How did Employment Division v. Smith affect religious use of peyote?

In Employment Division v. Smith (1990), the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment’s free exercise clause does not require legislatures to grant religious exemptions from generally applicable laws. Specifically, the Court held that the state could deny unemployment benefits to members of the Native American Church who were fired for the sacramental use of peyote, even though that use was part of a religious ritual.12

By rejecting the previous "Sherbert/Yoder" test—which had required the government to prove that denying an exemption was the least restrictive means of achieving a compelling interest—the Court established that general bans on substances like peyote may be applied to religious users without violating the Constitution. Consequently, any legal protections for the religious use of peyote today exist only because specific state or federal legislatures have chosen to enact them, rather than because they are mandated by the federal free exercise clause.1