use in his home, but such cider and fruit juices shall not be sold or delivered except to persons having permits to manufacture vinegar. The Volstead Act defines “intoxicating” as “any such beverages which contain one-half of 1 per centum or more of alcohol by volume.” ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/22 "2004-12-14T19:52:59Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Actually, the peyote exemption is JUST for the Native American Church. This exemption on its face seems blatantly unconstitutional. Why shouldn’t other religions be allowed to use peyote to worship their god? Why would this be unconstitutional? The US passed a law prohibiting the use of peyote as it does numerous other drugs. As it happened a religion _already_ existed which had an established use of peyote in its religious ceremonies. Established for perhaps thousands of years\*. As with the sacramental exception of wine during prohibition so too the Native American Church got an exception. If all anyone needed to do was form their own church and then say, for example, LSD was integral to their services you’d never be able to enforce any drug laws. > [@](#): > > - – Veneration of the small spineless cactus called peyote probably began immediately after the first hunter-gatherers discovered its remarkable effects. The Native American deification of the plant is estimated to be about 10,000 years old. Peyote cactus buttons uncovered in Shumla Cave in southern Texas have been radiocarbon dated to 5,000 B.C. The Huichol Indians of northwestern Mexico still use peyote sacramentally. Their peyote pilgrimage may have been in place by 200 A.D. Scholars consider it the oldest sacramental use of peyote in North America. > > SOURCE: [http://www.csp.org/communities/docs/fikes-nac\_history.html](http://www.csp.org/communities/docs/fikes-nac_history.html) ---
**Author:** ![EvilHamsterOnCrack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@EvilHamsterOnCrack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilHamsterOnCrack)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/23 "2004-12-14T20:13:14Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Actually, the peyote exemption is JUST for the Native American Church. This exemption on its face seems blatantly unconstitutional. Why shouldn’t other religions be allowed to use peyote to worship their god? Maybe it has to do with a kind of repayment for the raping, pillaging, and killing of em, the years of abuse they took, the land that used to be all theirs, and some respect for the religion that was here before white man even found the continent. Just an idea. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/24 "2004-12-14T21:26:21Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > And to offer a data-point at the opposite end of the spectrum: Altar wine for the Roman Catholic eucharist is required by the RCC to be fermented, with one accommodation for the sake of communicants with health issues: they can use raw unprocessed _must_, that is, the grape juice stock for winemaking, which will likely contain a trace of fermentation already. RCers call it _mustum_ (MOO - stoom), and it _must_ (pardon the pun) contain a trace of alcohol for it to be considered valid matter for the sacrament. Pax. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/25 "2004-12-14T22:04:13Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > It’s not merely “some fundamentalist sects” – Methodists, for example, use grape juice. _Oinos_ in Koiné Greek means the juice of the grape, whether fresh or fermented into wine. Prior to Mr. Welsh inventing a way to pasteurize grape juice, however, the only way to preserve it was to turn it into wine – otherwise it spoils rapidly, so it’s a reasonable guess that any time _oinos_ is referenced, it means no-kidding wine, with the rare exception (outside Scripture in classical Greek) of someone taking a drink of _oinos_ fresh from the grape press. > > As **spingears** says, however, there are those who argue, for one reason or another, that the Bible couldn’t have meant wine, and who come up with ingenious reasons why the term _really_ means something else. Jehovah’s witnesses do use wine. I attended a number of observances of the “Lord’s Evening Meal,” as it is referred to in Kingdom Halls. Everyone is offered the unleavened bread and the wine (real Jewish wine, I might add) but only people who are of the “elect” or “anointed remnant” actually consume it–the doctrine is rather complicated–and I have never seen anyone partake. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/26 "2004-12-14T22:10:24Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Actually, the peyote exemption is JUST for the Native American Church. This exemption on its face seems blatantly unconstitutional. Considering that Indian nations are treated as foreign nations in the constitution, not at all. > [@](#): > > And as refrigerators were all kinds of scarce in the Middle East 2 millennia ago, it wouldn’t take long at all for freshly pressed grape juice to ferment. Refrigerators as we know them now? Of course not… but check out: _Studies in Ancient Technology: Heat and heating; Refrigeration, the art of cooling and producing cold; Light_ by R J Forbes (Brill Academic 2nd rev ed. 1997). One of a series of books each containing a number of essays on ancient technology, covering both the pre-classical and classical periods. This volume covers heating, refrigeration and light. Evaporation and digging of cold storage pits were used to some good effect. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/27 "2004-12-14T22:36:33Z")
> [@Crandolph](#): > > Considering that Indian nations are treated as foreign nations in the constitution, not at all. This exemption applies off reservations too. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/28 "2004-12-14T22:45:19Z")
> [@EvilHamsterOnCrack](#): > > Maybe it has to do with a kind of repayment for the raping, pillaging, and killing of em, the years of abuse they took, the land that used to be all theirs, and some respect for the religion that was here before white man even found the continent. > > Just an idea. 😉 There is no exception in the Constitution for cases of white man’s guilt. Which unquestionably this exemption was. Congress threw the red man a bone. I’d say it is just a matter for someone outside the NAC to challenges this. Probably it hasn’t happened yet because the courts would throw out that part of the CSA, which would mean that not even the NAC could possess or use peyote. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/29 "2004-12-14T23:32:55Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Actually, the peyote exemption is JUST for the Native American Church. This exemption on its face seems blatantly unconstitutional. Why shouldn’t other religions be allowed to use peyote to worship their god? Actually, then why can’t my church use marijuana? (Yes, believe it or not I’m at least halfway serious.) ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/30 "2004-12-15T01:21:05Z")
> [@ratatoskK](#): > > Actually, then why can’t my church use marijuana? (Yes, believe it or not I’m at least halfway serious.) That is my point. Why can the Native American Church use peyote to worship their god, yet I can’t use marijuana to worship my god? Is not a legal exemption for _any_ specific church blatantly unconstitutional? ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/31 "2004-12-15T03:39:36Z")
Your church has never used marijuana to worship its god whereas Native American religions used peyote for centuries, if not millennia before this continent was discovered, let alone this nation founded. If you can’t see the difference between the two, I can’t help but think you’re being disingenuous at best. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704/32 "2004-12-15T23:37:47Z")
> [@ratatoskK](#): > > Actually, then why can’t my church use marijuana? (Yes, believe it or not I’m at least halfway serious.) As in “half a loaf…”? 😛 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-communion-wine-during-prohibition/279704.md?page=1)