by Rafael Guimarães dos Santos, Universidade de Sao Paulo Ayahuasca goes by many names: Daime, Vegetal, Hoasca, Kamarampi, Huni … whatever you call it, this plant-based psychoactive decoction, which has been used by indigenous Amazonians for centuries to contact the spiritual world, has suddenly burst into global consciousness. As a recent New Yorker article put it, ayahuasca is “the drug of choice for the age of kale”. The article, which positioned ayahuasca as a hipster trend in a tone of mockery mixed with mystification, nevertheless belies the growing interest of Western scientists and rich urbanites in its medicinal and therapeutic… [more]

Sociocultural & Biochemical Pedigree The traditional Amazonian pharmacopoeia has been gaining notoriety in modern psychotropic circles due to the rising fame of Ayahuasca, known for its emetic, cathartic, visionary, therapeutic, and at times, divinatory effects. Both the favored beverage of well-travelled psychonauts as well as one the sacred plant of the Gods, Ayahuasca has been deified as the communion rite of many South American churches as well as the subject of countless books, blogs, online forums and articles. If this wasn't enough paparazzi for a plant medicine to contend with, Ayahuasca has been listed as a narcotic drug in the… [more]

Sign the AYA2014 Declaration here.   In September 2014, approximately 650 people from over 60 different countries attended the World Ayahuasca Conference in Santa Eulària des Riu, Ibiza, Spain. At this conference, a group of 40 scientific, legal, and public policy experts met to discuss how ayahuasca drinking practices can be better understood, respected and protected as international interest in the brew spreads in the 21st century. The conference formed an Expert Committee for the Regularization of Psychoactive Ethnobotanicals. The following is the consensus declaration of this group: a call for governments to work towards creating a constructive legal and… [more]