Bia Labate on Ayahuasca

any type of drugs. Hello, Psychoactive listeners. Today's show is about i ahuasca and needed to do this one for quite a while. And there's a whole wide world of experts to call on in this area these days because iahuanska has become such a thing. You know, a psycholic plan medicine from South America prim early Amazon area. But today I have one of the world's great experts on this who has been a scholar and an activist for twenty years. Her name is Billibate. She's Brazilian. She's an

anthropologist PhD. Anthropology. Grew up in Brazil, but she's also taught in Mexico and currently lives in the United States. Now, she's worked with Rick Dobbin's organization MAPS as the public Education and Culture specialist. She's been affiliated with other academic institutions, but her main gig for US four or five years is she founded and directs an organization called Chakruna, which is really one of the outstanding organizations working on ayahuasca

and other plant medicines in the world. So be a thanks so much for joining me on Psychoactive. Thank you for having me Ethan, who have been following your work for a long time. It's an honor to be here with you today. I trying to think back. I think we first met. Maybe it was in Sal Paulo, Brazil, fifteen years ago. I think I was given a talk at the law school down there and you end up coming to lunch with me and the professors or whatever.

And then since that time, I've seen you a Drug Policy Alliance events, I've seen you all over the place, and really just recently earlier this summer, we crossed past in Mexico City at the conference of the Alcohol and Drug Historian Society, which is fascinating, and you were one of the keynote speakers there. So you know, your reputation just keeps growing, and I have tremendous admiration for the

work that you're doing. So let's dive into this. I mean, the first question I gotta ask you is why have you How did you land up on devoting really, I guess all of your adult life so far to ayahuasca and plan medicine. Thank you for the common Actually I

met you in the United States. I remember well distinctively because you were the first person that I came up with a little brochure and caught your attention when you were super busy running the dp A conference in two thousand and seven, and I wrote a little project and I said that I had a dream to have a

nonprofit in the United States. And you sat down and you looked at it with like cybor guys, and three seconds read everything and gave me like five words of advice, tapped my shoulder, said good luck, and said some positive things and ran off to the next business meeting with all the in your glory in your times in the dp A running the whole show. And so it's so

great for me. This is two thousand and seven, and then cut to two thousand and twenty two, and I do have a nonprofit in the United States, and I did receive your encouragement, and it does feel like a dream come true for me. So that means I get to feel a little bit proud of what you're doing. I didn't even realize that part of it, but that's pretty cool. So yes, so tell it gold back. You should. You should definitely feel proud. And you know, I've been

realizing that how influential those conferences were for me. And it was at that conference that I also met Rick Doblin and started to volunteer for MAPS, which I did for ten years. And the d p A definitely helped a lot of young scholars and activists in Latin America do this bridge with the United States because we're kind of isolated, you know, in Mexico, Brazil, it's hard to come to the English speaking world, and that conference really played a role for a lot of us to get

to know contexts and explore connections. I started this work really out of personal interest, basically because I took sacred plants and you you said hallucinogens were not antie that term, but we kind of preferred to use sacred plants or plant medicines or psychedelic plant medicines or sacred medicines medicines. The idea of hallucinogen gives a bit the impression that it's some kind of fake. Yeah, I'm sorry, I really

said I see as it working out of mouth. I really got that popped out from an old part of my brain. Like hallucinogens, there's not really the term of art now. It is psychedelics or plant medicines or those two in combinations. Sorry about that, no problem, I mean they are just words after all. But we're like, yeah, we have a lot of respect for these plants that are very influential, so we use other terms. But I had personal experiences that were pretty influential in my early twenties.

I tried mushrooms in Mexico and peyote, and also tried L S D. And when I was twenty five or twenty six, tried aahuaska in Brazil and it was I think a lot of us have this feeling that it's like arriving home somehow, that you just get in touch with this reality that feels so incredibly familiar and so sacred and so profound and so inspiring, and that gives you a kind of sense of comfort of belonging to something bigger than yourself, and to kind of fitting into

this magic and mystery that is being alive and the gratitude of having a body, having a spirit, having a soul, and being here in this journey of so much uncertainty towards what there is after us and just somehow gives this profound feeling of some kind of existential belonging. And so for me it has been really a personal journey that then inspired my intellectual curiosity as a kind of

organic move that departs from this personal interests. Well, so let me ask you this, and let's just go backward for those in our audience who really don't know much about Ayahuaska. I mean I introduced it by saying it is this plant medicine, the psychedelic that comes from the Amazonian region, which presumably means parts of Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and I guess it maybe borders a little bit. It must be little parts of Venezuela or Bolivia where you

can also probably find it. But just say a little more about you know, what do we know about its history? I mean, do we know if the use goes back hundreds of years or thousands of years. I mean, I think Westerners only became aware of it in the mid nineteenth century. But what's known from historians and others and

anthropologists when they look back at the history of this. Yeah, So ayahuasca is a combination normally of two plants, although there is a variation of different admixtures plants that you can add to ayahuasca. Normally, it's the combination what a lot of people know of bunny steadiopsiska coppy, so that's the vine and Cicotira viddis that is the leaf or a shrub that you use the leaf. So traditionally for Amazonian indigenous people, the vine is kind of the base

of ayahuaska. And then you can add different admixture plants. So Cicotia is chakurna. That's why we named our nonprofit after Ayawuaska. It's a tribute to Ayahuaska, which is our plant teacher. And it's used across different countries of the Amazon, and I think you have named all of them correctly by different indigenous people. It's not very clear when it's used started, and there is a lot of controversy around that.

I mean traditionally people were saying that this was used for thousands of years, of five thousand years, and then this information has been disputed. Then there is some more recent archaeological evidence. But anyhow, it's not exactly known, and there isn't a day that people across the border identify. So one way to name let me ask you this.

You know, when I think about like you can see you know, there's a little statuette of people with the bulge of the coca leaf in their cheek going back thousands of years, right, or you have archaeologists who find cannabis in people's bodies or their pouches that are dug up. You know, there are thousands of years old. There was a news article not long ago about evidence of ayahuasca and also I think coca being found in the bodies

of children who have been sacrificed in inca ceremonies. Um, I don't know, five hundred years or so something like that. But so far as we know, is that the oldest archaeological evidence that we have of the use. Yeah, as I said, it's kind of disputed. We have published an article in our site by Georgio Sammarini talking about the fake news of the antiquity of ayahuasca. It's not as clear. For example, some pedro or peyote have more clear archaeological evidence.

A lot of these materials in the Amazon are not really easy to track personally. I have chosen to use the expression it has been used since immemorial times, and I guess it's not really you know, relevant, exactly how long it has been used. The fact is that it's spread throughout the America's and it's considered a sacred plant for different indigenous groups. I think in the mid eighties there was an author that calculated that over seventy indigenous

groups used diahuasca. More recently, we published in our article that an indigenous activist of Brazil mentioned there's a hundred sixty groups, although that's also hard to classify exactly how many, because the way that colonizers identified indigenous people and divided them into different ethnic groups does not really match necessarily the way these groups classify themselves, and they have also changed names through history. So it's such a huge universe,

which plants, which groups for how long. All of this is part of the incredible richness of the Ayahuasca culture. What makes I think also the Aouaska a little different from say peyote or philosophic mushrooms and things like that, is that it requires putting together two distinct plants, right, and there is now you just take the one or take the other. If somebody had to figure out one way or another, you had to combine these things in

order to unleash it's kind of special property. Is that right? Yes? Correct? And that's also part of the fascination of Ayahuaska. Can you imagine the millions of plants that exist on the Amazon forest, and if this was done by error and trial, how many attempts would there be to actually find this combination? And considering one of the plants is not really active orally by itself. When you ask indigenous people, how do you know this? And how did you find this out?

And you know the answer they give, Right, do you even know what is it? The plants taught me? I thought you're gonna say that, right, that the plan spoke to them. It raises the question whether or not, I mean, we there's no way to know. I guess whether it is the properties of the merger of these two plants was first discovered by one tribe and then spread from there, or whether it was sort of coincidentally discovered in different parts of the Amazon over years by groups having nothing

to do with the other. Do we have any idea which was true? Yeah, there's also controversies about that. I mean, I have published several books on Ihuaska, and we have done that as well, like published or an article and then later on some other person say something else, and you also published that article. So it looks like it came from the Columbian Amazon. But there's also a kind of lack of clarity exactly where did it originate from. And there's also some people trying to do some DNA

work to sort of pursue different vines. Also, something interesting to consider, if you consider there's this whole boom and this whole trendness around Ahuaska, is that there's actually not a lot of botanical work done around the plant species itself. They were identified, as you said, and I think it was eighteen fifty nine or something. I look at eighteen fifty one the Victorian naturalist Richard Spruce. That's by Spruce, the first of the Westerners to uh come across this. Yes,

he identified the vine. More recently, some researchers in Brazil have suggested that we need to reclassify the plant, that there are also other species and variations. So there's also that kind of depth to it, like if you go to indigenous people and you're try to ask them, you know, what is this vine or how many vines do you recognize? And they'll tell you they'll recognize six or eight or ten or fifteen or sixteen types. You know, this is the red monkey one, this is the parrot one, this

is different names. And then you bring a botanist and show it to them. They don't recognize necessarily the different fronts. And so there is a challenge of like ethno medicine, to identify exactly which types of vine. And there has been a lot of exploration around different users and the practice expanding a lot, but not so much on the plants itself. So there's a lot of rich areas for study and for inquiry, and there's it's a vibrant field of study. And actually people are starting to do these

kinds of studies more and more. Now. When you say the vine, I mean first I looked at photographs it is it almost looks like a snake winding itself around a tree from some of the photos I saw. But when you say the vine, that's one of the two ingredients. And is that the part that contains the drug d MT, which I guess is the key psychoactive ingredient, or is that the other one. No, that's the other one, that's

the sequatria or another admixture plants. Also, our western explanation puts a kind of centrality into the d m T, which is the visionary element, and it's only active orally with the combination of the vine, the better carbulence. But this doesn't also match indigenous explanations smoothly because traditionally the

base of ayahuasca is the vine. The vine is also called ayahuasca, and so the preparation of ayahuaska and other admixture plants is called ahuasca, and just the vine is also called ayahuasca, and you add different admixtures, and for us there has been a lot of emphasis on the d MT, but the tradition is normally the base, the central element is the vine. And there's also people that have cooked just the vine itself and reported psychoactive effects,

which doesn't make a lot of sense. According to our theories. So there's a lot of, you know, interesting and fascinating things. It's, as they say, a science, the science of indigenous people, a diahuasca diaouaska science. It's a study, it's a universe. So basically, when I mean, I've done this a few times. But when we drink that tea, the ayahuasca tea, which I guess is the way it's typically consumed, Nobody's going

to drink that just for the taste. I mean, it's oftentimes quite unappealing, at least I find it that way. Maybe some people grow to like it. But it contains these two basic ingredients. But obviously every concoction varies depending upon the particular recipe, depending upon where it comes from. So you're gonna have the core elements there, but it's gonna vary quite a lot depending upon which reason of the amazon is coming from. About how people are putting

it in. I imagine that different people who cook this up put in different other little additional ingredients for one reason or another. I mean, is that right. It's just there's like no limit to the types of ayahuasca flavors and taste, all sort of embellishing around that core mixture

of the two ingredients. Yes, true, as it seems to have also been drinking some ayahuasca for a while, so as you know, that taste can be pretty challenging and it's part of like the personality, so to speak of ayahuaska. It's part of the ayahuasca experience. And to feel that taste that is this like kind of feels like visceral, deep penetration of odors and textures that is part of the kingdom of nature that we are normally not aware of. It's hard to describe, but I have a lot of

respect for the taste of ahuaska. In Brazil, there's one of the Ahuaska religions that they drink awaska then they eat like a gum on top or some kind of maybe orange or something to take off the taste. Different people do that mint or whatever. I think it's part of the experience and we should feel it and just taste it and sit with it. And what you said is correct depending on the soil, depending on the edge of the ahuaska plant. And also there are rituals to

cook it, and there's different beliefs around it. The time the proper time of harvesting, the proper time of cooking, the proper time of planting, and different regions have different flavors. One thing that is interesting is that it grows very fast in Hawaii. In Hawaii, there's a whole culture of growing ayahuasca. In the United States, of course, it's not entirely above board, let's say. And then the ahuaska from Hawaii is known to have kind of a sweeter taste.

And in the beginning, some people, at least in Brazil and the Santa Dami religion, they were kind of a little bit prejudiced against the Daimi or Ahuaska from Hawaii. But with time it grew popularity and people learned to appreciate more. And that's also this is interesting. So that's more like the topics that I understand more is the culture around it, and you know, people's beliefs, and that's kind of thing that caught my attention for years. Uh huh.

So let me ask you this. We've done a lot of episodes in Psycholo had Paul Stamit's talking about mushrooms and all cyber mushrooms, and Mike Ja talking about peyote and san pedro mescaline, and Michael Pollen was on and you know, can't we tell the whole range. This is

the first one Aowaska. But I remember years ago one of the other early researchers, going back to the eighties or nineties in this field, I think it was it was Charlie Grove, professor at U c l A. And I think it was him who said that many people regard ayahuasca as the queen of all the psychedelic plant medicines.

And I don't know if you would agree or use that terminology, but there's a sense of ayahuaska having a certain specialness that maybe from people outside I mean obviously people Native American Church, you know, for them, peyote is their sacrament, and we have that sort of thing. But there's a kind of something special about ayahuaska that some people sometimes see as transcending even the other plant medicines.

What do you think, Well, I'm kind of biased because, as you said, you know, dedicated years of my life to this subject. I drank ourawatska, and long story short, I got completely fascinated and I thought that was it, and I was kind of obsessed for twenty years. And you had already done other substances, but tried other psychedelics. Yes, it was it, you know, I thought that was it, and I got really dedicated and I just wanted to drink it and talk about it and think about it

and talk to people. And naturally I became an anthropologist study in Ahuaska because I was so interested and I just decided that I wanted to go to the Amazon and visit the sources and go directly to the fields. And for me it has been like my main ally and friend. But I think that's you know, we have to be careful with those kinds of things because there isn't such a thing. You know, this is the one or the best. I mean, this is the one for me, or this is the one that now serves me better.

And this is a friend, this is an ally, this is a teacher, this is a kindred spirit that I am aligned with. And for different people, they have different tastes. I'd like to think, and this is also your influence that there is some analogy between drugs and foods, and so different people have different needs and different tastes and different body complexions and they are kind of from different groups.

So some people you go on a restaurant together and each person who is going to have a certain combination of foods on their plate, and that is the expression of their being through the food. The same happens with drugs. Each person is going to have some kind of better familiarity or friendship with certain kind of substances. So there's people that just don't want I was and don't like I was, or drink awaska once and feel that was

it and they never want to go again. There's other people that don't want to drink at all, and then there's some of us that drink it and you know, never get tired of drinking it and start to walk this path of following the teachings of ayahuasca. And so I do think it's a very powerful and magnificent and impressive substance. And I like to think that it has some spiritual power, but I would be reluctant to say

that it's the queen of all substances. For one thing, Tobacco in Amazonian shamanism is a very pervasive and strong substance. Tobacco is used across the Americas in different countries and accompanies Ahuaska or just by itself, So tobacco in many ways it is predominant, but used in a way I should be clear for audience that is essentially psychedelic taking in a very potent form. That's not like people smoking cigarettes arts. No, it's not cigarettes. It's the the plant itself.

And it's been used on multiple ways as well. You can have paste, or you can have enemas, or you can smoke it inhale it through different combinations with different plants. So tobacco is very varied and also has different meanings. It can be used in rituals but also kind of as a social lubricant. So there's many different plants. And also I don't use the word psychedelic exactly, but psychoactive

for sure. This is also part of the challenge, like the very catagor gtories that we have to describe the substances don't necessarily mirror traditional indigenous ways of describing them because we kind of tend to separate them into these boxes like is this medical or is this recreational? Is this sacred? Is this profane? Is this nutrition? Is this identity?

We separate the uses of substances in two different categories and different schedules of drugs, and that's not how traditionally shamanism operates, and there's a lot of blurrening of categories between what is healing or sociality, or identity or medicine, and these things get mixed together, and so it's hard to express and talk about those things in our terms. And I have been interested in trying to find out there's other classifications of substances, which I think teach us

also about how to think reality. They teach us how to think our own categories and our own paradigms. And through the study of these plants and these cultures, we can revisit our own values and our own ways of understanding the world. That's what I find it so interesting and endless in terms of knowledge. A few things. One is I know that interst I mean both of what

I've read and then also my own personal experience. But I remember the first time I did ayahuasca there was a telepathic element to it, and that's something I've read a fair bit about about people under the influence of ayahuasca envisioning feeling themselves present at a place very physically distant from where they actually are, having a conversation or

being a witness to something. And I wonder, is that you think that's somewhat of a unique element for ayahuasca for many people, or you think it goes across all the psychedelics. Well, I know that one of the first terms that was used to describe aahuaska by the earlier researchers was calling it telepatine. So this idea that it does have telepathic elements to it has been described in

the literature. A lot of things have been reported, like, for example, people finding lost objects or even having access to information that they were looking for and they didn't know. There's also this other phenomenon that is common on shamanism

that would be like this kind of confession. Let's say somebody has been cheating on their partner and then they drink ayahuaska and you know, they just confess or something like this ability to show the truth, or somebody that stole something and other people drink ayawaska and see who was the thief, or narrate that they visit cities they have never been to and describe in detail roots to get from one place to another that is the root.

And why do you know that? Because I saw it in ayahuasca, So I know that this is something that there is a large amount of reports. I don't know exactly the equivalent for peyote or psilocybin, but I have the impression from my readings and publications that this kind of phenomena is common to this sort of substance that comes with this idea of the general principle is that this reality that we see is apparent. It's the surface, let's say, it's the material world that we have hold off.

And when you take the substances, you're able to do a transit and somehow get access to this invisible world, this world of the ancestors, or of the spirits of the dead people, the world beyond the spiritual world, the invisible world, and somehow have a chance to do a trance that get you in touch, and then you get in touch with this other reality that in fact guides the material and apparent reality. And then you're gett in touch with the essence of this reality that is the

material one, and this other world, this invistible world. There's also a world that has agency and that is alive, and that has the plant spirits. They are plant spirits. They have intention, they have agency, they have personalities, they have intentionality, they have subjectivity, and you're able to communicate

with those plants and learn about this intelligence. And then there's a lot of other things that go together with all of this that it's kind of complicated and dance this Different classifications of nature and culture are common to different Marindan modalities, so I don't think that's just exclusive to ayahuasca, but there's similar reports variations. There's also the association with seeing the jaguar. Right, you read all these reports that people taking Iowa's can seeing the jaguar. What

do you make of that whole phenomenon. Is it just purely about drug setting setting and that the idea was planted there before? Although you hear of reports, people have never heard of any association between ayahuaska and seeing the jaguar during the visions, but who see it? Nonetheless, what's your view? Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I've been studying this for twenty five years, and frankly there's times that I still think that I didn't leave the first grade.

I don't know what to make of it. It's very complicated. I try not to answer all things, and I study cultural things. It's okay if everybody sees jaguars, it's fine, or everybody sees palaces, it's interesting, it's mind blowing, But what does that mean? It's the palace that I'm seeing the same palace that an indigenous person is seeing or I don't know, you know a singer that is like a person in the Middle East saw a palace. Is that the same palace that I'm seeing in What does

that palace mean to that person? A lot of punel groups, they will say, when you drink aiawuaska and then you see at the beginning maybe this geometrical patterns, and then like neuroscientists and researchers will of a certain explanation and say, well that's your no, your eye and this and that and your brain, and they have those explanations. But if you ask the s wheny queen person, he will say, well, that is the color the design of the skin of

this original snake that inhabited the world. That was ultimately how we got to be humans. This primordial snake I was it was a gift from the snakes to men.

And you're seeing the skin of the snakes. So if you say, you know, you see a snake and a hunny queensy a snake, it's not the same meaning so I'm less interested in why is everybody seeing snakes, but what the snakes mean on different cultural settings, and that I really believe in anthropology for this, because it's not the same for everybody, and so what one person sees is interpreted differently in different cultures and has different meanings,

and there's a great amount of variation to all of that, and there isn't just one Ayawaska culture. We'll be talking more after we hear this. Add One other thing I think that's true ayahuasca is that it seems that when comes across there is some of this, but relatively little

of the sort of casual use. You think about kids, teenagers, people in twenties, you know, doing mushrooms, doing LSD, even sometimes doing mescal in or things like this, or kenemine for that matter, doing it by himself with some friends.

It can be done casually, can also be done in a very traditional setting, in a very spiritual setting, but with ayahuasca, and I've read that there are some cases where people will use ayahuasca casually in some parts of Latin America, but by and large, it seems that it's overwhelmingly done in groups settings where oftentimes with some type of shame and shaman or a leader of some sort, and with the idea that you need to treat this one,

this plant medicine, with particular respect, and that there is a kind of quasi spiritual religious, communal element to it that is true of the others, but that seems to be much more so in the case of ayahuasca. Yes, I agree with you. I find this super interesting and I have also used this argument to law enforcement. And if if you think, like let's say, in Brazil carnival, what happens a number of people that get drunk or do something idiotic during carnival, It's thousands of people and

it's absolutely legal. And if you just think about parties in the city a city I'm from, Saint Paulo, the number of parties are bars that people go, and how many people drink or get killed or have get into a car accidents or ayahuasca you have people are using

it across the city in some follow today. I think there must be at least like sixty or more rituals every weekend, and people are using it in sacred ways, in respectful ways, with certain kinds of controls, with certain kind of parameters, and there's a whole protocol and etiquette and culture around it. And it has spread through the globe in this kind of way. So there has been

a diversification of number of rituals. The Ahuaska culture or different lineages traditions adapt to different parts of the globe, and in different parts of the globe there's different kinds of rituals. So you go in the United States, you can see a group of like American veterans, you know, all men drinking Aahuaska together, and they hear certain kind of music and do a certain kind of integration and develop a certain kind of protocol that makes sense to them.

But it's very ritualistic. It's ceremonial. It has preparation, it has integration, it has some kind of screening, it has some kind of culture around it, and people talk about it. And then you go, you know, in the Middle East, you have other kinds of Ahuaska rituals, and you have had a Krishner communities using Ayahuaska, and you have millionaires in l A hiring private Ahuaska facilitators to help them think about their career and their investments and their creativity

and all kinds of things. And it always spread with some kind of music, some kind of integration, some kind

of doctrine or spiritual belief. This common idea that ayahuaska is a plant, a teacher, a spirit plant, that it's it can teach you, it can guide you, and that you have to obey aahuaska's requests, that you have to do certain kinds of diets, that you have to have a certain kind of behavior before you drink it and after you drink it, that you can't mix it with other substances, that you need to have a sort of reverence and respect. Yes, I completely agree to that this

is something interesting about aahuaska. That is, as an anthropologist that I have seen the ability of aahuasca culture to mold and adapt and transform and combine to different settings. And so different communities that have different kinds of beliefs have been able to use ayahuasca and develop rituals that make sense and help them study their religious traditions better and also help people connect more to their own roots

and to their own identities. And so a lot of people that have some kind of indigenous heritage or come from Puerto Rico and is a brown person in Puerto Rico that was brought up to think poorly of himself because he's brown and because he's kind of indigenous, but the family is trying to like clean it up and

make that person feel like white. And this person goes to an ayahuasca ritual and sees the connections that they have to the land and to their ancestors and to their own sources and traditions and have try to rescue those and get in touch with this. And this happens with the indigenous people too, because it's very hard to

be indigenous in this contemporary world. And so, for example, there is an organization in acting in one of the capitals of Brazil that has like a nonprofit space, educational space that different indigenous people come to learn Portuguese or math or accountability and studying the city and they do like intercultural rituals where they drink ayahuasca together and helps them strengthen their cultural identity and become indigenous and be

indigenous and maintained that indigenity and develop it more So, this is also part of the beauty and the power of ayahuasca. You know, sometimes when people ask me and you so, what's ayahuasca? And I'll ask him so have you ever heard of peyote? And I'll say, yeah, you know how it is used by the Native American church. Yeah, yeah, I heard about that, right, And I say, well, this is kind of an Amazonian version of payote. You know, it's a kind of analogy. I used to explain it

to some Americans who haven't heard of it. But one of the things is in Brazil. Ill, right, you do have these three what are they called synchronous churches, But just explain a little bit about how that came about it these I guess CLAUSEI Catholic. It's kind of integrating ayahuasca as a sacrament into sort of a Catholic church ceremony. Yeah. These are we call them Brazilian Ayahuaska religions or Brazilian

Ahuaska churches. The main ones are the Santo Daimi or UDV and Barkinia and they are a combination of of course indigenous Shamanism and Christian elements, and also European is a tericism that came to Brazil through the colonizers, and some also offer Brazilian influences. And so each one has a specific ritual and sets of beliefs, but on a larger scale. You could understand all of them as kind of a similar phenomena that has a strong Christian influence.

And the Brazilian state has recognized these groups as legitimate religions and regulated the use of iohuaska in Brazil. There has been a strong process of like twenty five years, and the first regulations were in the early eighties and the last official resolution was in two thousand and ten.

And it was a really strong and interesting process where representatives of the religions and scholars and academics and government officials sat together and came to certain agreements on what would be the most basic rules that are necessary to follow and sort of made a civil pact that those groups would keep those users under control. And it was interesting because the government officials that were studying this phenomena, they also some of them partaked in the rituals. That's

the Brazilian magic. I would love it to happen in the United States. It's happening though. We were talking about that later. But yeah, so that's a specific phenomenon. And the you UDV and the Santo Diami have expanded to the United States and they have gained the religious recognition here in the United States. I think the UTV right,

there was a Supreme Court decision. I think it is nothing that recognized the First Amendment right of religion applied to the practice of UDV and I think opened up the doors in the US at that time. Yes, the UDV had that, and also the Santo Diamy in the state of Oregon, and then yes, some other branches throughout

the United States also got that recognition. And it's a bit of an interesting paradox because this religions in a way fit more the Western sort of stereotype of a religion and understanding that checked the boxes of you know, both court expectations or i r. Rest ones of what a religion has to have, and as such it's easier to classify them as churches than other uses that would be historically more old traditional, such as shamanism, that don't

have things like, you know, a main religious leader or a main doctrine, or a main religious book or a

religious calendar or catoch case. Well, I mean you also had a feeling when the Supreme Court justices were writing that decision they wanted to make sure they wanted opening up a Pandora's box because lots of people have tried to claim that they were part of a marijuana church, and I think they were worried that if the arguments that they made to allow the UDV were to open ended, it could lead to tens of millions of Americans claiming

the right to use psychedelic drugs for religious purposes. Now, you know, there's another thing. We oftentimes think about psycholic drugs as being things that kind of open up our better side, right that that that are that makes us more empathic, that makes us more generous, that you know, more insightful, all this sort of stuff. But I know, I want to make two counterpoints to what I just said. I remember there's two British Brazilian experts that I think

you probably know both of them. One Anthony Henman, who's an ethnography anthropologist, and then there's Edward McGray, another British Brazilian who's been a professor in Salvador in Brazil. But when dom I think it said to me, you know, Ethan, be careful about assuming these drugs always lead to good.

One of these guys made the point that under the military dictatorship in Brazil in the nineties sixties, I think that you also had security officials, right, people who were engaged in torturing and killing suspected communists and radicals and all this sort of stuff, who participated in their own Ayahuascar ceremonies, and for them it became a way of reinforcing them and doing these horrific jobs where they were torturing and killing people and then going home to their

wives and kids that night. And the second thing I think about is with the UDV more recently, which is the most orthodox of the Aohuascar based churches, and it's anti homosexual, and it's highly sexist and women are supposed to have only a limited role. And so what's your thoughts about how this plays out in the church ceremonies. Would you see the Santo Daimy things sort of a net positive in the world. Would you be much more skeptical about the d V because of their values. What's

your sense? Oh, my God, Ethan go for it? Well, uh,

you know, I have been bummed out myself. I guess I was born and raised in Brazil that is very patriarchal and very Catholic and very conservative, and you sort of like go with the flow, right, because that's the way things are, and as I moved to the United States and became an immigrant in California, I was felt really empowered to come out as queer and kind of openly talk about the fact that I have a wife and speak my truth, and that has been really an

intense process. I sort of did a conference to celebrate coming out as queer because I met my partner in a conference. So in two thousand and nineteen we did a big conference called Queering Psychedelics where I came out as queer, and you know, it was a tribute to her because we had been together many years without me saying anythink in public, and in this conference. We also publish this article the next day after the conference because

I wanted the conference to go well. We exposed the UDV has this document that is super anti gay and saying all kinds of absurd claims like oh, this will endanger the future of humanity and we have to be careful as if the human race is almost about to

get extinct. I have been denouncing. Also, there is one French leader that is based in the Proving Amazon, Jacques Mabie, that has expressed very strong homophobic views and has all kinds of strange things like exorcis rituals for the souls of ambarted babies, and you know, has expressed support to Trump, and there's a lot of you know, complicated stuff in the Aahuasca world. There's also some conspiracy theories that in the planet medicine community can get pretty ugly with the

conspiracy theories. So yes, it's very complicated and there is a lot of division. And what we have to say about that is that Iwaska as part of the world is not because you drink Aiauaska that you're gonna be all different. To put it like in a more shamanic or spiritual lenses, there's everything in Ayahuaska. There's good and bad, and you can take it into different directions. It can

be kind of neutral. You can take aiahuaska and on different angles, and you can have people drinking Ayahuaska to have more power to seduce women, to gain more money, to have more domination over others. So it's really not a magical pill that you just drink it and then all of a sudden we're all the same and we're all nice. And also people have different values about what is good or bad, what is right or wrong, So

maybe they don't think they're doing anything wrong. This basic exercise of trying to have more empathy and seeing the world through the lenses of others, right, this ability to try to think how these things look on the other end. And so I do think that it had as immense

tremendous healing. And the reason why I dedicated my whole life to study ahuaska and that I have been on this field for twenty five years and published twenty five books is not because I think that aahuaska is something that is helping lunatics become more lunatic or greedy people become more rich, but rather because I think it does help a lot of people, and it does have incredible healing potentials, and I personally think I am a much better person. I actually think myself as a human because

of ayahuasca. It really helped me become more human and have more sense of respect for being alive. And that's why it's popular because it's helping a lot of people.

But look when it comes to the stuff, I mean, now you have, right, we know all the reports about the spiritual benefits and this and people's life transformations, but there's now more and more studies including some that you know, give some people a Alaska, some people some form of placebo, which are finding all sorts of mental health benefits and

possibly even physical health benefits. So I came across a few of them, one saying that Ayahuaska could be help on alleviating hard to treat depression, another one finding some success in reducing suicidality. Another one that may help deal with modern anxieties or especially in neuroticism negative emotionality. So what can you tell us about the studies that are

coming out now? They're being done by research scientists in the same way that they're working with psilocybin and m D M A. Well, I want to recommend people to buy our books, and I can share PDFs. They are sometimes expensive or inaccessible, but I'm always happy to share materials for research and for non commercial use. So we

published two different books on Iwaska, well actually three. One is called Ahuaska Healing and Science, the other is called The Therapiltic Use of Ayahuasca, and another one is in Spanish Iouaska Salutes i wask In Health. And we have published different studies that study all these kinds of things. So depression is one of the things that ahuaska has been more you to anxiety, of course, and also to treat different drug related problems and alcohol related problems. That's

another of the big uses of ahuasca. There's been research for different ailments like eating disorders. There's also different kinds of uses for grief or just in general as well being. That's also the betterment of people, let's say, not any specific disease, but identity and psychological well being. My partner has done her PhD about how ahuaska has helped gay and lesbian people cope with issues of you know, struggling

issues of identity and self esteem and self love. So there has been a lot of research on the potential benefits of ayahuaska for multiple things, for cessation to smoke tobacco. A little bit like ahuaska can adapt to different cultures and and niches. It also has different utilities for different

kinds of diseases. When I wanted to publish our book with Springer, the first one I wanted to call it the Therapeutic Uses of Ayahuaska, and Springer said, well, you know that's not very good because it's it's less strong. You should say the therapeutic use. It's more you know, it gives a stronger message, but I said, well, that's

really not accurate because there's multiple uses. And again it's part of this challenge of systems that I was talking before, because the traditional concepts of disease involves the relationship of one with oneself, with keen, with family, with the community, with society at large, and with the world of the non humans, this invisible world. So disease is some kind of imbalance on all of those factors, and the way to correct that, to bring health again, is to work

on all of those dimensions. And there's different kinds of plants and different kinds of combinations, so it's a much more holistic affair. And sometimes on Western thinking that is just like one pill for one specific disease, when traditionally, among indigenous people traditional communities, the idea of disease involves all of these other dimensions, and these plans are allies on rebuilding all of these relationships. So Auaska has multiple uses as well, and it can't be pinned to one

single use. I do want to say, and I just want to say this because I am an anthropologist and we are kind of the underdog of the whole thing. I respect all those researches and I support all of them, and I have published the results of biomedical and health studies.

But I really do think that this kind of phenomena it's important to study from a social science perspective as well, because a lot of things are not going to grasp with those methodologists, and a lot of these research is based on like applying formulas, you know, to measure the from variables and have different questionnaires, and the whole way the research is done doesn't favor these other systems of knowledge,

this traditional ways of knowledge and of knowing. So I think it's really important to have a role for the social scientists in the psychedelic renaissance. Well, it's also about as these things as these drug psilocybin and d m A and maybe others get quasi legalized but through the

FDA process and the European equivalent. It also speaks to the importance of US continuing to allow access or at least not to clamp down any further on access outside quasi medical channels, right but still apart from the research channels that may ultimately lead to some forms of authorized prescribing of ayahuasca. Apart from the religious ones. What's your sense about the policy legal issue. Where do you go on the whole debate over regulation and legal regulation of

this in this area, especially with ayahuasca. I just wanted to go a little bit back on something we were talking about the scientific research. I mean, in many ways, all this scientific use or scientific experiments, it's really the outlier because people have been using this for thousands of you know, as we said, we don't know how long, but for generations and generations and generations. So I think there is this incredible paradox that is this incredible Western

arrogance that has to say you know. I was on a TV with like a psychiatrist and it's like, well, we don't have enough evidence of safety for Ouryauaska And I'm like, maybe you don't, and you probably will not recognize an Ahuaska vine if you see one in the forest, but that's not the parameter of reality for you to be saying that. I was also on this other with Jeff Sabbat. I think this this debate and it's like, wow, we should be very wary, you know, because these things

are incredibly dangerous. Maybe it's okay for some AMAZONI and people, but that's not okay here in the United States, And I said, well, actually, maybe are not hanging out on the right crowd, because I know a lot of people in the United States that do use these things, and

the sky is not following and reality goes on. And it's important to remember that this criteria of double blind research was created, this idea of placebo and double blind research in the thirties and forties to experiment and analyze new analogs, new substances that were created. And so in many ways this doesn't apply for substances like aiawaska or payor your psilocybin, where there is a huge evidence of

us that trump's this kind of research. That's also my strong feeling as an anthropologist that there is this incredible arrogance even now, you know in Oregon they're saying, well, this kind of psilocybermercialm is okay, but not this other

kind because some people find some research about something. And that's the justification Asian when there's generations of views of these plants and they are considered not just important but central, so the very idea of being human and to why we are here and what exists in life beyond and they are central part of culture and identity and territory and sociality and inter ethnic relationships and hunting, and like the cosmological ordering of the world. Why is the sky there,

Why is the sun there? Why is the moon there? Why are we here? What is time? So I think we really have to expand our minds. And to me, like the scientific research on this plant is like an exception and in many regards, you know, an exotic thing. I personally don't feel very comfortable in taking drugs with medical doctors on hospitals. That's not my preference setting that for me would be much more of an aggression to

go to hospital to take a substance. I prefer to go with shamans and people that have been doing this for a long time. And this idea that the traditional users hold some knowledge and they have to be heard, and they have to be invited, and they have to be respected, and they have to have a seat on the table. So how do we translate all of this

into actual policy. It's also a challenge, and it's part of a conversation that we have to have a civil society inviting all of these groups to sit together and create regulations that are meaningful, and it's not a bunch of armchair bureaucrats from the d A or from the government, or white medical biomedical psychiatrists and some sophisticated university that is going to draw the rules for everybody. These conversations have to include traditional users of these substances and the

populations that have been using them for a while. So I am an enthusiast of the religious and spiritual path and I think that we have a lot of potential of using this in ways that are meanful and community based and more holistic. And I support medical research. I am in favor of medical research. I'm not against it. I think there's a space for that, but I am against the domination of the medical experts as the sole

reference of knowledge around the use of drugs. Let's take a break here and go to an ad Apart from all the spiritual mental health benefits, whether we define that in a medical sense or a broader kind of lacense, there's also some reports about the benefit of ayahuasca for physical health. Some suggestion that it could impact on the gut microbiome and gut bacteria, that it may be helpful with low grade inflammation, things like that, What can you

tell us about that side of things with Alaska? I know, superficially exactly these things that you say that, there's been some research around Ahuaska for these purposes. I don't know too much more. I do believe that that makes a lot of sense if you look back at shamanism. There's also reports that people use against Ahuaska against parasites. It is a form of purging. I don't know much more. I know there's research also. This group of veterans, Heroic Hearts,

was leading one of the research projects. They were doing their fieldwork in Costa Rica, the organization that Jesse Gould started right yes, which is part this is so interesting and it just speaks to the power of this vibrant culture because you have different veteran organizations, are different organizations of users that are so enthusiastic about it that they

are also supporting research. Because a lot of this research doesn't get grants from NIGHT or other government agencies, but rather it is some kind of academic research, self funded, much as like MAPS has self funded the research of

m d m A for PTSD. A lot of this research on ahuasca is done through different nonprofits and research organizations that do go fund me campaigns and try to fundraise to support I think everybody that is a true Aauaska follower and enthusiasts has this question that it just feels so wrong that this is illegal. I mean, have you heard many stories or do you know of any research is trying to look into this potential healing, physically

healing value of aahuasca. Yes, totally. And I can tell you and you know this is sad and breaks my heart. I have literally for twenty five years I received at least one e mail a day of somebody that has some serious like health problem and that is looking for ayahuasca as a treatment and an option, wanting some tip and some hope. And it's very challenging because I don't

really know how to help all of these people. But that also makes me feel more encouraged to keep the work of RUNA and you know, our publications and programs and conferences and different outreach and community work because there is so much need. I believe there is a term. This idea to be able to see your own organ bodies is something that is also reported in the literature. I think I forgot the name. It's I believe it's

something like autos copy. It's this ability to see your own organs, to sort of have this bird eye image and look and see or do a scan of your own organs. And also just like ahuaska showing two people that they have a tumor, are that they have a certain pain and they go and they do exams and they find that pain and they do find there was a problem. So this is something that does happen. I mean, ultimately, I think a lot of people are trying to find

a case of remission of cancer or HIV. These are that and like the case that's going to prove everything, and that's hard as well to have. Theoretically somebody that has the diagnoses and go to a medical doctor and does all these tests and then drinks ahuaska and then kills. I think those are the kinds of hard evidence to find. It's not exactly the kind of work that I do. But yes, I heard a lot of stories, but there's

also stories of no success. And there's also irresponsible things like a family member that doesn't want the other family member to go to the doctor but wants to go to drink ayahuaska and then save that person, and that person doesn't get saved and dies and this can create

all kinds of liabilities. So there, you know, there's it's a challenge, and some people can become fanatical, and I think we have to keep ours and I think there's a dangerous to find a panacea or a miracle cure and stop forgetting about doctors and just go to drink

ahuaska and going to solve all your problems. I think it's also important to make a distinction between healing the disease and coming to an agreement with being sick and having a sort of feeling that's okay, and I'm gonna die and I have this and come into terms with that finitude of life and just learning and enjoining the end that it's going to come. And there's ways to

do this transition that are more smooth than others. And I think that for this psychedelics can be extremely helpful and bring a lot of comfort and a lot of support. And I think that particularly for people that are terminally ill,

there's different, you know, evidence that this could be incredibly helpful. Again, it depends on the physical conditions, because if you're completely ill and you can't like you're not going to be easy to take something that is strong and it's going to make you vomit, maybe severely, and so you know, there's a lot of angles. You mentioned that you had

follow up effects. That's also something that people should pay more attention to because after I wask a ceremonies, especially if you go like on a retreat or you do a diet, you can have these benefits for weeks to come. Like people have other kinds of sensibility and perceive things in different ways and also sometimes have different kinds of dreams or a whole feeling to them that is kind

of novel. Again, in my personal experience, I have felt a lot of benefit and always when I come back from a diet or retreat, I can just feel my energy is entirely like reorganized, and I have this kind of protection, this feeling that I am under this alignment and special sense of things being in order in ways that they were not before. And it's up to us to keep that going. And that's the famous integration or

the famous homework or follow up. After you have your experiences, how are you going to keep that state and those learnings and those teachings and those blessings on ongoing terms in your life, and how are you going to implement the things that you know you have to do that you're kind of frequently already new as a matter of fact, that are important for you to be doing, and they are friends to keep us in this path of development

and growth and spiritual connection. Right So, being and looking over your website to Cluna dot net earlier, I saw your mission statement and you sort of summarize it before, but you say, we promote reciprocity in the psychedelic community and support the protection of sacred plants and cultural tradition.

We advanced psychedelic justice through curating critical conversations and uplifting the voices of women, queer people, indigenous people's, people of color in the Global South in the field of psychedelic so aliance. And then I can see that a lot of the publications you're putting out in the events are really about helping people to do ayahuasca in a way that's both responsible for themselves and shows respect for both the indigenous communities and sources in the traditions. This one

it's called the commodification of ayahuasca. How can we do better?

And you open it up and This is gonna be in the form of the question to you, whether you're a first timer or a seasoned veteran of these traditions, whether you're investing in an expensive Western retreat center in South or Central America, opening up a new local circle in the Bay Area, thinking of moving abroad to become a facilitator in a retreat center, starting a new transnational chapter of Brazilian Ayahuaska religion in the global North, visiting

a local cure and Darrow in their house, Surfing the internet to pick a location for your experience, partaking in a ceremony with a traveling Brazilian indigenous group where an itinerant ceremonial leader trying to make a living. We encourage you to explore these fourteen questions with us and help

ensure the future responsible Ayahuaska you around the world. What are some of those key questions for people, whether they're in the first time or or thinking in the ways that you put out there, What are the pivotal questions that you want people to have in mind. Yeah, I'm glad you're asking that, because, as you said, and you mentioned the name of the title of our event, the genie is coming out of the bottle. The genie is out of the bottle, whether we like it or not,

whether we're cool with it or not. Ayahuaska uses expanding globally. I think i'd dare to say that, you know, in every single city of America there's an Ayahuaska ritual. I mean, we don't know, because it's hard to know these kinds of things, but it's so spread and throughout the whole globe, China and South Africa and Asia, in South America, it's everywhere. So whether we like it or not, it's happening. And so we have a kind of pragmatic approach in Chakrina.

This globalization is happening. It's not a moral judgment. Is this right or wrong? Because guess what, you can say whatever you want, it's not going to stop people from drinking ayahuasca. They are drinking it. So the work we're

trying to do into Kruna is real. Some kind of creating safeguards, community safeguards to soften this impact of globalization, some kind of harm reduction towards the globalization of ayahuasca, and creating ways that this expansion can be done in more mindful ways than one of the initiatives has to do with our guide for Sexual Abuse. We're trying to raise awareness around the topic of sexual abuse that can

be quite prevalent in ayahuasca circles. We also published the document that is helping Ayahuaska communities in the United States to better organize themselves as churches as communities. So, how do you keep track of your sacrament? How do you started, how do you transport it? What kinds of waivers liabilities? Do you have to pay taxes? Do you have to keep the information of the people that drink with you?

Do have to measure how many leaders you're consumed? Do you have some sort of registration of the beliefs the spiritual doctrine of your group? So that is what we call some legal harm reduction in terms of the commodification of ayahuasca. We encourage this Ayahuaska contemporary global citizen attending hybrid places all over the world to kind of ask some questions on the use he's doing. Where is the Zayahuaska coming from? Does this group have any project that

involves the conservation of ayahuasca. Does the group that is creating this ziahuasca has any kind of partnership with local Indigenous people. Are this local indigenous people recognized? Is their name to the ethnic group or to the region they're at? Do you know the language of the people that you're going to visit? Are you getting informed? Where are these people used and tokenized in a website that is geared, you know, mainly produced by a Western audience for a

West their audience. And do these projects do this retreats or circles or communities, do they have any ways to give back? So we have also created this project called the Indigenous Resprose the Initiative of the Americas. That is one of our strongest programs that we have been doing for two years, which is a poll of twenty organizations that we partnered with in seven countries across the Americas. And we're suggesting people that engage in plant medicine ceremonies

to think of the issue of reciprosity. How can we give back? And am I honoring the people that came before me and that are the true leaders of the psychedelic movements, not the scientists that started in the fifties or now, but those are the traditional founding leaders. And we are also you know, just creating a culture around these things. So we do a lot of events and publications and we're trying to create some kind of cultural

legitimacy around the substances. Do you have vocabulary, where do you find information and how do you create this cultural legitimacy Because this is not just about this integration of these plants into the person's life and to their well being and their personality and self development, but as the integration of this traditions into our culture. So we're calling it some kind of cultural therapy, like we need to

rethink of ways that we talk about these things. And the Chachrona Institute is trying to create this cultural conversations, so curating cultural conversations as plant medicines grow globally, but while doing that, trying to elevate platform and give visibility to voices of minorities, so to indigenous people too, people of color, to women, to queer people, two people from the global South well being, I should say, And looking over your website, I really was impressed because there's a

lot of very nuanced discussion in there. There's a piece in there where you talk about the question is ayahuasca in danger? And the answer is well yes and no. If you go to some places like around i Quits and I think Peru, where there's at the center of ayahuasca based tourism, there actually is a risk of it being less and less available and being overharvested. If you go to parts of Colombia, not really an issue the phenomena. It's not just grown in the wild, but you know,

ayahuasca is also being cultivated. So what you describe is a fairly nuanced portrait of being sensitive to what's going on. And I think the same thing with what's happening with indigenous communities there. As you point out, for some of them, this is injecting a very destructive element of kind of commodification, commercialization, competition for higher quality or for the ayahuasca higher prices,

destruction of of of long term traditions. You know. On the other hand, it's also bringing in significant sources of revenue for these communities. It's introducing them to new possibilities. So it's a complex situation we're talking about. And I think Tracuna's voice in terms of representing especially voices of the indigenous, of the queer of this favorite pop relations is really impressive. And I'll tell you you're doing it in a thoughtful and nuanced way. I think your voice

being out there, you're getting ever better. And I mean I've been following you now doing this for fifteen years. I've been watching you try to build this organization. You know you're really making a major contribution. So my final question is when you look forward, I mean, you've been working on this stuff for maybe twenty years, jumping forward another twenty years b to uh ayahuasca in the year twenty forty or twenty fifty. If you had to speculate

or imagine, what are your predictions. Well, first of all, thank you for your kind words, and as I told you on different occasions, you have been an inspiration and of course for a lot of us in the drug reform movement. And so I also thank you so much for all your years of work, and I'm happy for you to be doing this podcast, which I know that you always have this double nature between your activist self

and your scholar self. And now that you're a little bit older, not old, but rich, hired from the d p A, you can delve into being a good students. And I really appreciate all your questions. I don't know, I'm sorry to end in not such a great finaleg I guess I don't think a lot about that. I think that's one of the things about me that I don't really care where things are going or what's happening.

Like I have my ideas of what I think is right and I think I should do, and I think all we can do is like kind of hope to give our contribution to stewart things in the correct way. So I am not all enthusiastic. I also have so I am this active director of the Chichroni Institute, and I have a part time job as public education and cultural specialist of Maps. At MAPS, they're super enthusiastic about mainstreaming, you know, M D M A and psychedelics. I am

not on that mainstreaming wagon myself. I think these things are expanding and there's a continued interest. And to me, I'm not like more happy that more p drink Ayahuaska. I'm not trying to make more impact and more people

have more access. I think this plants are not for everybody, and they're incredibly powerful and sacred and deep and meaningful, and those of ones, those of us that want to use it, and those of us that have felt touched, and those of us that have dreamed with the spirits of Ayahuaska and being in that space, visit that reality and resonated. We should have our rights, and we should be protected. We should never be put in jail, and we should have some recognition that there is something deeply

noble and sacred about this path. And also we can't explore and abuse the people that taught us. There has been five years of colonization and Indigenous people continue to be incredibly kind and receiving a bunch of like desperate white Northerners full of anxieties in crisis, you know, with post modernity and job issues and money issues and health issues and all kinds of stories. And we're still visiting the Amazon, and they sit and they sing, and they

heal and they teach us. And for that, I am extremely grateful. And I want to build paths of justice and resprosty towards Indigenous people. I want to build legal protections towards Ayahuasca users. I want to build protections for queer people not to be abused by homophobe leaders and extremely patriarchal organizations. I want to build safeguards for the conservation of the plant species, and I want to celebrate

and to honor the beauty of these traditions. I want to create a culture of study, of research, of incredible intellectual knowledge around the traditions, because these plants are good not just to drink and to eat and to have transcendental experience. They're also grout for us to think, to think reality, to study, to have intellectual inspiration, to learn about the ultimate mysteries about life. And they are great resources and companions for all of this. So we're engaged

in education, We're engaged in restarosity. We're engaged in psychedelic justice, in talking about minorities and honoring the women and the elders and the people that came before us. Aguaska is our teacher and friend. Chikruna organization is named after Aguasca. It's an honor and a true pleasure to serve this path. It has been incredibly rewarding. And I word and forward, and I wording for so all of that day. I say, hallelujah, it sounds great. You're doing amazing stuff. So thank you

ever so much for joining me on psycholaps. Thank you big, everybody. Bye bye. If you're enjoyed going Psychoactive, Please tell your friends about it, or you can write us a review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. We

love to hear from our listeners. If you'd like to share your own stories, comments and ideas, then leave us a message at one eight three three seven seven nine sixty that's eight three three psycho zero, or you can email us at Psychoactive at protozoa dot com, or find me on Twitter at Ethan Natalman. You can also find contact information in our show notes. Psychoactive is a production of I Heart Radio and Protozoa Pictures. It's hosted by

me Ethan Naedelman. It's produced by Noham Osband and Josh Stain. The executive producers are Dylan Golden, Ari Handel, Elizabeth Geesus and Darren Aronofsky from Protozoa Pictures, Alex Williams and Matt Frederick from my Heart Radio, and me Ethan Nadelman. Our music is by Ari Blucien and a special thanks to a Brio s f Uca Grimshaw and Robert BB. Next week I'll be talking with one of America's best known progressive prosecutors. It's Chase A. Budan, the recently recalled District

Attorney of San Francisco. I grew up visiting my own parents in prison. My earliest memories are waiting in lines at prison gates to go through metal detectors and to get searched, just to be able to see my parents, just to be able to give them hugs. So as long as I can remember, I've been impacted by and thinking about this country's response to crime and how we meet out punishment and what rehabilitation means. And I've been acutely aware of the tremendous carnage that the Warren drugs

has left in its wake. And when I went to law school, I wanted to try to fight to change that system. Subscribe to Psycoactive now see it, don't miss it.