Roger Christie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roger Christie is a minister and campaigner against the US drug policy. In 2000, he founded the THC Ministry, a religion that considers cannabis to be a sacrament.
Roger Christie was born on 15 June 1949 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Raised and schooled in the New Jersey countryside in the 1950s and 1960s, he graduated from high school in 1967, the famous "summer of love".
After two years of college studies and flight training school in Miami, Florida he received an associate's degree in Science and a Commercial Pilot certificate.
In 1970 he enlisted in the US Army and was trained as a G2 Intelligence Analyst at Fort Holabird, Maryland, a US Army "spy school", but became disenchanted by the military and political missions in Vietnam and elsewhere. Christie refused his orders to serve in the Vietnam War and received an honorable discharge as a Conscientious objector. His success in this process inspired him to pursue legal options to overturn US drug policy, a fight which has led him to numerous court battles and arrests.
In 1986, he became a resident of Big Island, Hawaii. He was a co-founder of the Hawai'i Hemp Council in 1990 and, with Aaron Anderson and Dwight Kondo, founded the Hawaiian Hemp Company. By 1991, he had one of the first retail hemp stores in the world. In June, 2000, he was ordained as a minister by the Religion of Jesus Church through the Universal Life Church. He received his license to perform marriages in the State of Hawaii as a "Cannabis Sacrament" Minister and founded the THC Ministry.
In 2004, Christie launched an unsuccessful bid for Mayor of Hawaii County.
