Legal Aspects of Entheogen Use in the US: Part One

While I still have not spoken with a lawyer about the legal aspects of raising children in the US while participating in a spiritual path that employs the use of (currently illegal) entheogenic medicines, I want to begin the discussion of this very complex and important topic today with a review of some of the information available online.  I have found a number of valuable online resources from the Council on Spiritual Practices (CSP) (1) and the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics (CCLE) Entheogens and Drug Policy Project (2).  Numerous other writers have added their perspectives in journals and blogs.

The prevalent attitude on this topic can be summed up as follows: "Unfortunately, the courts and law enforcement in the United States are rarely sympathetic toward the use of psychoactive sacraments."(3)

Questions to answer
1.  What are the existing laws around the religious use of entheogens?
2.  What are the exceptions to these laws - legal churches that use entheogens as sacraments? 
3.  What commonalities do the existing legal churches share?
4.  What do the courts have to say and what is the current legal climate?
5.  What are the legal rights of parents in terms of being able to participate in the religious use of entheogens as part of their First Amendment rights within - or without - the context of these churches? 
6.  What are the legal precedents in terms of children being able to be present at these religious ceremonies?  In terms of children being able to choose to consume the sacraments at their parents' church?
7.  What is the history of legal proceedings against parents who have made religious entheogen use the basis of their spirituality, in particular in terms of custody battles, incarceration, and Child Protective Services?  Are there parents who have (legally) fought for the right to include their children in these traditions?


As you can see there is a lot of territory to cover!
**********************************************************************************
1.  Existing laws around the use of entheogens

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” - First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

As has been mentioned elsewhere in this blog,  the following entheogenic substances - ayahuasca, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, ibogaine, and wachuma - contain ingredients that are illegal to possess or consume (wachuma is legal to own but not to ingest) unless you are part of an organized entheogen-based church.  Specifically, the illegal compounds are DMT,  ibogaine, mescaline, peyote, psilocybin, and psilocybin (there are more but for the purposes of this book I am sticking to these few).  (For a discussion about other entheogenic substances, see https://www.erowid.org/entheogens/ or http://entheopedia.org/plants)  These are Schedule One controlled substances, meaning:

(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision. (4)

2. Exceptions (that I know about - still looking into this topic)
These churches have fought legal battles to protect their religious rights to use entheogenic sacraments: the Santo Daime Church and the Unaio de Vegetal Church (both ayahuasca churches), and the Native American Church (NAC), which uses peyote.  Current law requires members of the NAC to have at least 25% American Indian ancestry, although some churches allow Caucasians to become members. (5)  (Note: I am part of a legal church in the US that uses yagé as a sacrament, but as I have mentioned before, as requested by my elders, the name and members of this church will remain private.)  I also have a local friend who has a church group dedicated to the sacramental use of wachuma, which operates as an official church through the NAC.

3.  Commonalities
In order to become a church that employs the use of an illegal entheogen as a sacrament, in the past, an organization had to prove that the use of the sacrament in question was "...fundamental to the practice of their faith,"(6) and that they were a "REAL" church and not just an excuse for a bunch of people to get together and get high.  This was done in a variety of ways, including proving their use of the sacrament came from a long-standing tradition, with elders and a lineage; condemning the use of their sacrament outside of the confines of their particular tradition (leading to a fairly conservative or fundamentalist perspective); and proving to the satisfaction of the court that the use of the entheogen/sacrament is "...THE CENTRAL practice in the religious life of the group." (6)  This has proven quite difficult to prove, hence the very few numbers of organizations who have done so.

4.  In the Courts:
I am not going to review all of the religious freedom court cases here.  If you are interested in that topic please see The Entheogen Law Reporter - https://www.erowid.org/library/periodicals/journals/journals_telr.shtml; or The Hoasca case - http://www.journalofpsychoactivedrugs.com/Articles/Bullis%20402.pdf; or the countless other references available with the help of google!

However, the Supreme Court ruling in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), where two employees - also members of the NAC - were denied unemployment benefits after being fired for testing positive for mescaline (peyote) deserves special mention.  This case left the religious freedom of entheogenic use in serious question.  From the decision: "Although states have the power to accommodate otherwise illegal acts done in pursuit of religious beliefs, they are not required to do so."  Basically the argument was that a person was not legally able to use their religious motivation to use peyote to defy the state of Oregon's neutral laws against possession of peyote.

This case precipitated the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which was passed by Congress in response to the needs of the NAC, as an attempt by the courts to restore the meaning of the First Amendment rights that had previously been held up by the courts. (See http://thefederalist.com/2015/04/01/how-rfra-works-explained-in-one-chart/ for a succinct summary of this act).    This law reinstated the "Sherbert Test," the 'strict scrutiny' litmus for whether or not the free exercise clause guaranteeing a person's religious freedom had been violated.  Interestingly, the RFRA was held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, who said it is not "... a proper exercise of Congress's enforcement power." (7) As a result, twenty states have also passed State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, to localize legislation.

My friend over at Psychedelic Parenting (http://www.psychedelicparenting.org/) makes a really good point about all this: that while, for example, a born-again Christin can prove their faith by simply affirming that they have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior and talking about prayer, it is exceedingly difficult for someone to prove that their use of entheogens IS their religion.  As he writes, "...those Americans who subscribe to a personal spirituality involving entheogenic plants often fear to even pass on those values to their own children, for fear that the kids will tell the wrong teacher or friend, and the family will be divided, parents in prison, children in foster care.  Should they wish to have the protection of the law to express their religious and spiritual beliefs, they must first be arrested, and then “prove” to a judge that they are, in fact a 'real religion'." "(Parents) have failed to pass on to their kids the source of their peacefulness, the sacrament that brings them understanding, the font of their joy, simply because they have been rightly afraid of the wedge that the law has put between them and their children."(6)   The prevalent attitude is that people take these 'drugs' to get high.  Period... and despite all evidence to the contrary!  Even 'spiritual' people doubt the use of entheogens as a valid religious path, somehow thinking that people who become more enlightened using 'substances' are somehow cheating the process. 


To close for the day, on the topic of the political climate of the use of entheogens, and in response to many of my friends' genuine concern in regards to my using my own name on this project (and their fear of repercussions), here is a quote from Martin Ball (see also http://www.entheological-paradigm.net/).  I couldn't have said it better myself:

“The State has the power to destroy your life. There’s absolutely no question about that, and so the state is incredibly dangerous in that sense. And it’s vindictive, it’s misguided, it’s built on illusion upon illusion upon illusion. The problem is that these illusions can still come to get you, even if they’re illusions. It’s a difficult call that ultimately people have to judge for themselves. But the other side of that is this: If no one stands up, nothing’s going to change. Someone’s got to do it. Personally, reality is more important than anything I might want to protect, such as my own personal well-being or comfort, so I’m not going to hide myself in any way. Although there are certain details I’ll avoid discussing on podcasts. But if they really wanted me, the data is all right there. I’m all-in at this point. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and the last thing I want would be to be separated from them, and although prison would profoundly suck, I’m not going to edit myself in order to avoid something that I don’t have any real certainty is actually going to happen. Reality will always win, eventually.” (8)

I will be posting more, sooner than next week, I hope (I mean... I intend!).

(1) http://www.csp.org/society/docs/telr-free_exercise.html
(2) http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/proj_entheo.html
(3) Stuart, R.  "Entheogenic Sects and Psychedelic Religions." http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v12n1/12117stu.html
(4) http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/21cfr/21usc/812.htm
(5) http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v12n1/12117stu.html
(6) "Religious Freedom in a Post - "Burwell v. Hobby Lobby" World." http://www.psychedelicparenting.org/?cat=7
(7)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Freedom_Restoration_Act
(8) Interview with Martin Ball.  Psychedelic Parenting.  http://www.psychedelicparenting.org/?cat=7

"But You Can't Give Them Drugs...!" - Part Three

I have to admit, I have gotten a little bit off track for this book in the last few posts.  Understandably so.  The death of Etolie was intense.  Started  a cleanse this past Monday that has been kicking my ass, and it has been hard to be super left-brained, as a result.  But now I feel an even greater need to get this information out into the world.

With this blog I have been working to connect the status quo, the standard Western approach to life, with the subjects of enthogens, and psychological and physical health. The other night I was explaining this project to a friend and said something like "The tendency in our culture is to try to escape and avoid discomfort and pain - at all costs - instead of investigating and opening to it to see what it might have to teach us."  The escape and avoidance are aided in part by culturally acceptable addictions: to alcohol, to screen time, and to sugar, just to name a few.  I want to turn the focus now to the topic of sugar consumption in the US and how it fits into this discussion.

The Age of Sugar?
When I was a kid, growing up in the late 60's and 70's, we would eat Captain Crunch cereals for breakfast, which contain a hefty amount of added sugar (9 grams, for a 3/4 cup serving).  My mom would mix whole milk with non-fat dehydrated milk, half and half, and then add sugar, to save money (and add taste); and we also had a bowl of white sugar on the table, which we added to the cereal at will, by the teaspoon-ful.  I am sure the (Wonder)bread we ate for lunch had sugar in it, not to mention the twinkies and cool-aid, and probably even the mayonnaise; and then for dinner we would have meat, starch, frozen veggies, and, without fail, a sweet dessert.  My mom, bless her heart, was just following the societal norms of the day!  She did her best to feed us well, according to accepted thoughts on the matter.  We never went hungry, and everything we ate was made or prepared with love.  We were also raised up consciously, with limited television time, and constant encouragement to go play outside.  In my neighborhood, the gang of kids who lived there rode bikes, went frog-catching and swimming, played in tree forts, played kick-ball, went sledding, built forts, etc.  In other words, we were active.  We got our fair share of cavities, but all things considered, we were OK.  We were - very luckily - healthy kids.

Americans = Sugar Addicts
Not all kids today have it so good.  Add to the 'normal' sugary diet easier access to unhealthy foods, staying indoors for large amounts of sedentary screen-time, and taking prescription medications from a young age (among other factors), and the equation will equal with over one-third of US kids now being classified as overweight.(1)  But, obliviously, we Americans love our sugar.  The average American eats 130 - 152 pounds of added sugar each year, mostly hidden in processed foods and store-bought drinks.(2,3)  One site reports that the average American consumes 53 gallons of soft drinks a year!(3)  And since these are averages, it means many people drink/eat a lot more than that.  

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) started being added to the modern diet in 1970.  It is given that name to distinguish it from regular corn syrup, which is primarily glucose-based.  Some reports state that the average American consumes over 63 pounds of high fructose corn syrup per year. (4)  As one article stated, "In a sense, sugar (HFCS) is the number one food additive.  It turns up in the most unlikely places, such as pizza, bread, hot dogs, boxed mixed rice, soup, crackers, spaghetti sauce, lunch meat, canned vegetables, fruit drinks, flavored yogurt, ketchup, salad dressing, mayonnaise, and some peanut butter." (5)  So we are inundated with this product, and many are eating it with every meal - yet it is SO new in the scheme of human existence (45 years compared to hundreds of thousands of years!) - I think it is just another example of human hubris on the one hand, coupled with human greed on the other.  We are conducting an ongoing, wide-scale experiment on our species with no knowledge of how it will turn out, all for the sake of making cheaper products (ie making a bigger profit).
    
The Cost - Sugar Causes Disease
Refined sugar consumption has been linked to many diseases:  type two diabetes, obesity, hypoglycemia, hypertension, depression, nervous tension, skin irritation, irritability, violent behavior, and acne.(3)  It also can lead to tooth decay, obviously.  There is something now called "Metabolic Syndrome,' linked to excessive sugar consumption, which "is a cluster of conditions — increased blood pressure, a high blood sugar level, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels — that occur together, increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes." (6)  Of course, if you look at the rates of obesity in this country, and heart disease, and type two diabetes, you will see a direct correlation between them and the rise of sugar consumption.  Still, websites such as the 'sweetsuprise.com' will argue that there is no correlation between sugar consumption and obesity, just as there is no real difference between eating something containing HFCS and something made with honey.(7)   And that makes me say... really?  I can't even go there with all the ways that that is wrong.  I will just post a few statistics here for the reader to draw their own conclusions:

• 1 can of soda a day = 150 extra calories x 365days/year/ 3500 cal/lb = 15.6 pounds/year! (4)
• 40 grams of sugar a day = 10 teaspoons = the amount in an average 12 ounce soft drink (5) 
• Calorie increase in American diet from 2076 per day in 1970 to 2534 in 2010, an increase of 458 calories. (7)
• HCFS, in particular, does not affect the brain with a satiety response (this is true of all fructose, but when eaten in fruit, for example, the fiber present tells our bodies we are full).  In other words, after consuming fructose you do not know that you are full or even that you have eaten anything.  Meaning, a person can have a 64 ounce soda and still be hungry! *

Sugar is a Drug
Many doctors and researchers say that sugar is more addictive than cocaine, tobacco, or even heroin. (2, 3)   How it effects us is it hooks into the rewards (dopamine) system of our brains.  Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that causes euphoria, or extreme pleasure.  Think about a time when you got an 'instant high,' when you won an improbable poker hand, or the boy (or girl) kissed you for the first time - this is dopamine at work.  When a person eats sugar, it can trigger the release of this neurotransmitter, especially when the behavior follows a pattern of abstinence followed by binging .  In the study sited in this article, animals who were exposed to eating high levels of sugar and then deprived of it developed symptoms of withdrawal, such as "...anxiety, chattering teeth and tremors."  Further inquiry showed that just the taste of sugar released opioids in the brain, and that the combination of these and the dopamine reward circuitry led to dependency. (8)

Dopamine pathways in the brain are supposed to lead the organism towards a greater chance for survival, which is why we get dopamine released when we eat.  But sugar actually floods the brain with more dopamine than we would get from eating an egg or an avocado - it is what researchers call a "superstimulus."   The affected brain pathways then become 'hijacked' by this stimulus (sugary foods), because it is way stronger that anything we have evolutionarily been designed to handle.(9)

Even worse, both addictive drugs and sugar affect a particular area of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, which is part of the brain that shows up in addiction research.(9)  Both drugs and sugar flood the brain with dopamine and lead to cravings when the substance isn't present.  And what the brain is craving is not nutrition, which can lead to satiety.  It is craving 'reward,' the same thing addicts crave.  Tolerance is also part of this cycle, and develops with sugar use as well as with other addictive drugs: you need more and more to feel the same reward.  This is can in part explain the phenomena of binge eating.  Finally, junk food is unhealthy.  Everyone knows it - and yet people still eat junk foods, too much of them, despite knowing better, despite knowing they are probably causing them harm.  This is similar to the smoker knowing that cigarettes will be her death, but smoking anyway: the addiction is stronger that common sense and the instinct for self-preservation.  Many people feel like they can't control their addiction to junk food.  They try to cut back, have irresistible cravings, obsess about it, then binge; then feel bad, set another quit date, try to regulate the behavior, then fail again... and on it goes.  This is exactly what I did when trying to quit smoking - and drinking - and using other substances.  It is the cycle of addiction.  Just add in your drug of choice - including sugar.

All this is written in the hopes of pointing out the ridiculousness of the 'War on Drugs,' all the government's attempts to try to save us from ourselves, to regulate what each one decides to use or abuse... it is a lie.  I am hoping with these points to prove that almost anything we humans use can become a 'drug.'  Some of these drugs in our culture are sanctioned, while others, like entheogens,  are not.  I want to point out the absurdity of the fear of and legal sanctions against some of these substances when sugar abuse harms considerably more people in one year than all of the entheogens' have in their combined history.  One report said a conservative estimate would be 15 million deaths worldwide from sugar-related causes each year. (10) Another said 180,000 worldwide deaths each year just from drinking sugary drinks.(11)  Comparatively, in the US, we also have 430,700 deaths a year from tobacco use; 110,640 deaths from alcohol; 30,575 yearly suicides; and 82,724 people a year dying from complications from taking their prescription medications (12).  However:

"An exhaustive search of the literature finds no deaths induced by sacred entheogens such as Salvia Divinorum and the US Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) records no instances of drug mentioned in medical examiners' reports. Sacred Entheogens or Salvia divinorum alone has not been shown to cause an overdose, death, nor have there been any hospital visits by anyone who has ingested them." (13)

One other source said there were a total of 8 deaths related to marijuana, in all recorded history (and it is not verifiable that marijuana actually was the cause of these death), and one death related to an LSD overdose. (12)  As in, like, ever. 

Just sayin...



(1) http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm
(2) Hyman, Mark.  "Sweet Poison - how sugar, not cocaine, is one of the most addictive and dangerous substances."  Daily News, 2/10/14.  http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/white-poison-danger-sugar-beat-article-1.1605232
(3) Walton, Alice.  "How Much Sugar are Americans Eating?" ForbesWoman, 8/30/12.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2012/08/30/how-much-sugar-are-americans-eating-infographic/
(4) Lustig, Dr. Robert.  Sugar: The Bitter Truth.  UCSF's Osher Center for Integrative Medicine.http://wellnessmama.com/15/harmful-effects-of-sugars/
(5) Profiling Food Consumption in America.http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf
(6) http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/metabolic-syndrome/basics/definition/con-20027243
(7) http://sweetsurprise.com/2013/07/18/blog/The-History-of-High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup
(8) A Real Sugar High? https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200301/real-sugar-high
(9) http://authoritynutrition.com/10-similarities-between-junk-foods-and-drugs/
(10) http://www.olsonnd.com/what-kills-more-people-sugar-or-cigarettes/
(11) http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/health/sugary-drinks-deaths/
(12) http://entheology.com/features/annual-causes-of-death-in-america/
(13) http://www.entheology.org/edoto/anmviewer.asp?a=3
* (sorry lost the reference for this factoid.  Will edit when I find it).

"But You Can't Give Them Drugs..." - Part Two

Media Mania

To continue the theme from the last post, talking about the ways in which the mainstream western culture escapes from reality....  The last point I was making had to do with alcohol portrayals in the media.  Before I continue on this track, though, I want to talk about our National Obsession with television and screen time.  We watch a LOT of TV and movies in this country.  On any given evening, walking down a residential street, in almost every home all you will see is the eerie blue glow of the 'boob tube.'  According to a recent survey, adults watch an average of 5 hours of television a day (this includes online streaming).  Adults watch TV for about 20% of their waking hours, only surpassed by percentage of time working.(1) 

All of this starts in childhood.  Take a look at some of the alarming statistics on children and the media, complements of Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. (2)

• "Screen time can be habit-forming: the more time children engage with screens, the harder time they have turning them off as they become older children.

• "Data vary on the amount of time preschool children spend with screen media, but even the most conservative findings show that children between the ages of two and five average 2.2 hours per day.  Other studies show that preschoolers spend as much as 4.1 and 4.6 hours per day using screen media.

• "Including when they’re multitasking, 8- to 18-year-olds consume an average of 7 hours and 11 minutes of screen media per day—an increase of 2.5 hours in just 10 years. For older children and adolescents, excessive screen time is linked to increased psychological difficulties that include hyperactivity, emotional and conduct problems, difficulties with peers and poor school performance."

So there is a link between 'excessive' screen time and hyperactivity!  Not sure how they would define excessive... but despite that, and even more alarmingly, TV viewing in early life has been linked to less reading and poorer concentration; and heavy video game users were more likely to have problems concentrating in school, and were twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD (3).   But, instead of facing this issue head on, most ignore the cause and treat the symptom - and prescribe drugs to remedy this situation.

To put this into very simplistic terms: we allow our children to watch TV, starting when they are babies (some parents encourage it, or claim that they just 'need a break' and so use TV as a baby-sitter.).  We continue letting them have more and more screen time, with TV's and computers, at meal times and in their bedrooms, and soon enough, i-phones and i-pads and constant texting and more.  This level of exposure to electronic media has not happened before, ever.  No one knows the long-term effects of constant and prolonged screen time exposure on brain development.   Somewhere along the road,  we notice that these media-rich kids can't pay attention in school, or that they are having trouble sitting still, or that their grades are slipping.  The rise of kids getting diagnosed with ADHD has directly paralleled the rise in childhood exposure to screen time.  But what do we do about it?  We give them drugs to make their bodies and minds behave.   Did I miss anything?(4)

So why do we watch so much TV?  One study, from the University of Maryland, set out to find an answer, to see if there is a correlation between happiness and television viewing.  There is.  According to an article on Phys.Org, unhappy people tend to watch more TV than happy people.   Researcher John P. Robinson sums it up by saying, "TV... may provide escape - especially when the news is as depressing as the economy itself.  The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise." (5) Steven Martin, Robinson's co-researcher, says that the TV habit can be likened to an addiction, where, "...tuning in can be a way of tuning out." (6)  So TV is just like a drug!

Media, Alcohol and Society

I want to turn to the point I was starting to make in the last post, about the relationship between western media and alcohol use.   According to researcher Joel Grube, "...an analysis of prime-time television from the 1998-1999 season... indicate(d) that 71 percent of all programming depicted alcohol use and 77 percent contained some reference to alcohol." In addition, when looking at the most popular movies in 1996-97, alcohol use was shown in 93% of them and "...was presented in an overwhelmingly positive light,"  including having positive outcomes such as camaraderie and relief of stress. (7)   

Unfortunately, there have been far too few studies looking at the relationship between alcohol portrayals in the media and underage drinking.  But it is clear from the information available that alcohol use is normal, expected behavior in our society.   The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has this to say:

     "The media’s glamorous portrayal of alcohol encourages many teens to believe 
     that drinking will make them “cool,” popular, attractive, and happy. Research shows that
     teens who expect such positive effects are more likely to drink at early ages. (8)

In short, we may tell our kids not to drink, but the everyday world of media to which they are exposed tells them a different story.  We are teaching them through our social stereotypes that normal adults drink alcohol, and that it is cool.  Every day,  through the media - which is a BIG influence on them in terms of hours a day spent watching - they see that drinking is normal and fun and sexy.  This is hypocrisy.   

So What?
So how does all of this relate to the conversation about the use of entheogens in an indigenous wisdom tradition in this country, and our children?  

Mainly, my contention is that the system that regulates 'substances' is blind and deaf, and more than likely has some kind of hidden agenda.  Alcohol is probably the most widely used mind-altering substances known to humans.  And it is by FAR the most dangerous, in terms of the numbers of deaths, violent acts, accidents, and serious health problems it causes each year.  YET IT IS COMPLETELY LEGAL, and expected, normal behavior for adults.  

Television watching and excessive screen time for children may cause hyperactivity, poor school performance, difficulty concentrating, obesity and health problems, an increase in violent and bullying behavior, and a higher likelihood of teenage drinking which can lead to increased risk of death, serious injury, impaired judgment, and brain development problems (9).  YET IT IS COMPLETELY LEGAL, and expected, normal behavior. 

Meanwhile, the plant medicine of my elders, a substance that has been ingested for thousands of years (which, by the way, is the expected, normal behavior in the societies from which it originates) with many reported benefits to its users, is, for the most part, illegal to ingest here in the United States.  It is a Schedule One controlled substance (remember,  ..."drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse; (the) most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence." (10)  To me it sounds like alcohol should be in this category!    No medical use - check (well, maybe as a disinfectant if you run out of iodine!); high potential for abuse - check; potentially severe psychological or physical dependence - not sure, as I am not sure of the DEA's definition of 'severe.'  Regardless, one blogger summed it up very well:

      "Drugs that help people work, fight wars, buy stuff, ignore the pointlessness of their 
      consumerist lives, or numb the pain of oppression are all fine.  Alcohol fits this category, 
      along with caffeine, and antidepressants.  (And cocaine, which let's face it is tolerated 
      for the business class).

      "Drugs that make people generous, cause them to abhor violence, or expose the lies 
      behind power and ideology are the dangerous ones.  This is why psychedelics and 
      marijuana are illegal." (11)

I want to change this.  I want to expose these misconceptions and break down the myths and taboos.  I want to illuminate the shadows, disperse fear and take back the sovereign choice to alter my consciousness however I choose, to use plant medicines as part of traditional ceremonies in sacred connection with the Spirit of God as I understand that.  I do not accept the government's authority to regulate what I put into my body, or the bodies of my children and (someday) grandchildren, any more than I would accept someone telling me how to think or what to believe.  No one has the right.  That is what freedom is all about!

(1) "The Average American Watches This Much TV Every Day: How do You Compare?" The Motley Fool, http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/03/15/the-average-american-watches-this-much-tv-every-da.aspx.  See also Daily News article,http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/average-american-watches-5-hours-tv-day-article-1.1711954

(2) http://www.screenfree.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/screentimefs.pdf 

(3) "Screen Time Matters," p. 15; power-point presentation from Partners in Action, http://depts.washington.edu/waaction/tools/featured_resources/screentime_schoolage.html

(4) Sorry, not very like me to be so sarcastic.  For a list of recommendations of what TO do, please see "Screen Time Matters," p. 6; power-point presentation from Partners in Action, http://depts.washington.edu/waaction/tools/featured_resources/screentime_schoolage.html. 
Note: This reference also provides documentation of the correlation between television viewing, exposure to violence, and increased bullying, aggressive, and anti-social behavior, which is somewhat out of the scope of the conversation here but which is also a very important topic. The very serious health issue of childhood obesity has also been directly linked to screen time.  See http://www.truceteachers.org/index.htm and http://depts.washington.edu/waaction/tools/featured_resources/screentime_schoolage.html for some good resource material.

(5) "'Unhappy People Watch TV, Happy People Read/Socialize,'Says Study.'"  Nov 4, 2008. http://phys.org/news/2008-11-unhappy-people-tv-happy-readsocialize.html

(6) ibid.
(7) Grube, Joel W. "Alcohol in the Media: Drinking Portrayals, Alcohol Advertising, and Alcohol Consumption Among Youth."  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK37586/
(8)  "Make A Difference: Talk to Your Child About Alcohol."  National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/MakeADiff_HTML/makediff.htm.  In addition, this article says, "However, you can help to combat these dangerous myths by watching TV shows and movies with your child and discussing how alcohol is portrayed in them. For example, television advertisements for beer often show young people having an uproariously good time, as though drinking always puts people in a terrific mood. Watching such a commercial with your child can be an opportunity to discuss the many ways that alcohol can affect people—in some cases bringing on feelings of sadness or anger rather than carefree high spirits." 
(9) "Underage Drinking."  http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/special-populations-co-occurring-disorders/underage-drinking
(10) http://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml
(11) "Would Alcohol Be a Controlled Substance if it Were Invented Today?"  Quora, http://www.quora.com/Would-alcohol-be-a-controlled-substance-if-it-were-invented-today

My story - my culture

So now I want to connect the dots between my history, my healing, my experience of the medicine, and my reasons for writing this book. 

I have been drinking this plant medicine, first ayahuasca with the Peruvian shaman and then yagé with my current teacher, for ten years.  As lovely songwriter Kirtana puts it, 

                           "How can I express, the changes taking place
                            The only words I guess, would be amazing grace..." (1)

My experience with the medicine is nothing short of a miracle, in my opinion.   I have changed SO deeply in these past ten years.  Granted, I am still the person I was in some ways. The difference is that I can SEE and accept my strengths without being egotistical about them or having to try to prove to anyone that they exist and that I am worth something; and I can SEE and accept my faults, without feeling guilty about them (to be honest, still working on this aspect of things - but making progress!).  I have been shown - and have let go of - a significant amount of darkness, and yet I trust and have have faith in the light.  I have very strong opinions but don't feel the need to prove anything to anyone.  I have ideas about how I wish the world was but know better than to take myself or anyone else too seriously, and I have a much better sense of humor than ever before.   I have no idea where it (the future of the world, life, etc)  is all going but spend a much higher proportion of my time content with being in the present moment.  I am more relaxed.  I have let go of my addictions, one by one, until now caffeine is the last one I have left.  My priorities are to be in alignment with the will of the Spirit, to always work on being a better person, to be kind and compassionate, to be of service, to tell the truth, to appreciate beauty, and to be grateful.

Of course none of this proves that the medicine saved my life, although I feel that it did - or that at least it gave me a second chance at life.  People who knew me ten years ago may have thought I was a happy person, because as far as I know, my 'stuff' was not carried around on the surface.   This way of being was trained into me.  I come from a family that for the most part is much more comfortable not talking about or processing their feelings or dealing with their pain (older sis, you are the one exception to that statement - and, in case I forgot to mention, NO JUDGMENT about that!  We all do it the best way we can!).  I come from a culture that for the most part takes a pill to cure every ill; and this cultures' main pursuit, besides making and spending money, involves escaping from reality, or 'normal' consciousness, through alcohol and recreational drug use, through watching TV and the products of the entertainment industry, and through the consumption of sugary and processed foods.  

In my previous blog about drug use in America, I did not mention these last three things - alcohol/ recreational drugs, television, and sugar - as I was focusing on prescription drug use in our children.   I think it is now time to explore this territory.  

Alcohol use and abuse 

Many of us are familiar with the alarming statistics surrounding alcohol use and abuse in this country.  Most teens in Driver's Ed classes have to read endless statistics on this topic, such as that nearly 88,000 people die every year due to alcohol-related causes, "...making it the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States."(2)   I don't feel I need to relate a longer laundry list of statistics here.  We know people in this country drink - a lot.  We know it causes accidents and death.  We know it causes health problems and violence and broken families and heartbreak.  For more information on this subject and for great fact sheets, go to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, sited in the references.
  
But why do SO many people drink alcohol if it causes so many problems?  There are many reasons:  to lower stress, to ease physical or emotional pain, to fit in or be a part of the crowd, because of peer pressure, as a social lubricant or for more social confidence, to reduce social inhibitions so as to have more fun, for a sense of relief, and to get away from or escape from reality. (3)    Is it any wonder people want to escape today's world?  We have wars, endlessly; social problems from unemployment, poverty, hunger and homelessness to human trafficking and mass shootings; environmental devastation and ever-increasing numbers of epic natural disasters; the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer... the list of major problems in this world is staggering.  The insanity is beyond comprehension.   With all this going on, it's no wonder that some reports claim that as many as 18.6% of the population suffer from some sort of mental illness (4).  Depression is the most common of these, with almost 7 % of the population suffering from it. (5)  One out of every five children has "a seriously debilitating mental disorder," according to the National Institute of Mental Health.(6)  This is a serious national health crisis! 

And people are so stressed in their lives today!  According to the Statistic Brain Research Institute, 77% of all people surveyed were regularly experiencing physical symptoms of stress; the causes of this stress, in order of frequency, were job pressure and money, followed by health,  relationships, poor nutrition, media overload, and sleep deprivation.(7)  Something is not right, folks, and denial ain't just a river in Egypt...

Obviously, I am neither for nor against the use of alcohol in a person's life.  I myself had to quit drinking alcohol due to an addictive personality and my tendency to escalate when using any addictive substance.  It is difficult because I can no longer 'fit in' in social situations where everyone is drinking: for example, I do not enjoy going to parties where drinking is a main activity, or going to concerts at wineries.  I can't partake in the ceremonial honey whiskey shot before my choir performs at our bi-annual performances.   But this is the choice I am making, brought on by my working with the medicine, and my other spiritual work.  I no longer choose to escape and avoid -  anything.  I definitely still want to at times.  It would be so much easier!  But one of the lessons I have learned from the medicine is that 'the only way out is through."  We humans think we can drink or medicate away our pain and suffering, but what many of us are not understanding is that this does not make it go away.  This reminds me of the environmentally-minded statement made about throwing garbage 'away" - which is that, in reality, there IS no away.  It all has to go somewhere!  Often whatever it is we do not want to deal with gets stuffed down, or medicated away from our conscious mind; meanwhile it is just settling deeper and deeper inside, under the surface, getting stored in our physical bodies.  Sometimes this can resurface years later as serious disease.   

One time I had a healer work on my chronic hip misalignment and back pain.   In his opinion,  there were serious energetic issues going on with me, in that area of my body, the kind of issues which he said could eventually lead to major illness and even an early death.  He recommended, as part of my therapy, that I sit in the sun and journal about my childhood and try to remember everything I could about that time of my life.   I did so - and that is a tale for another day.  However the experience with this healer was like foreshadowing, the literary device which hints at what is to come later in the story.  I don't know what this man saw in me, but I now definitely believe it is important to clear our bodies of stored trauma.  Of course,  I will never be able to prove that this man was correct - thank goodness - because in order to do so I would have had to do nothing about my state of affairs and then come down with a serious illness!  Thankfully, that has not happened.  I was led to the medicine path, and much of my 'stuff' has been addressed.   

I have now been writing this entry on and off all day, am now noticing the time, and realizing I am not going to be able to finish all that I wanted to write about today.  So, the most interesting thing I discovered today is the link between alcohol consumption in children and teens and exposure to positive images of alcohol use in the media.  We are basically showing our children through mainstream images that drinking is expected behavior among adults.  I am going to get more into the facts about this when I return, but according to the summary written by Joel Grube, "Alcohol portrayals are relatively common on television, in film, and in music and music videos. These portrayals are largely positive or neutral, often associating drinking with positive consequences or desirable attributes. Negative consequences of drinking are rarely portrayed."(8)

More later!


(1) Blessed Life by Kirtana, from her album This Embrace.  See http://www.kirtana.com/content/blessed-life
(2) "Alcohol Facts and Statistics." National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Misuse.  http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics
(3) "Why People Drink."  School of Public Health/Alcohol Awareness at West Virginia University.  http://publichealth.hsc.wvu.edu/alcohol/effects-on-society/why-people-drink/
(4) "Any Mental Illness (AMI) Among Adults."  http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-mental-illness-ami-among-adults.shtml
(5) "Major Depression Among Adults."  http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/major-depression-among-adults.shtml 
(6) "Any Disorder Among Children."  http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-disorder-among-children.shtml 
(7)"Stress Statistics."  The Statistic Brain Research Institute.  http://www.statisticbrain.com/stress-statistics/ 
(8) Grube, Joel W. "Alcohol in the Media: Drinking Portrayals, Alcohol Advertising, and Alcohol Consumption Among Youth."  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK37586/

My story - part one

I did not write this past Thursday due to family visiting for the past week.  In the interim, I have received some very beneficial feedback about this blog.  Specifically, that although the blog is very factual, informational and well-written, it could use the human element, the story, to inspire someone to want to read through all the information.  Of course, in the coming book I intend to have LOTS of stories, both personal and from many different people and traditions.  I just have not yet started on that aspect of the writing journey.  But in order to respond to this feedback, I decided to start telling my story.  It may end up being a part of the forward, or its own chapter in the book, but it is important that I share it so that the reader can understand why I am on this path, maybe a little bit about how I got here, and why this subject is so important to me.  It will also give me a chance to break up the intense and sometimes overwhelming nature of the research and do something different every once in a while!

As with everything, it is all so interconnected, it is hard to sort out where the story begins.  However one thing I can say for sure: I have been searching for healing and for greater self-knowledge and consciousness my whole life...

Childhood
Starting as a child, growing up in an upper middle-class white household, I had everything I "needed."  Yet when I look back on that time, I see now that I was suffering from depression, suicidal thoughts, extremely low and poor self-image, lack of confidence, addiction, and very intense intestinal problems, and I was alone with my pain and misery most of the time.  I had an undiagnosed case of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the privacy of my bedroom, and would spend hours rearranging the contents of my desk into precise patterns.  For as long as I could remember, I would spend hours every week in the bathroom with painful elimination, including hot and cold sweats, nausea, and intense stomach cramps. In eighth grade, my family split in two, with my younger sister and I moving out of our family home with my mom, and my older sister and brother staying with my dad.  That year, besides graduating to having permission to smoke cigarettes (and using up to a pack a day), I had an attack of spastic colon which brought me to a doctor.  He prescribed muscle relaxants and a diet free of spicy foods to 'cure' my condition, thereby teaching me that if I was in pain I should take drugs.  To give my mom and dad and their new partners some credit, this was still during the time in this country (1978) when people didn't really talk about their problems.  So I want to make it clear I am not writing any of this as a judgment of my parents.  They loved me and did the best they could, and I do not blame anyone for the story of my life.

Right before my second year of high school, I "fell in love" with an older boy, who became my boyfriend at age 15.  He was 19.  He began criticizing my weight (and everything else about me) shortly after our getting together, and I so I began skipping meals, eventually leading to a full-blown eating disorder, kind of a cross between anorexia and bulimia.  I also started using diet pills, speed, and eventually crystal meth to help me stay thin and to keep the weight off and to have energy to study or work or whatever I had going on.  I dropped 40 pounds between 15 and 17 years old, ending up at 105 pounds (at 5'7").  I also drank alcohol whenever possible, getting drunk on a regular basis.  Yet  I was a very good student, this being the way to gain approval in my family, and I graduated Valedictorian at age 17, after only three years of high school.   Another factor in my late teens was that my back went out, structurally out of alignment I mean, for the first time, leading to extreme pain and the necessity of constant chiropractic care from then on. 

College
During my first 'round' of college I took a health class on eating disorders and realized that I had a problem, from which I began to self-heal.  Yet my boyfriend actually approved of my purging!  I ended this extremely dysfunctional relationship at age 19, after four long years of misogyny and my second year of college (I read The Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them and couldn't believe how well it described my relationship.)   I also had another intestinal attack and had to be hospitalized, and I was finally diagnosed with colitis/spastic colon.  I dropped out of college after ending the relationship and started doing more drugs, graduating to selling them (specifically crystal meth) in order to get some for 'free.'  I also began hanging out at a local biker bar, using a LOT of drugs and alcohol,  and being very sexually promiscuous.

Six months later I moved to North Carolina to return to college.  I left the speed behind, and discovered psychedelics and the Grateful Dead. I took LSD for the first time, and mushrooms, and started experiencing freedom from my crippling self-doubt and anxiety over what people were thinking about me.  I was able to begin to move freely without so much oppressive fear.  I also started experiencing a lot more of what I would call the intuitive realm.  However, I was also smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and was drinking tons of caffeine in the morning, and using alcohol pretty much every night.  All the while, while trying to maintain being 'normal' and functional, I never felt normal, or good, or right; I still struggled with addictions, crippling hate over my body image, OCD behaviors (like hours of gazing in the mirror picking zits), chronic back and neck pain, and suicidal thoughts.  I tried a number of therapies, traditional and New Age, to help me feel better while in college but none of them seemed to help.  But somehow I pulled off getting my degree, a BA in Psychology (what else?) and graduating suma cum laude. 

After College
I moved to a city in the northeast and attempted to get a regular job, but quickly became disenchanted with the hypocrisy I saw.  So I quit the job and became a street musician.  I traveled for the next two years, gradually working on deprogramming my mind from the cultural conditioning I felt prevalent in our society; during this time I also found the Rainbow Family and went to gatherings with other free thinkers (and psychedelic users).  I sat in my first teepee and drank (very weak) peyote tea for the first time, but really liked the ritual around it's use.  Eventually I ended up in Hawaii, in yet another dysfunctional relationship, with an alcoholic and 'acid-guru' who was 15 years older than me and who ended up being the father of my son.  While in Hawaii, I worked as a dishwasher and then as a waitress in a coffee shop, all the while trying any therapy I could to help myself feel better, to get healed from depression, chronic pain, addiction, all of it.  I did some Holotropic "Rebirthing" Breathwork sessions that seemed to help, to release a lot of stored emotion.  I tried dietary cleanses with fruit and vegetable juice and wheat grass juice, which left me feeling better than I ever had.  I took up yoga, and swimming in the ocean.  I also kept using psychedelics, on occasion, and more often than not, when using them I would have profound moments of recognizing the oneness of all things.  At one point all the healing work I was focusing on prompted my mother to say to me," You know, honey, healing yourself is a good hobby... but it's not a career!" 

Mid-20's and 30's
I knew right from the moment I found out I was pregnant that the baby's father was not going to be in the picture.  So I became a single mom at age 25, with a beautiful (and huge - over 10 lbs) baby boy.  The father and I remained friends until his death several years later (he died from complications following a drunken accident).

My first indication that there might be some sort of trauma in my history came from a massage session I was having with my son's father about a year  after our son was born.   During the session, he would touch a place on my body, and ask me to focus my consciousness on it, drawing me into a deep sense of the present moment.  After about 15 minutes of this he put his hand over my yoni (the sanskrit word for vagina) - more like over my pubic bone and curved down between my legs.  His hand was on top of my clothes.  The minute his hand landed there, a teeny, little-girl voice came out of my mouth, saying, "I don't want you to touch me there."  This statement was followed by over two hours of uncontrollable sobbing, to the point of retching.  The next day I felt as if the area of my body over my solar plexus had had a giant hole punched into it.  I was dizzy and nauseous for days following this experience (which by the way did not involve any substances whatsoever). 

Life moved on.  I moved to Oregon, had a daughter with a man who was also not very available for fathering, who also had trouble with an alcohol addiction (again - no fault or blame here!  Just reporting the facts as I see them).   Stuff happened.  I started experiencing some pretty 'bad' trips when I would do mushrooms (I stopped doing LSD at age 24 -  long story for another time), usually winding up with me ending up alone and scared.  Then when my son was about 6 and my daughter about 2, I had my second major experience of some kind of release of or indicator of trauma from my past.  I went to a local Grateful Dead dance party, the idea being to drink some mushroom tea and then let go into the fun and sometimes transcendental dance zone which we could enter at shows.  My kids were staying at a dear friend's house who they loved.  I had just recovered from a pretty intense flu earlier that week, with a fever for a few days of over 102.  I was feeling good, though, and had a small sip of the tea.  About 30 minutes later, I felt this very heavy energy enter my body starting at the top of my head, and as it descended I started feeling all of the flu symptoms come back.  I started feeling dizzy, and went to sit on the steps next to the dance floor.  I asked for a certain friend to come talk to me, and told her I needed a healing circle right then and there.  Now at that time I was not the sort of person who could normally ask for what I needed - but I just KNEW.  This dear friend looked back at me and said "It is safe for you to be here."  At that, I started wailing, in a high-pitched, other-worldy-sounding voice that did not sound like it could possibly come from an adult woman.  This wailing caused many people at the party to leave (those who did not want to participate in a spontaneous healing circle!) and the rest gathered around me - for over two hours straight.  Eventually someone asked me what I needed and I replied, "I don't understand your big words" in a really young-sounding voice. But they offered to take me to lie down in front of the fire.  I experienced choking on what tasted like dust, remembering a crawlspace in my old house, and being more scared than I had ever remembered.  Then, when someone offered to rub my feet, I got to experience feeling absolutely pure child-like joy, and what it must have felt like to laugh as a small child, with my entire being.  

The ramifications of what it all meant, I just did not want to deal with.

I do want to add my gratitude to my son's father, Gary, for holding me while I cried, and to all the people who sat up with me at 700 Rock Creek Rd, helping me get through whatever that was.  I learned the meaning of true friends that night.  I am convinced that I experienced spontaneous age regression in both of these instances.  More on that later...

Mid-30's - 40
More stuff happened.  I got involved with a man who lived in Taos, NM and moved there to live with him and his two boys.  We got married.  I taught school and raised my kids.  I was depressed and addicted and had chronic physical pain and low self-esteem, but was somewhat functional.   I quit smoking cigarettes, spending three months in a black hole of depression, but made it through, mostly due to daily alcohol consumption.  My limited personal time was spent exploring different kinds of therapy, spiritual and self-help books, looking for answers.  My partner and I bought land and started building a healing center.

Then, in the winter of 2005, at the age of almost 40, I had a good friend call and ask if I could put on a house concert for him, as he was going to be traveling to Taos as translator for a Shaman, for some healing ceremonies later that spring.  I didn't know what he was even talking about when he mentioned they would be serving a plant medicine called ayahuasca, but something in me said, quite loudly and distinctly, "I want to do that!"  I began a cleansing diet three full months before the time of the ceremonies, preparing myself in the best way I could for what felt like a huge opportunity - to what end, I did not know.  But my spirit was on high alert, and I honored that.


To Be Continued...

Entheogens: Ayahuasca et al.

(From my last entry)
The next set of plant medicines I would like to discuss is the ayahuasca/yagé/daime/hoasca/caapi plant medicine family.  All of these substances are more or less chemically the same.  They contain a woody vine, usually called the ayahuasca vine or banisteriopsis caapi, which contains an ingredient which makes it possible for humans to digest DMT, or dimethlytryptamine.  (For more information about the associated chemistry, go to (1).)  The other ingredient, the admixture plant, contains DMT, and varies due to region.  In Peru, and for the Santo Daime and the UDV, the admixture plant is chacrona; or psychotria viridis. (2)  The yagé brew uses another DMT-containing plant called chacropanga.  These brews are made in extended prayer ceremonies, with some cultural distinctions giving rise to the different branches of this particular spiritual family.  However, the belief that the medicine is a holy sacrament is universal - within the cultures that use it (words in italics added for clarification).

History of Ayahuasca, "Vine of the Souls" or "Vine of Death"
No one knows for how long humans have used the plant brew known as ayahuasca in Peru, yagé in the Colombian Amazon, and daime, hoasca or caapi in Brazil.  Although there are no archeological records to verify its origin, researchers posit that humans have been drinking this brew since prehistoric times.  Archeological evidence of other types of hallucinogenic plant use exists dating back to between 1500-2000 BC; however no evidence of the prehistoric use of the ayahuasca brew has been found.  The first Western documentation of its use was in 1861, and by this time use of the brew had spread throughout the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin, causing researchers to propose its prehistoric origin.  What is most interesting to me about the brew is that the neither of the two main components, the plant carrying the reversible MAO inhibitor and the plant carrying the DMT, are food plants.   Was it random chance when the first shamans mixed them together?  The elders say it was not chance at all - it was the plants themselves that 'showed' them how to make the brew.  The first shaman I ever sat with in ceremony claimed that tobacco, who he said was the 'first plant teacher," taught the people what the ayahuasca component plants looked like, where to find them, and the involved process by which the raw materials are turned into the brew. (4) 
 
(For a very comprehensive review of the history of ayahuasca, see (3))

The important part of this subject for me is the longevity of ayahuasca's use, and the fact that in many indigenous cultures today, drinking this medicine is a normal part of weekly life in the village and has been for more generations than can be counted, with NO ill effects.  This is true with my own spiritual elders, although I am not at liberty to give specific details about the source of the particular yagé tradition I follow.  I believe their request for privacy is in part to ensure that their village does not become overrun with spiritual seekers, such as what is currently happening in Iquitos in Peru and other places where ayahuasca tourism has skyrocketed in the past decade or so.  What I can say is that their culture and tradition is one with a very long history, and they view the yagé they brew, serve and drink as a sacrament and as a teacher.  

Hoasca Project
One aspect of this research that really stands out for me comes from the 1993 Hoasca Project, an international study of the long-term effects of drinking hoasca, the name of the sacrament of the União do Vegetal (UDV) Church from Brazil..  As early as the mid-eighties, researcher Dennis McKenna and anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna, while working together in the Amazon, talked about the possibility of holding a biomedical investigation of ayahuasca.  In 1991, they attended a conference sponsored by the Medical Studies section of the UDV: 

      " Following the 1991 conference, McKenna returned to the United States and drafted a proposal describing
      the objectives of the study that was to become known as the Hoasca Project. Initially, the objective was to
      submit the proposal to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, but as the proposal took shape it became clear
      that funding for the study would be unlikely to originate from any government agency. Not only were there
      legal, logistical, and political problems with securing NIH funds for a study to be carried out in Brazil, it was
      also clear that given the nature of government drug policy, the NIH would not look favorably on a proposal that
      was not aimed at demonstrating serious harmful consequences resulting from the use of a psychedelic
      drug." (5) 

This is of course one of the main points I am trying to make with this blog/book - that due to the extreme taboo our western culture has placed on mind-altering plants (note I do not use the term drug here!), the ability to objectively and scientifically analyze their use and the effects of their use has been difficult at best.  Luckily (for scientific inquiry if nothing else), McKenna and Luna persevered and found funding elsewhere, and the Hoasca Project began in 1993.  The results were very positive:

     "Among the key findings were that long-time members of the UDV commonly underwent experiences that
     changed their lives and behavior in positive and profound ways; and that there was a persistent elevation in
     serotonin uptake receptors in platelets, possibly indicative of similar long-term serotonergic modulation
     occurring in the central nervous system that may reflect long-term adaptive changes in brain functions. The
     study did establish that the regular use of hoasca, at least within the ritual context and supportive social
     environment that exists within the UDV, is safe and without adverse long-term toxicity, and, moreover,
     apparently has lasting, positive influences on physical and mental health." (6)

Now, here in the US, ayahuasca itself is not actually against the law.  But it is, sort of.   Recently the DEA has been making the argument that since DMT is a Schedule 1 Drug, anything that contains DMT should also be considered in this category, and therefore illegal. The exception is for the two groups who are legally recognized churches in the US, the UDV and the Santo Daime.  Use of the sacrament is "more or less legal" to registered members of these churches.  (7).  In case you aren't familiar: "Schedule 1 drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Schedule I drugs are the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence."(8)

Nothing in the Hoasca study, nor in any of the literature on the subject, nor in my personal experience, suggests that anyone has, or will, or even can become dependent on this medicine, severly or otherwise.   While it is true that there is 'no currently accepted medical use,' highlight the word 'accepted' in that phrase and you come a bit closer to the truth.  If you ask an elder from my spiritual tradition, or a curandero (healer) from Peru or Brazil, they would tell you that many ailments can be cured by drinking the medicine.  I do not understand how this medicine can be considered dangerous, when used in the proper context within a legitimate tradition.  I refute every aspect of the DEA's classification of this medicine, which HAS medical use, HAS NO potential for abuse (again, to be clear, when used in the proper way), and does NOT CAUSE dependence, either psychological or physical.  Unfortunately, there are people who misuse this medicine, either by taking it without supervision,  in settings that aren't safe, or taking on the role of serving it without the proper training,

The bigger application of this medicine, in my perspective as a Westerner and as an extreme case study, has been in its therapeutic use.  I will save my personal story for a future blog, but suffice it to say that when people claim that one night of drinking yagé can be the equivalent of attending ten years of psychotherapy, they are NOT exaggerating!  You can go online and find hundreds if not thousands of personal testimonies, crediting the medicine with everything from curing addictions (by allowing one to delve into the root causes of them, and then consciously clearing these), to increasing one's capacity for joy and for present-moment consciousness, to inspiring new purpose, creativity and vision to one's work, to healing familial dysfunction and fostering healthier relationships... and this list is just the tip of the iceberg.   If not for the cultural taboos and incredibly prejudiced light in which our culture views psychoactive substances, anything with this many reported positive benefits would be the subject of numerous scientific studies by now.   As stated in the ICEERS website, "the increasing personal accounts of Ayahuasca’s role in therapeutic and personal growth practices emphasize the need for thorough clinical studies."  

And so, my prayer today is just this: may we - collectively - bring about a new age in thought around these important medicines and stop believing the propaganda and smear/fear campaigns which are so blatantly obvious to those of us who have direct experience of these sacraments.  They are NOT what our government tells us they are!   They do not cause psychosis, or create abuse or addiction in users.  Believe me, it is WORK to go stay up all night and drink yagé, to see so clearly the things I need to work on, to feel the emotions I have suppressed in my body, to allow and acknowledge my shadow side to be seen, and in doing so, to bring light to those darkest and scariest of places in my being.   Not to mention the purging!   What I am saying is I do not drink medicine for fun.  I do so to heal my being, to "...be better so I can live better," as one of my teachers likes to say.  In Brazil, religious use of the brew, "...was (finally) legalized after two inquiries in the mid-1980's, which concluded that ayahuasca is not a recreational drug and has valid spiritual use."   What a refreshing perspective!  I pray to see the day when this country can be so open-minded, and when the benefits of this medicine can be experienced in safety and with the assurance of freedom in the sovereign choice to alter one's consciousness for greater health and happiness.


(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayahuasca 
(2) ibid.
(3) http://realitysandwich.com/219531/ayahuasca-an-ethnopharmacologic-history/; see also https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_timeline.php
(4) Conversations with DJ, 11/07/07 and 11/08/07.  (His name is kept anonymous to protect DJ's privacy.)
(5) http://realitysandwich.com/219531/ayahuasca-an-ethnopharmacologic-history/
(6) ibid; see also McKenna et al.1998 for more complete findings of the study
(7) https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca_law.shtml
(8) http://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml
(9) http://iceers.org/science-interest-ayahuasca.php#.VYCKGkaYVqU
(10) https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Ayahuasca