The commercialization of ayahuasca by business interests purveying the psychedelic for financial gain must end, a coalition of leaders from 30 Indigenous nations has declared.
After the fifth Indigenous Ayahuasca Conference in late January, held in Taraucá, Acre, Brazil — the Amazonian home of the Yawanawa nation — governments, NGOs, research institutes, and businesses were called on to respect Indigenous peoples’ “genetic heritage and intellectual property.”
The statement “repudiated all forms of commercialization of ayahuasca” describes a “global market” that is rife with transgressions of ethical boundaries.
Brazilian sociologist and Santo Daime leader Dr. Glauber de Assis, who attended the conference, called it the most significant and diverse ayahuasca gathering in the world. He noted that the event, founded in 2016, was created as an alternative to “Eurocentric” psychedelics conferences that often overlooked Indigenous voices.
The discussions covered ancient Indigenous knowledge regarding the ceremonial use of plant medicines, Indigenous views on the patenting of ayahuasca molecules, climate change, and the future of humanity. At least four million people have consumed ayahuasca across the world, according to a recent estimate, including 1.5 million Americans, equating to just under 0.5% of the population. While the boom in psychedelics has enriched a number of Indigenous medicine facilitators, the bulk of the profits is often taken by Westerners, and there are concerns over the investigation of ayahuasca by the pharmaceutical industry and efforts to patent parts of the brew.
“Many who come to the Amazon extract and appropriate from these cultures, trying to make a profit without any commitment to Indigenous rights,” says de Assis. “How can you ensure that Westerners won’t just visit the Amazon for a week to sit in a couple of ceremonies, and then start their own business, claiming, among other things, that they’re ready to serve others?” Aside from the obvious dangers of untrained practitioners serving ayahuasca, the reduction of ancestral Indigenous knowledge into “mere commodities” infringes upon the rights of such communities, he adds, and can often “serve the ego and individual gain of a select few.”
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