For a week I was preparing with prayers, candles, intensions… Daime work at the Barquinha of Dona Gabriel each day… Came the 27th, a Saturday before the Semana Santa and the entity Don Rafael was going to operate me. Finally I am going to heal the pain in my back which does not leave me alone ever since I had hernia of a disk two and a half years ago. It is normal that such treatments are done over 3 ceremonies (three 27th) but I had only one (two to come).

I did not know I was supposed to bring something to lie on, and sitting was never as difficult as it was that night.
I did not know what to expect… we were seven or eight people in a dark room, drinking daime and waiting. Are the mediums going to come in? Would They heal me?? Would Antonio (Toni), the medium with which Don Rafael works, come and assist me with Arruda and prayers?
Hour after hour, Glass after glass, we were left alone while there was a ceremony going on in the church. It was my appointment with Don Rafael, no one else. When an entity makes an appointment, he keeps it.
Sao Miguel was clearing the space and Oxalá passed by once in a while. I felt my light body being penetrated, stretched, snapped… like Iansa and Sao Miguel having a dance within me. Flashes of light, colours, patterns… but in fact, during the operation I did not feel much. I saw a saint/nun dressed in light purple healing the young man who sat opposite to me. After many hours, towards the end, I have seen a bent old man sitting beside me, and I assumed it was Don Rafael. A Preto Velho? (No, he is not Only, but perhaps he is As well).

Back at a friend´s house, after the treatment, I have touched the bed… my body was a baby’s body, one again. Nothing I could not do with my body. Not a thing I did not want to do. An amazing joy of existence filled me, the felicity of having senses. Diving deep into each tiny sensation; one finger touching another, feet crawling against ears, back moving against floor. Feeling each and every cell from within. Feeling each and every cell from without. Deep Vipassana. Deep gratitude for every pulse of the skin.
Deep sensing turns into seep sensation turns into sensuality. Baby is reaching puberty. Amazed by the perfection of my own body. Being allowed to touch and love and adore my own perfection without the disturbances that stopped me from doing so at the time.
Don Rafael gifted me with the teaching of self love, and the totality of self acceptance. Don Rafael gifted me with the memory of being newborn, and the choice to be in whichever physical memory I want to, the choice to let go of the armours, the protections I built during all stages of life when my vulnerability was met with roughness. Don Rafael showed me the choice of letting go and choosing to feel, The joy of feeling, The courage to be divine, The courage to hurt.
I felt without a safety net, without a bodyguard… but was I really? I had Sao Miguel with me. Somehow his presence mixed with the feeling of Greg and a great opening, sensuality and joy.
I couldn’t sleep, kept moving. The joy of moving- each movement is a blissful dance, a wholeness (yoga). Breathing, stretching, exercises became bliss once a gain.

I had received a Yoga/ Dance /Meditation routine.

And…

I met Don Rafael.
He was there that night- A teacher, a Friend, a lover, the guardian of the great mystery.

My back?
I have a choice now, to remember.

(For Greg who asked and I never answered)

I was honoured and moved, to be able to join friends at the church of Reino do Sol, Sao Paulo, Brasil, on the 15th of March, singing Glauco´s hymns Chaveirinho (the little Key). The experience left many seeds in my heart, but as the internet is not stable at the moment (due to rain) I would only send this short note at this moment.

The murder happened on Friday morning, around 0100 (local time).

People started gathering at Céu de Maria on Friday 1400, singing the hinario of Mestre Irineu ‘O Cruzeiro’ with neither maracas nor music. Three Ave Marias were prayed between each hymn.

The ceremony ended around 0700 when the bodies were then transferred to a house of a friend.

The funeral ceremony started about 1000 on Saturday morning and Marco was buried 10..30.

Close friends are telling that Gauco had never before turn down anyone from a ceremony. he believed in the healing powers of the tea, and all though many people were without an interview (an official requierment in Brasil) he never have refused to give them tea. This is said to be the only time he had told someone to go and get a psychological treatment before he comes back to drink. Raoni called Carlos Eduardo (who confessed the murders) about once a week during the past 6 months, in order to inquire how the treatment is going on.

He then came to the house around 00.30 with a gun to his head threatening to commit a suicide. Gauco tried to talk him out of it. there was a conflict. Raoni came and got in the way. he shot Raoni 4 times and Gauco 4 times.

Glauco is very famous in Brasil for his work as a cartoonist. some of his works can be found at http://www2.uol.com.br/glauco/.

A month ago Glauco comforted a friend who mourned a death, “No worries, he is free and happy now”.

Received 9 June 2006; accepted 1 November 2006. Available online 4 December 2006.

International Journal of Drug Policy 19 (2008) 297–303

Homepage (www.kentupper.com)

Abstract

Ayahuasca is a tea made from two plants native to the Amazon, Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis, which, respectively, contain the psychoactive chemicals harmala alkaloids and dimethyltryptamine. The tea has been used by indigenous peoples in countries such as Brazil, Ecuador and Peru for medicinal, spiritual and cultural purposes since pre-Columbian times. In the 20th century, ayahuasca spread beyond its native habitat and has been incorporated into syncretistic practices that are being adopted by non-indigenous peoples in modern Western contexts. Ayahuasca’s globalization in the past few decades has led to a number of legal cases which pit religious freedom against national drug control laws. This paper explores some of the philosophical and policy implications of contemporary ayahuasca use. It addresses the issue of the social construction of ayahuasca as a medicine, a sacrament and a “plant teacher.” Issues of harm reduction with respect to ayahuasca use are explored, but so too is the corollary notion of “benefit maximization.”

Keywords: Ayahuasca; Entheogen; Hallucinogen; Religious freedom; Benefit maximization

Introduction

In February 2006, the United States Supreme Court ruled that religious freedom may trump U.S. drug laws with respect to the ceremonial use of ayahuasca, a tea indigenous to the Amazon and long revered by its peoples (Hollman, 2006). The case of Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente União do Vegetal (UDV) addressed the question of whether ‘hoasca,’ which contains the Schedule I substance dimethyltryptamine, could legally be consumed as a sacrament by the Brazilian-based UDV church according to the provisions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Passed by Congress in 1993 in response to the question of whether the Native American Church had the freedom to use ceremonially the scheduled drug peyote, the RFRA established that the limits of drug laws in the United States were at the boundaries of religious liberty.

The U.S. ayahuasca case is just one of several similar ones in countries such as Australia, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. The issues raised by these court actions centre not only on religious freedom, but also on the substance in question: ayahuasca. Although somewhat obscure in pantheon of psychoactive substances, ayahuasca has begun to thrive beyond the Amazon. Practitioners, policy-makers and researchers face significant challenges in responding to psychoactive substance use that resists traditional conceptualizations and categorizations of illegal drug “abuse.” In this article, I briefly describe ayahuasca, its effects and its traditional and contemporary uses. I next explore some philosophical and policy issues raised by the “globalization” of ayahuasca, the burgeoning world-wide interest in and use of the tea. This discussion leads to a questioning of the deficit model of drug use implicit in the term “harm reduction” with respect to ayahuasca, which arguably warrants a re-framing such that policy discussions address the corollary concept of “benefit maximization.”

Ayahuasca and its effects

“Ayahuasca” is a word from the language of the Quechua people, a group indigenous to the Amazonian regions of Peru and Ecuador (Metzner, 1999). Translating as “vine of the soul,” ayahuasca refers both to Banisteriopsis caapi, a liana found in Western parts of the Amazon basin, and to a decoction prepared from B. caapi that typically contains other admixture plants. One of the most common admixtures to the ayahuasca tea is the leaf of Psychotria viridis, a plant from the coffee family. To avoid confusion, in this article the plant will be referred to by its botanical name, B. caapi, and the common tea preparation of the combination of B. caapi and P. viridis simply as ayahuasca.

The synergy between the respective psychoactive chemicals in B. caapi and in P. viridis is a remarkable pharmacokinetic interaction. The B. caapi vine contains harmala alkaloids, such as harmine and tetrahydroharmine, which are short-acting reversible monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors. MAO inhibitors are a pharmacological class of antidepressant chemicals that function by preventing the breakdown of the monoamine neurotransmitters in the brain (Julien, 1998). P. viridis contains dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, a potent hallucinogen which is active when taken parenterally, but not orally (Shulgin, 1976). This is because the gastrointestinal tract also contains the enzyme monoamine oxidase, which metabolizes orally ingested DMT long before it can reach the brain. However, when DMT is ingested in conjunction with an MAO inhibitor – as is the case with the ayahuasca tea – its immediate metabolism is delayed, thus enabling it to reach the brain (McKenna & Towers, 1984; Ott, 1999). From a biomedical perspective, then, ayahuasca’s unique effects are a function of the combination of DMT and the potentiating psychoactive harmala alkaloids ([Callaway et al., 1999] and [McKenna et al., 1984]). In contrast, the explanation of ayahuasca’s effects by Amazonian indigenous peoples reflects a paradigm involving spiritual domains and supernatural forces, an account corroborated if not validated by the phenomenology of the ayahuasca experience.

The extensive range of ayahuasca preparations in the pharmacopoeias of different indigenous peoples throughout the Amazon region indicates that its use long predates first contact with Europeans. The variety of names given to B. caapi, such as yagé, caapi, natem, oni, nishi, also suggests widespread historic use (Luna, 1986). However, the legacy of colonialism in South America, as with so many other parts of the world, has irredeemably impacted indigenous peoples and their traditions, including cosmologies in which ayahuasca has played a central role (Whitten, 1981). Colonial and religious authorities tended to condemn ayahuasca shamanism as diabolical and discouraged its practice ([Taussig, 1986] and [Vickers, 1981]). Nevertheless, the ritual use of ayahuasca among indigenous peoples of the Amazon continues to the present day, albeit with varying degrees of Christian syncretism through past and present influence of missionaries in the region (Luna, 1986). Likewise, cross-cultural transfer of ayahuasca healing knowledge among indigenous peoples and to non-indigenous people continues to occur ([Gray, 1997], [Luna, 2003] and [Pollock, 2004]); this includes mestizo vegetalistas who offer alternative health treatments to urban dwellers in countries such as Peru (Dobkin de Rios, 1973).

The specifics of traditional Amazonian ayahuasca practices – as with the name for the tea itself – vary across different cultural groups, but there are some common elements, most notably a ceremonial context for its consumption. Rituals are conducted by an experienced healer, or ayahuascero, who has undergone many years of training to become adept in administering the brew. Preparation for this role includes long periods of isolation, sexual abstinence and adherence to strict dietary taboos involving certain foods or meats. Some of these behavioural directives apply also to participants in the ritual who will drink, as they risk invoking untoward spiritual forces if these are violated. Rituals invariably incorporate chanting or singing of icaros – special songs through which healing, divination or connecting with spirits may be effected – and often include an accompanying use of other sacred plants, such as tobacco ([Demange, 2002] and [Luna, 1986]). In many respects, ayahuasca is a paradigmatic entheogen, or psychoactive substance used for spiritual purposes (Ruck, Bigwood, Staples, Ott, & Wasson, 1979; Tupper, 2002).

Ayahuasca’s psychoactive effects are qualitatively similar to those of other drugs from the same pharmacological class, such as LSD and psilocybin, yet they are also phenomenologically unique. The effects generally begin 30–40 min after ingestion, peak by about 2 h and have completely subsided by 6 h (Riba et al., 2003). Ayahuasca produces moderate cardiovascular stimulation, including moderate increases in heart rate and diastolic blood pressure (Riba et al., 2003). Users report sensations of visual or auditory stimulation, synaesthesia, psychological introspection and strong emotional feelings ranging from occasional sadness or fear to elation, illumination and gratitude (Shanon, 2002). The tea itself has a bitter taste and cannot be described as pleasant to drink. Emesis, or vomiting, is not uncommon during the ayahuasca experience, an effect which is generally regarded as a spiritual or physical cleanse.

The long-term effects of ayahuasca on regular drinkers have not yet been well studied by medical scientists, as the tea has remained relatively obscure until the last few decades of the 20th century. Preliminary small-scale investigation on members of Brazilian ayahuasca churches suggests that the tea is not physiologically or psychologically harmful when used in ceremonial contexts (Barbosa, Giglio, & Dalglarrondo, 2005; [Callaway et al., 1999] and [Grob et al., 1996]; Riba & Barbanoj, 2005). Shanon (2002) has analysed the phenomenology of the ayahuasca experience from the perspective of cognitive psychology, work that suggests many avenues of future psychological research. Evidence for ayahuasca dependence is lacking; indeed, some have suggested ceremonial ayahuasca use may have therapeutic applications as an adjunct to treatment for addictions ([Mabit, 2002], [McKenna, 2004] and [Winkelman, 2001]).

Contemporary ayahuasca uses

In addition to continued ayahuasca use among traditional indigenous and mestizo denizens of the Amazon, other types of ayahuasca practices have arisen in modern times. The inevitable mixing of indigenous and dominator cultures in South America over time has resulted in hybridities of ayahuasca use that continue to evolve through the forces of globalization. Brazil has been the source of several syncretistic religious movements that combine elements of indigenous ayahuasca use, African spiritualism and Christian liturgy. These include the Santo Daime, founded in the 1930s by Raimundo Irineu Serra; the União do Vegetal, founded in 1961 by José Gabriel da Costa; and the Barquinha, a group, which split from the Santo Daime in 1945 (MacRae, 2004). As with traditional indigenous ayahuasca practices, these modern groups incorporate a strong ritual context in their uses of ayahuasca. Towards the end of the 20th century, chapters of the Santo Daime and the União do Vegetal started to be established beyond Brazilian borders, in such countries as in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States.

The Santo Daime is both the oldest and the most internationally active of the syncretistic Brazilian ayahuasca churches. Its origins trace back to the 1920s, when its founder – a Brazilian rubber tapper named Raimundo Irineu Serra or Mestre Irineu – encountered the tea through contact with Amazonian indigenous peoples in remote forests of the Brazilian frontier state of Acre (Alverga, 1999). The Santo Daime remained obscure and geographically isolated in the rural Amazon for many decades. However, when Mestre Irineu died in 1971, the church split into several different factions, one of which – the Eclectic Center of the Universal Flowing Light, or CEFLURIS – has been central in the Santo Daime’s subsequent expansion (MacRae, 2004). From the 1970s, CEFLURIS has attracted middle-class Brazilians and international visitors to its rituals and established chapters in urban Brazilian centres and more recently overseas (MacRae, 1998). After a period of legal vicissitudes, in which the status of ayahuasca was uncertain, the Brazilian government in 1991 determined that the benefits of its ritual use outweighed any potential risks and recognized the rights to sacramental use of the tea by groups such as the Santo Daime and the UDV.

As a result of expansion into countries unprepared for the policy conundrums posed by non-indigenous entheogenic substance use, the Santo Daime and its adherents have faced legal action in several different countries in the past decade, including the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. In the Netherlands, as with the UDV case in the United States discussed above, the courts ruled in favour of religious freedom and the Santo Daime was granted the right to use its sacrament legally in Holland (Adelaars, 2001). In Canada, a chapter of the Santo Daime in the province of Quebec has applied for an exemption to the Canadian Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in hope of obviating a costly legal battle; the Canadian government is still considering the application (J.W. Rochester, personal communication, February 7, 2006). These cases epitomize the struggle between groups seeking the legitimation of the sacramental use of ayahuasca and governments in liberal democratic states endeavouring to uphold both religious freedom and punitive drug laws.

The forces of information and communications technology have also provided avenues for the expansion of use of ayahuasca-like preparations. A quick Internet search results in scores hits for websites selling live cuttings or dried samples of B. caapi, P. viridis and numerous other plants, such as Mimosa hostilis and Peganum harmala, that are botanical sources for dimethyltryptamine and harmala alkaloids. The Internet also abounds with information (and misinformation) about how to prepare ayahuasca-like brews and “trip reports” of first-hand accounts of experiences individuals have had with these ([Bogenschutz, 2000] and [Halpern and Pope, 2001]). Predictably, some amateur psychonauts or self-styled kitchen shamans have harmed themselves through experimenting with ayahuasca analogues in recreational contexts (Brush, Bird, & Boyer, 2003; Sklerov, Levine, Moore, King, & Fowler, 2005). However, it should be noted that reported adverse outcomes are extremely rare and have been sequelae to uncontrolled use of non-traditional preparations (Callaway et al., 2006).

Ayahuasca tourism has also become a cultural phenomenon in the Amazon at the turn of the 21st century. With growing awareness of ayahuasca in developed Northern countries has come the concomitant desire among some to seek “authentic” ayahuasca experiences in countries such as Peru, Ecuador and Brazil ([Dobkin de Rios, 1994] and [Winkelman, 2005]). The effects of ayahuasca tourism on both the local people and the economies of these regions are open to interpretation, but are significant and continuing to grow. Some indigenous healers in the Amazon have expressed concern about the ill-trained or manipulative locals who may exploit naïve or undiscerning travellers and potentially cause inadvertent harm through careless administration of ayahuasca (Dobkin de Rios, 2005).

The expansion of ayahuasca use can be expected to continue as public awareness of the tea grows and as it becomes further available both through commercial sales and through spiritual communities. Accounts of ayahuasca experiences and the tea’s purported spiritual and health benefits are beginning to appear in mainstream English news media stories ([Creedon, 2001], [Montgomery, 2001] and [Salak, 2006]). Some of the effects of ayahuasca – for example, its tendency to provoke vomiting and its sometimes heavy emotional and psychological effects – may discourage casual experimentation. However, its relative obscurity and lack of negative associations from the demonizing of such hallucinogens as LSD, psilocybin and peyote in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as growing interest in alternative medicines and therapeutic practices, may increase ayahuasca’s uptake among the general public. Thus, ayahuasca presents unexpected challenges to judicial systems and policy-makers, who struggle to balance tensions between criminal justice, public health and human rights interests.

Constructing ayahuasca—ontology

One of the conundrums ayahuasca presents for contemporary drug policy is ontological. Ontology is a branch of metaphysics that involves the philosophical analysis of existence and the categorization of reality. Modern drug laws and policies are ontologically predicated on a mechanistic view of the universe, as they are socio-political extensions of the modernist project of scientific materialism. According to this view, drugs and their effects can be wholly explained by the sciences of biochemistry and psychopharmacology. Reinarman and Levine (1997) identify this as pharmacological determinism, the belief that a drug’s effects are caused solely by its pharmacological properties, irrespective of psychological idiosyncrasies or social context. However, a constructivist perspective acknowledges that beyond this, drugs are powerful cultural constructs. The effects they produce on human consciousness and behaviour are functions not just of their biochemistry, but also of the rich symbolic and social meanings they are given.

From a constructivist perspective, drugs cannot be fully understood merely by analyzing their chemical structures and how these interact with neurophysiological systems. One needs to consider also the meanings underlying their growth, production, preparation, consumption and categorization, all of which can vary across cultures and over time. For example, the concept of “medicine” is a cultural construction that in contemporary Western societies is given meaning through the powerful institutions of medical practitioners and systems. Particular substances are deemed medicines not by any properties inherent in them, but by virtue of their being blessed as such by members of powerful professional classes (i.e. physicians and pharmacists). Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) had this blessing in the 1950s and early 1960s, when it was considered a promising psychiatric medication, but was quickly delegitimized when its non-medical use became headline news and the subject of moral panic ([Dyck, 2005], [Littlefield, 2002] and [Sessa, 2005]). Alcohol was also once deemed a medicine, whereas today in most societies it is a recreational (or sometimes ceremonial) substance, except in some Muslim states, where it is a dangerous prohibited drug ([Baashar, 1981] and [Heron, 2003]). Indeed, the common phrase “alcohol and drugs” betrays a lingering implicit ontological commitment to the notion that alcohol is something other than a drug.

Ayahuasca quintessentially defies the simplistic categorization of being merely a “drug”—or, in the terminology of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, a “drug of abuse.” Indeed, ayahuasca has been culturally constructed by its various users as a medicine, a sacrament and a “plant teacher.” In the Amazon, ayahuasca is considered a master plant, both a diagnostic tool and a force for healing ([Demange, 2002] and [Luna, 1984]). Along with tobacco, it is one of the most important substances in the pharmacopoeias of Amazonian folk healers (Bennett, 1992). Yet ayahuasca has also come to be culturally constructed as a sacrament by religions such as the Santo Daime and the UDV. For their adherents, the tea is considered a divine gift allowing contact with forces and energies from which humans are ordinarily cut off in our quotidian lives. And ayahuasca is quintessentially a “plant teacher,” a natural divinatory mechanism that can provide esoteric knowledge to adepts skilled in negotiating its remarkable effects. These conceptualizations pose a challenge to modern Western drug policies and laws, which are premised on a rationalist/positivist ontology that constructs psychoactive substances essentially as chemicals and their effects as simply mechanistic.

Ayahuasca, globalization and public policy

The policy implications of contemporary ayahuasca practices can be usefully explored by regarding them as a cultural manifestation of globalization. By the term globalization, I refer to the economic, political, technological and cultural transactions and integrations resulting from the increased ease of movement for people, goods and ideas at the turn of the 21st century. As Collier and Ong (2005) observe, “[g]lobal phenomena … have a distinctive capacity for decontextualization and recontextualization, abstractability and movement, across diverse social and cultural situation and spheres of life” (p. 11). Thomas (2005) cites the resurgence of religion – including the spread of new religious movements and cultural and religious pluralism – as one of the “megatrends” of the 21st century. In response, states and faith communities alike “are being forced more than ever before, to define, defend or redefine the social boundaries between the sacred and the profane in the face of modernization and globalization” (Thomas, 2005, p. 26). The evolving spiritual practices whose nexus is the ayahuasca tea exemplify well these trends and tensions of globalization.

Ayahuasca has begun its ascendancy into popular global consciousness at a time of unprecedented interpersonal and intercultural knowledge exchange. One issue this raises is that of cultural appropriation. I would be remiss not to acknowledge humbly that ayahuasca is an exemplar of indigenous knowledge, a shamanic technology or cognitive tool that has long been what may best be described as intellectual property of the native peoples of the Amazon. Accordingly, its commodification, commercialization and secularization are concerning trends. The issue of intellectual property came to public attention in the 1990s when representatives of Amazonian tribes formally protested against the U.S. patent office, which had naïvely granted a patent on ayahuasca to an American pharmaceutical entrepreneur—it was subsequently rescinded (Fecteau, 2001). However, dismissing the growth of interest in ayahuasca as merely appropriation is somewhat simplistic. The genesis of the Brazilian ayahuasca churches – which are in many respects primary drivers of ayahuasca’s globalization – was arguably a by-product of cross-cultural fertilization (MacRae, 2004). There is also reason to believe that, in the age of wikis, file-sharing and the open source movement, the concept of intellectual property is rapidly becoming a quaint anachronism, a development that concerns corporations and academics as much as it does indigenous peoples.

Curiously, in the 1960s, ayahuasca largely stayed off the Western cultural radar despite increased popular interest in visionary plants such as peyote and psilocybin mushrooms. Unlike only a few decades ago, however, the collective mindscape of the early 21st century is being expanded and shaped by revolutionary information and communications technologies (Friedman, 2005). Thus, insofar as ayahuasca is being variously and simultaneously culturally constructed in the (post)modern world, novel forces are at play. For example, authorities whose interests might be served by the dissemination of inaccurate or deprecatory representations of ayahuasca – as they have been countless times in the past for other illegal drugs – are hard-pressed to challenge the size and scope of factual information easily available to the lay public. The use of the Internet by ayahuasca aficionados allows for a diversity of thought and expression about the tea and its effects that poses significant challenges to policy-makers.

It is my contention that the policy issues presented by contemporary ayahuasca practices are not easily dealt with from the traditional framing of modern drug policies. Schön (1993) proposes that the framing of policy solutions for social issues is constrained by underlying, often implicit, “generative” metaphors. With respect to non-medical psychoactive substance use, two dominant constructions of the problem are identified by Marlatt (1996): drug use as a moral issue and drug use as a disease. The first constructs some drugs as intrinsically malevolent, imbuing them with agency and the power to override human free will. Implicit in this “malevolent agents” metaphor is the notion that people who use drugs are wicked and need to be punished; it is this generative metaphor that underpins the global regime of prohibition of (some) drugs. The second dominant metaphor constructs psychoactive substances as pathogens. This metaphor has become the predominant one in the field of public health, where it is prevalent in the discourses of treatment and prevention. With the “pathogens” metaphor, drug use is constructed as a disease against which youth need to be inoculated and for which people who use need to be treated.

The two dominant metaphors underlying current drug policies – “malevolent agents” and “pathogens” – are particularly unhelpful in framing policies with respect to entheogenic substance use. Ayahuasca’s long tradition of uses as a medicine, sacrament and plant teacher poses a challenge to such simplistic metaphorical categorizations. Rather, I submit that a shift to a generative metaphor of drugs as “tools” offers a much more nuanced way of conceiving of the risks and benefits posed by ayahuasca practices. Rather than essentializing psychoactive substances as inherently dangerous, to regard them as tools – ancient technologies for altering consciousness ([Eliade, 1964] and [Winkelman, 2000]) – allows for a realistic assessment of their potential benefits and harms according to who uses them, in what contexts and for what purposes. To be sure, as with the use of any tool, there are risks associated with ayahuasca use, especially for those who are not prepared for its effects or who treat it as a toy. However, both traditional and contemporary ceremonial ayahuasca practices suggest benefits that the tool metaphor better accounts for in terms of policy considerations.

The philosophy of harm reduction is also further illuminated by a shift to the generative metaphor of drugs as tools. To the extent that policy-makers or practitioners emphasize a behaviour’s potential risks, the harm reduction policy approach is justified. However, the tool metaphor for psychoactive substances warrants a corollary notion of “benefit maximization,” the other side of the harm reduction coin. Instead of approaching drug policy from a deficit perspective – implied by the “malevolent agents” and “pathogens” metaphors – the tool metaphor opens discursive avenues for realistic policy considerations of benefits as well as harms. Although harm reduction has been a valuable concept in challenging abstinence-based approaches to non-medical drug use and shifting policy to a more humane public health perspective, its limitations become apparent with the “drugs as tools” generative metaphor. Along these lines, the Health Officers Council of British Columbia (2005) has incorporated the concept of beneficial substance use in a recent policy discussion paper arguing for government regulation of currently illegal drugs; the paper explicitly makes reference to ceremonial use of ayahuasca (p. 5).

A traditional harm reduction approach to ayahuasca would emphasize similar general types of cautions as those for LSD, psilocybin or other psychedelic drugs. These include knowing and trusting the source of the substance, controlling set and setting (e.g. psychological preparation and physical surroundings), having a “sitter” who can be mindful of safety, not driving or engaging in other risky activities while under the influence, and discouraging use by individuals with underlying psychiatric disorders. It would also include specific cautions regarding diet and combining medications. The MAO-inhibitor effects of harmala alkaloids in the ayahuasca tea warrant dietary restrictions for foods containing the monoamine compound tyramine. Tyramine eaten in combination with MAO inhibitor drugs may result in hypertensive crisis. Likewise, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can have potentially harmful interactions with MAO inhibitors, so people taking these kinds of medications are advised to avoid ayahuasca (Callaway & Grob, 1998). Interestingly, indigenous ayahuasca practices in the Amazon also universally incorporate strict dietary and behavioural protocols (Andritzky, 1989).

A benefit maximization approach to ayahuasca use, by contrast, would involve the creation of policies to provide legitimate access to ayahuasca in ceremonial settings. This process would include considering a variety of policy levers at the disposal of public health authorities to ensure the minimization of risk (Haden, 2004). Such an approach might begin with the formalization of the harm reduction protocols listed above. It might also include enacting provisions to ensure ayahuasceros or spiritual leaders are skilled and competent in leading rituals (either through self-regulation or certification), inspecting and licensing facilities or centres where ayahuasca ceremonies are conducted, and regulating production of the tea to ensure it conforms to specified purity or potency (as is currently done in some countries with other natural health products). A benefit maximization approach would certainly entail further research into both the short- and long-term effects of ayahuasca and the social practices in which it is used, which may in turn provide further policy direction.

Conclusion

The growing interest in and use of ayahuasca by modern non-indigenous peoples poses significant conceptual challenges regarding drugs and drug policies. Ayahuasca has a rich history of use as a medicine, sacrament and plant teacher, cultural constructions that do not readily fit contemporary drug policy frames. The globalization of ayahuasca in the latter part of the 20th and the early 21st centuries is a phenomenon that demands reconsideration of some of the metaphysical and sociological presuppositions of contemporary drug policies. Already several legal cases have opened the door to granting religious freedom to the ceremonial use of ayahuasca. Accordingly, policy-makers would be well advised to consider other policy tools than criminalization to balance the competing interests of criminal justice, public health and human rights. With respect to harm reduction theory, the contemporary uses of ayahuasca lend weight to the corollary notion of benefit maximization.

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Although the Daime works keep within the traditional shamanic parameters, one should take into consideration the remarks made by Couto, that, here, one is dealing with what he calls “collective shamanism”. The command of the works is held by more experienced shamans, but the shamanic activity is not, exclusively in the hands of a few initiates and all participants are considered apprentice shamans and even potential shamans. Taking part in the rituals is a way of learning the art, and it is thought that any of the participants of the ritual may display shamanic powers which are considered to be latent in human nature

“The documentary “O Senhor da Floresta” directed by the journalist Mivan Gedeon, won the category “Best video from the State of Maranhao” awarded by the Technical Jury of the 30^th Guarnicê Video and Cinema Festival in Sao Luis, Maranhao.

The 19 minute video was filmed on DVCAM. The film brings the testimony of Mestre Irineu’s relatives, amongst them, from his nephew, Daniel Serra, who lived with him for 15 years, and from two of his cousins, sons of Paulo Serra (adoptive uncle of Irineu), Rita Serra and José Barnabé (who is now diseased). It was José Barnabé who went from São Vicente de Ferrér to São Luís when Irineu returned to Rio Branco – Acre (in 1958), bringing with him three nephews, including Daniel Serra.

The first images for the video were shot in 2003, in São Vicente Férrer, birth city of Irineu. In 2005, the journalist went to Rio Branco (AC) and finished the video in 2007. The professional wrestler Rei Zulu was asked to play the main character in the documentary due to his physical resemblance to Mestre Irineu. For his acting debut, the wrestler was assisted by the famous theater director Urias de Oliveira.

Link to video of “O senhor da Floresta” (original in Portuguese with no English Subtitles):

Part 1:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aCbn-2EAXxI

Part 2:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=f2GlBvvjEjk

Original entry by Bia Labate: http://alto-das-estrelas.blogspot.com

Translation graciously provided by:
Flavia Dzodan

Ayahuasca, is a word from the Quechua linguistic family of Andean-Equatorial South America. It means “vine of the soul” and refers both to a large forest liana (Banisteriopsis caapi), and a strong infusion (tea) made from its woody parts, or with one or more other plant admixtures. The most usual addition to the brew are leaves from the shrub Psychotria viridis. These plants are endemic to the Amazon Basin, where they are part of a much larger plantas maestras or “teacher plants” tradition native to that part of the world. Such plants – many of which have emetic, purgative, cathartic, dream-inducing and/or visionary effects – are used to facilitate states of consciousness that are believed to open into the worlds of spirit.

In the typical ayahuasca preparation, the molecular basis for this lies in the betacarboline complex (harmine, tetrahydroharmine, etc.) and the indole dimethyltryptamine (DMT). These are part of a structural group that includes neurotransmitters, molecules used to effect internal communication in the human body. In ayahuasca, these dialogues are deepened and expanded to include all manner of elemental, plant, animal, ancestor, and deity. These then appear less as an “other,” and more as participants in the metabolisms of yet larger bodies, such as regional ecosystems, or the earth itself.

Such organismic cosmologies are common to many indigenous peoples. These often suggest the existence of a reality a priori to material existence, one of mythic causality in which all beings are mutually transformative and exist as ontological equals, as “persons”. Dialogues with such a world are effected through imaginal exchanges (dreams and visions), dance, prayer, song, and their attendant feeling states and sensory awareness. These describe the body’s innate capacity to converse with what is presumed to be the affective life of the natural world. Ayahuasca allows access to this generous bandwidth of communication, and its repeated use cultivates familiarity with the ecology of souls which inhabit it.

Sophisticated eco-cosmologies have therefore evolved among Amazonian peoples around the use of ayahuasca and other plantas maestras. These tend to order such practical activities as healing, divination, procreation, and hunting within the concept of an all-encompassing fertility circuit. This view understands the world to be nourished by a finite supply of vital force that must be equitably shared. Human greed, waste, and disrespect can easily disrupt this flow, and the repercussions are thought to express themselves in personal and social ills. Spirituality and medicine are thereby integrated into various social norms which tend to preserve ecosystem integrity. Examples include food, sex, and hunting taboos, and the cultivation of kinship relations with plants and animals.

The world of nature as revealed by ayahuasca typically appears as a society, a culture of spiritual relations. The teachings of ayahuasca are acts of healing, remediations in energy flow and balance whereby one “becomes” the lessons. One so healed may then enter into transformative relations with larger organizing forces, with greater ecosystemic intelligences, which in turn tend to increase human self-consciousness, inspiration, revelation, and sense of mission. When these traits are understood within the context of spiritual evolution, ayahuasca takes on a religious significance.

The idea of healing body and soul has formed the essence of religious beliefs of peoples the world over. Similarly, one can conjecture that the supplication of humans to the healing power of nature is the source of much of what we know as religious thought. In this regard, the role of plants and fungi in the origins of religions has been explored by a number of authors. Perhaps the most well-known example is Soma, the mysterious plant (or fungus) recounted in the Hindu Rg-Vedas as a vehicle of religious ecstasy.

Plant-inspired religions can be understood as acts of guidance by an elder community of species to a younger one, the human. They are concerned with successful co-creative relations within the community of nature and the organismic and spiritual growth that these bring about. Such religions allow the initiate to cultivate an expanded sense of self, whereby one’s actions in the world are reviewed in experiences of right or wrong, heaven or hell. This often results in a greater awareness of, and respect for, the spiritual ecologies that govern the world.

These understandings have been lost to much of religious life as humanity civilizes itself into increasingly mono-species (exclusively human) social arrangements and dialogues. Politicizing, intellectualizing, and influences that move divinity off-planet have all played their roles in denaturing the religions that have co-evolved with Western industrialism.

However, a reformation of plant-inspired religions has been occurring since the late 1800s. These often come of syncretizing influences in places of sudden and disruptive culture change. Examples include the evolution of the use of peyote (Lophophora williamsii ) into a pan-Native American religion; and the creation of churches that employ iboga root (Tabernanthe iboga) in colonized central west Africa. Similarly, ayahuasca-based churches were born in the Amazon basin with the influx of colonists and forest extractivists.

In the late 1920s, a rubber tapper named Raimundo Irineu Serra, or Master Irineu as he came to be called, had a series of visions in the forests near Acre, Brazil brought on by his use of ayahuasca. In these he was visited by the Queen of the Forest in the guise of the Virgin of Conception. Through her he received the doctrine of a new religion based on spiritual healing. Ayahuasca took on the name of Daime, after the invocation Dai-me Amor, Dai-me Luz. . . (“Give me Love, Give me Light”), and the religion became known as Santo Daime. Master Irineu moved to the nearby town of Rio Branco in 1930, and there began to cultivate this religion with a small group of adherents.

A number of hymns began to be received by church members in the form of “singing murmurs,” considered to be gifted from higher worlds. They invoke an eclectic pantheon that includes Old and New Testament figures and various saints, spirits of sacred plants, forest animals, devic presences, and heavenly bodies. These, along with accompanying musical instruments and formalized dancing, became an important part of church ceremonies and source for doctrinal development.

As the religion grew in Brazil, it spread from rural caboclo (mixed-blood river dwellers) communities into new settings and populations. These include the urban middle class, health professionals, and intelligentsia, as well as more marginalized groups, such as drug addicts (the churches have become well known for their work in helping people to overcome addictions), counter-culturalists, and the urban poor. This growth stimulated the formation of sects. For example, the Barquinha (“little boat”) group emerged in the 1950’s; it accommodates aspects of the very heterogeneous Umbanda (mediumist) spiritualism.

Yet another rubber tapper, Jose Gabriel da Costa, encountered the use of ayahuasca with native Indians in the forests bordering Bolivia and Brazil. In 1961 he founded the U.D.V. (União do Vegetal) which soon spread into the urban south of Brazil. Among the more hierarchical and organizationally sophisticated of the ayahuasca religions, the U.D.V. stresses a less “active” service, with long periods of silence interspersed with conversational sharing.

Despite differences, all churches share similarities that derive from the integrative nature of ayahuasca itself. It is considered a sacrament, and like its predecessor soma, a divinity, both “Christ’s blood,” and a forest spirit. The replacement of the bread and wine Eucharist with ayahuasca brings an eco-spiritual force into communion with Christian saints and their prescriptions of love, peace, charity, and fraternity. By unifying the naturalized and the civilized, it appears to work as a bridge over the 500 years of culture clashes wrought by the colonialist enterprise. In this way it births new cultural forms of indigeneity, ways of belonging to the land that reflect the needs of the various peoples brought to it.

A notable example is the 1982 founding of a community called Vila Céu do Mapiá (Mapia) by Santo Daime church members. Located in a large forest reserve in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, Mapia is intended as an ecological-communal “social laboratory” where the teachings received through the Daime can be practiced in daily life.

The world affirmed by ayahuasca, and in fact all teacher plants, tends to run contrary to that enacted by industrial-growth cultures. Hence those individuals that convert often become less amenable to mainstream mores, values, and ways of life. The media in Brazil and elsewhere have observed this, and in recent years have accused the churches of contributing to the breakdown of society; this by inducing its followers into acts of fanaticism, such as leaving one’s city life and disappearing into the forest.

Antipathy to the forces of change unleashed by sacred plants is likewise reflected in the modern War on Drugs. Under international pressure, Brazil added B. caapi to its list of controlled substances in 1985. Following a series of appeals and investigations it was removed from the list with provisions in 1987, and fully exempted in 1992. In that year its legitimacy was celebrated with ayahuasca ceremonies featured as part of the inter-religious vigil of the Global Forum section of the Earth Summit conference in Rio de Janeiro.

As the use of ayahuasca spreads outside of Brazil, it continues to run into prohibition policies. In recent years the churches in Europe and the U.S. experienced a number of seizures and arrests. Many court cases are pending, though a decision on May 21, 2001 in the Dutch court acquitted the Santo Daime church under the constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Modern ayahuasca religions are born both of the sylvan cosmos and a humanity sundered from that world. They therefore have great implications during this era of ecological crisis. To reestablish communicative relations with medicinal plants is to reconnect with a perennial source of assistance to humans. What such plants can do for individuals, they can do for communities; in this way they engender healing cultures. This process continues in Brazil (e.g., the Centro de Cultura Cósmica has recently sprouted from both Santo Daime and the U.D.V. influences) and in other areas of the world, where such movements are more covert.

These religions are prophetic in considering themselves microcosmic realities of a future-healed earth, yet for them, the future is now. They presume that as more people awaken to this reality, a relational indigeneity appropriate for the times will become increasingly accepted as a new cultural norm, and the planetary crisis will then pass. This vision is millenarian in scope, and suggests the inevitable evolution of a heart-opening ecotopia. To this end, a Daime hymn sings of a “new life, new world, new people, new earth.”

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Santo Daime is a syncretic spiritual practice, which was founded in the Brazilian Amazonian state of Acre in the 1930s and became a worldwide movement in the 1990s. Santo Daime rituals involve collective singing of hymns, sometimes while engaged in a formalised dance step, other times simply seated in chairs, combined with the consumption of Daime, the name founder Raimundo Irineu Serra, or Mestre Irineu gave to the drink known generically as Ayahuasca. Dai-me means “give me” in Portuguese, as in “daime força, daime amor” (give me strength, give me love), phrases found in several of the doctrine’s hymns.

Santo Daime is syncretic in that it incorporates elements of several religious or spiritual traditions including African Animism, South American Shamanism, and Christianity. The religion, called simply the Doctrine of Mestre Irineu by its most senior practitioners, has little basis in written texts. Instead, its teachings are learned experientially, through singing of inspired hymns, which explore perennial values of love, harmony and strength through through poetic and metaphorical imagery.

Ceremonies, which are called trabalhos meaning “works”, are typically several hours long and consist of drinking Daime and either sitting or dancing while singing hymns and playing maracas, or sitting in silent concentration.

The drinking of Daime induces a strong emetic effect which is embraced as a purging of both emotional and physical impurities. Overall the Santo Daime promotes a wholesome lifestyle in conformity with Mestre Irineu’s motto of “harmony, love, truth and justice”, as well as other key doctrinal values such as strength, humility, fraternity and purity of heart.

Ayahuasca, which contains the psychoactive compound dimethyltryptamine (DMT), has been the subject of increasing legal scrutiny in the last few decades as Santo Daime has expanded. The decoction has been explicitly legal for religious use in Brazil since 1986, while recent legal battles in Europe have legalized its use in Holland and Spain. In the United States, the Supreme Court in 2006 upheld a preliminary injunction permitting another Brazilian church, the União do Vegetal (UDV), to use ayahuasca ritually. This decision, as the result of specific litigation involving the UDV, applies only to that group, so the legal status of ayahuasca generally remains in a gray area in that country.

Origins

Santo Daime is the name given to the religious practice begun in the 1920s in the far western Brazilian state (then-territory) of Acre by Raimundo Irineu Serra, an immigrant of Maranhao in Brazil’s northeast region.

Irineu Serra was born in Brazil in 1892 to African parents. Inineu migrated to the Western Amazon region in 1912, attracted to a boom in the rubber tapping industry. He first drank ayahuasca in the border region between Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. After experiencing a series of visions whilst spending 8 days in solitude in the forest, he began to conduct spiritual ceremonies using Ayahuasca. Many people came to him sick, seeking healing they could not afford or failed to find in standard medical practice.

Ritual

“All who drink this holy beverage must not only try to see beautiful things without correcting their faults, but give shape to perfection of their own personality to take their place in this battalion and follow this line. If they would act this way, they could say, I am a brother” – Mestre Irineu

Devotional in context, the songs praise divine principles. The Cross of Caravacca, with its double horizontal beam, stands on the altar. Each session begins and ends with Christian prayers. Santo Daime practice features several kinds of ritual: two kinds are concentrações (“concentrations”) and bailados (“dances”), also known as hinários (“hymnals”). Other rituals focus on the saying of the rosary, or healing. Participants drink Daime in all types of ritual; but the format and focus can differ; concentrations are silent, seated meditations, while hymnals involve dancing and singing hymns while playing maracas.

The Christian core is combined with other elements, such as an emphasis on personal gnosis and responsibility, an animist appreciation of nature, such as the Sun, Moon and Stars, as well as the totemic symbol of the ‘beija-flor’, the hummingbird. Spiritual beings from indigenous Amazonian shamanism and deities from the African pantheon such as Ogum and Iemanja are also incorporated into the doctrine. The nature of the work is sometimes personified and addressed as ‘Juramidam’, a name disclosed to Irineu in his visionary experience, which means literally, “God (jura) and his soldiers (midam)”.

Participants in the ritual come to submit themselves to a process through which they may learn things. This may include various wonders – Ayahuasca is famous for the visions it generates, and the sense of communion with nature and spiritual reality – as well as more mundane, less pleasant lessons about oneself. The Daime is thought to reveal both positive and various negative or unresolved aspects of the individual, sometimes resulting in difficult or blissful ‘passages’ involving the integration of this dissociated psychological content.

It is not for nothing that ceremonies are referred to as ‘works’ since they can last up to 12 hours. The effects of Daime combined with dancing, singing and concentration require and develop stamina or ‘firmeza’ – firmness.

Hymns

The essential teachings of the Doctrine are transmitted through the hymns, which, when sung, create a direct link to the astral and the Divine. Master Irineu received 129 hymns within his hinario, or hymnal, and his hinario marks his spiritual journey and evolution from when he began drinking the Daime until his death. Through the singing of his hymns, the participant is able to connect with the spirit, teachings, and salvation of the Master and, in many ways, begin walking the same spiritual path which the Master walked.

Hymns are often received as direct transmissions from the astral, and it is through the singing of hymns that teachings of the Master, Padrinhos, and Madrinhas are passed to the members. Through the force of the sacrament, the hymns become living testimony and bring specific energies of healing, strength, communion, forgiveness, and remembrance. Many members of the church receive hymns, and there are literally thousands of hymns throughout the Doctrine.

The singing of particular hinarios conicides with official dates on the Santo Daime calender, which includes the singing of the Master’s hinario on the Virgin of Conception (Dec. 7), Christmas, Day of Kings (January 6th), St. John (June 23rd). The hinario of Padrinho Sebastiao is sung on Master Irineu’s birthday (Dec. 15), Saint Sebastian (January 19th), Madrinha Rita’s birthday (June 25), as well as Brazilian Father’s Day. Padrinho Alfredo’s hinario is sung on Padrinho Alfredo’s birthday (January 8), St. Joseph (March 18th), and Saint Peter (June 28th), as well as New Year’s Eve (December 31st).

Non-Portuguese-speaking members often “receive” hymns in their native language.

Denominational Diversification

The death of Mestre Irineu in 1971 resulted in a diversification within the Santo Daime community. From a global perspective, the most significant of these occurred when Sebastiao Mota de Melo, commonly called Padrinho Sebastiao, left the original center with a large group of his followers, and formed a group known as CEFLURIS.

According to church documents, this split also entailed disagreement over the use of cannabis. Followers of Sebastiao Mota de Melo believed marijuana to be a healing plant teacher, and referred to it as Santa Maria, using it in ceremony to help their mediumship (embodying of spirits for the purpose of healing.) Followers of Mestre Irineu regard use of cannabis, as well as mediumship generally, as outside the doctrine.

In the early 1980s Padrinho Sebastiao moved the church headquarters to Ceu do Mapia. Control of CEFLURIS was increasingly shared with the southern intellectuals who joined the movement in the 1970s, and in the 1980s CEFLURIS established centers in southern Brazil. The group now has affiliates in North America, Europe, and Japan, as well as throughout Brazil.

Ayahuasca – Daime

Santo Daime’s entheogenic sacrament, ayahuasca, has been used for millennia in South American indigenous cultures. It is one of the traditional tools of the shaman in South America, and in many regions is to this day a common medicine used for finding and treating various ailments as well as for its vision-inducing effects, which are said to be profound and life-changing.

The tea has had many names including Santo Daime (or simply Daime), Hoasca, Ayahuasca, Yage, and Caapi. It is made from two or more plants, one a woody vine (Ayahuasca vine or Jagube; generally b. caapi), and the others known as admixtures. While various plants are used throughout South America, most of which have high concentrations of dimethyltryptamine, the preferred admixture in the case of Santo Daime is Psychotria viridis, known to church members as the “Queen of the Forest,” after the figure who is said to have appeared to the church’s founder in a vision, prompting him to start the religion.

The Santo Daime Church uses only the Jagube vine and the Viridis leaf, not adding any other plants to the mixture. The tea is prepared ceremoniously over a week by members of the church in a festival called a ‘fetio’. Hymns are sung, and Daime is drank while the men hammer the vine into powder and the women clean and sort the leaves. Because of the very specific manner in which they prepare their sacrament, and the very specific way in which they use it, the beverage is not called ‘Ayahuasca’, but ‘Santo Daime’.

Law

Due to their usage of ayahuasca as a sacrament and the spread of the religion, Santo Daime has found itself the center of Court battles and legal wrangling in various countries.

In Brazil, CONFEN (the Federal Drug Council) has consistently upheld the right of the Daime Church to practice its religion and healing practices using the Daime. A study was made of the Daime by the CONFEN in 1987 which included visits to the various churches and observation of the making of the Daime. It also included study of another group of Ayahuasca users, who call the drink Vegetal (Uniao do Vegetal). The work group which made the study included representatives not only of the CONFEN but also of several other government agencies. The conclusion of the study was that the Daime was a very positive influence in the community, encouraging social harmony and personal integration. The study noted that, rather than simply considering the pharmacological analysis of the plants, it was essential to consider the whole context of the use of the tea — religious, social, and cultural.

In the Netherlands, Santo Daime won a court case in 2001 which allowed them to continue their ceremonial usage of ayahuasca. One factor in this decision was a fax from the Secretary of the International Narcotics Control Board to the Netherlands Ministry of Public Health, stating that [P]reparations (e.g.decoctions) made of these plants, including ayahuasca are not under international control and, therefore, not subject to any of the articles of the 1971 Convention. [1]

In France, Santo Daime won a court case allowing them to use the tea in early 2005; however, they were not allowed an exception for religious purposes, but rather for the simple reason that they did not perform chemical extractions to end up with pure DMT and harmala and the plants used were not scheduled. Four months after the court victory, the common ingredients of Ayahuasca as well as harmala were declared stupéfiants, or narcotic schedule I substances, making the Daime and its ingredients illegal to use or possess. See [2] and [3] (French) for more information.

In the United States, court battles over ritual use of Ayahuasca have mostly been fought by the UDV, and practitioners of the Santo Daime doctrine are watching these events closely. So far, UDV has been able to continue practicing legally thanks to Supreme Court decisions that soundly rejected attempts by the government to prohibit it. see [4] for more information.

The most recent decision came in Italy in 2006; an eight month long investigation had led to the arrest of 24 Italian Santo Daime members in early 2005, but the May 2006 ruling found that no sufficient evidence had been presented to demonstrate that the church members had broken Italian law.

The view from Academia

Two particularly important research projects are worth highlighting. The first is the official investigation made by the Brazilian government at the end of the 1980’s, which resulted in the legalization of the religious use of ayahuasca in Brazil in 1992. The second is ‘The Hoasca Project’ developed by a collective of international scholars. The Hoasca Project presented important findings regarding the use of Ayahuasca as an agent of healing, something it is famous for in its indigenous context.

A collaborative essay on the Santo Daime, in which some of this information is included, can be found at wikipedia.org