At Chacruna: Statement on Ayahuasca

Bia Labate, Matthew Meyer, Kenneth Tupper, Paulo C R Barbosa, Charles Grob, Andrew Dawson & Dennis McKenna

Sixty years ago, the esteemed academic journal Science published a “Statement on Peyote” (La Barre, McAllester, Slotkin, Stewart, & Tax, 1951), in which a handful of leading researchers, dismayed by the misinformed and demonising drug politics of the time, defended the right of the Native American Church to consume a psychedelic plant in its religious rites. Today, we feel similarly compelled to speak out on behalf of an analogous, non- indigenous religious tradition—the Brazilian ayahuasca religions, including the Santo Daime, the União do Vegetal, and otherrelated groups (Dawson, 2007; Labate & MacRae, 2010). We have studied various ritual uses of ayahuasca, participated in ceremonies and consumed the sacramental brew... continue reading.