Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church

The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church is a mansion of Rastafari movement which flourished in the 1970s in Jamaica and was incorporated in Florida in 1975. Members of movement say it is based on the teachings of Marcus Garvey and that they use cannabis as the Rastafari sacrament.

The group was accused, tried and convicted of smuggling massive amounts of potent cannabis from Jamaica to Miami in actions that kept the Jamaican economy afloat that decade. The Prime Minister at the time Edward Seaga, when he came to the U.S. said in an interview "It's just a little sin semilla that it keep the country going right now". That was the Coptics. The Coptics published a free newspaper promoting Garveyism and the decriminalization of marijuana. They were also featured on a sensational episode of 60 Minutes on October 28, 1979. The group's leader was Thomas Reilly, also known as Brother Louv. In 1986 the organization participated in the Drug Enforcement Administration's hearings on cannabis rescheduling in the United States.

On August 8, 1994 Jim Tranmer, a former member of the group, wrote a letter to Carl E. Olsen while meditating on his 35-year prison sentence and his departure from the EZCC's "malicious hierarchy".

The EZCC is in no way associated with the Coptic Orthodox Church or the Coptic Catholic Church, both based in Egypt. The Coptic Orthodox Church also has an Ethiopian sister church which is also unrelated.

The Zion Coptic Church was featured in the feature documentary Square Grouper (2011 - Director: Billy Corben; 100 minutes running time) and the first section of this documentary concerns them and shows many interviews with former members of this group.

References

• History of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, by Walter Wells.
• The Law and Brother Louv, The Miami Herald, August 2, 1981
• Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, CBS News - 60 Minutes, Volume XII, Number 7, Oct. 28, 1979.
• Coptic Gets 35 Years, Jim Tranmer, Aug. 8, 1994.