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The death of a United States (US) tourist in Peru earlier this month again brought issues of traditional knowledge’s misappropriation, lack of regulation as well as Access and Benefit Sharing to the fore, even as the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17) in the Armenian capital of Yerevan is more than a year away.
Aaron Wayne Castranova (41), from the US state of Alabama, died after ingesting ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic and psychedelic drink associated with Amazonia. Castranova was visiting La Casa de Guillermo ICONA, a hostel known for its “spiritual tourism” in Loreto, the New York Post noted quoting the Daily Mail.
Castranova experienced a multi-organ ‘breakdown’, according to Narciso Lopez, the regional prosecutor’s forensic pathologist.
This surely is not the first death due to ingestion of ayahuasca. In January this year, the US Embassy in Peru warned US citizens visiting the South American country “to NOT ingest or use traditional hallucinogens, often referred to as ayahuasca or kambo”. It added: “These dangerous substances are often marketed to travelers in Peru as “ceremonial” or “spiritual cleansers.” However, Ayahuasca is a psychoactive substance containing dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a strong hallucinogen that is illegal in the United States and many other countries.”
The Embassy also noted that “In 2024, several US citizens died or experienced severe illness, including mental health episodes, following consumption of ayahuasca. These incidents often occur in remote areas near or within the Peruvian Amazon, far away from modern medical facilities. The limited connectivity and limited access to emergency services and hospitals increases the risks.”
The Embassy also stated that “aside from the negative health effects, US citizens in Peru have also recently reported being sexually assaulted, injured, or robbed while under the influence of these dangerous substances at “healing” or “retreat” centers. Facilities or groups offering ayahuasca/kambo are not regulated by the Peruvian government and may not follow health and safety laws or practices.”
But what is ayahuasca? And what is its link to indigenous peoples and cultural misappropriation?
The word ayahuasca is a compound of two Quechua language terms “aya” and “waska”. These translate to “spirit” or “soul” and “vine” or “rope,” respectively, giving rise to names like the vine of the soul or dead for the brew, notes a 2023 paper titled Ayahuasca: A review of historical, pharmacological, and therapeutic aspects, published in the journal PCN Reports.
According to the paper, “the key ingredients of an ayahuasca brew are Banisteriopsis caapi, a vine also referred to as ayahuasca independently, and a plant containing N,N‐dimethyltryptamine (DMT), typically Psychotria viridis, also called chacruna”.
The authors further elaborate that many preparations with various admixtures are commonly called ayahuasca, “even though they may lack key components required for the technical definition, such as using Peganum harmala instead of B. caapi as a source of harmala alkaloids”.
As far as the origins of ayahuasca are concerned, there is no consensus yet. Some scholars believe that the brew and the ceremonies involving it have been practised in the Amazon for millennia, much before Europeans reached the Americas.
The paper adds that according to other scholars, modern ayahuasca ceremonies date back to 300 years ago. These spread through economic activities related to rubber camps.
Various indigenous Amazonian tribes like the Shipibo, regard the ayahuasca ceremony as sacred and therapeutic.
“In certain tribes, only the shaman consumed ayahuasca to diagnose diseases and determine appropriate treatments. Ayahuasca’s visionary state enhanced the shaman’s abilities. Ayahuasca was also used in social contexts, such as in conflicts between shamans using dark magic. Curanderos, native healers, combined ayahuasca with other plants in ritualistic botanical practices to serve, heal, and protect their communities,” according to the authors.
Not just indigenous communities, mestizo (mixed race of European and Amerindian heritage) groups have also used ayahuasca, especially Catholic and syncretic (combining Catholic and indigenous elements) churches. In fact, the 2023 paper notes that the modern ceremonies starting three centuries ago were in a Spanish missionary context. “This perspective finds support in the common terminology, musical structure, and ritualistic use of tobacco smoke in ayahuasca ceremonies, which show similarities with Catholic practices during that time. However, it is possible that certain ritual elements predate this era.”
Ayahuasca appeared in the urban areas of Brazil in 1930 and thence spread to international cities. In Europe and North America, its appeal expanded after Beat Generation poet William Burroughs published The Yage Letters, describing his experiences with ayahuasca.
There has been no looking back since then. Westerners continue to arrive in Peruvian cities like Iquitos, the ‘Ayahuasca capital’ of the Amazon to experience ‘healing’.
A paper published in 2021 titled The Shipibo Ceremonial Use of Ayahuasca to Promote Well-Being: An Observational Study in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology divides today’s ayahuasca users into three categories and attributes its growth and expansion to them: religions that use ayahuasca as a sacrament; the psychonautic use of ayahuasca brew by Western people and neo-ayahuasqueros (practitioners); and the cross-cultural vegetalismo or Indigenous-style ayahuasca healing ceremonies conducted in an often overtly commodified way for non-Indigenous clients both in the Amazon and abroad.
Even as ayahuasca’s appeal continues to grow globally, critics such as indigenous groups and others have pushed back against what they call is the ‘cultural misappropriation’ and ‘commodification’ of indigenous knowledge.
Even prior to the current popularity, there was at least one attempt by a westerner to appropriate ayahuasca.
Sara V Press, in her 2022 work Ayahuasca on Trial: Biocolonialism, Biopiracy, and the Commodification of the Sacred published in History of Pharmacy and Pharmaceuticals recounts how in 1986, American scientist and entrepreneur Loren Miller received Plant Patent No. 5, 751 on a “novel” strain of the ayahuasca plant, which he named “Da Vine.”
“Indigenous tribes and healers had been using ayahuasca for hundreds of years before it was brought into Western culture. Miller’s accepted claim to novelty, however, was founded on this particular strain’s color and medicinal properties,” notes Press.
Several years later, in the 1990s, indigenous peoples in Ecuador learnt about the development. They demanded that Miller’s patent be revoked for not meeting the novelty requirements of the US Plant Patent Act.
The US Patent and Trademark Office revoked Miller’s patent in 1999, based on evidence of the strain’s existence in US botanical museums prior to Miller’s licensing. However, Miller filed for an appeal subsequently, and his “Da Vine” patent was reinstated for its remaining life span. It expired in 2003.
“This case demonstrates how international patent law reinscribes asymmetrical power relations between the “West and the rest” by deferring to a legal structure that remains inherently colonial in nature and practice,” according to Press.
The Frontiers in Pharmacology paper highlights that the the absence of international regulation of ayahuasca use poses a number of serious risks, both for Indigenous peoples and for the international community in general.
“On the one hand, Indigenous people see the desecration and cultural appropriation of their knowledge, symbols, stories, ceremonies, dances, and songs, and fear that their ancestral heritage will be changed or lost. On the other hand, Westerners who take ayahuasca have no guarantees about the composition of the ayahuasca, unwanted pharmacological interactions, exposure to unreliable information, and unqualified and unethical practitioners,” it says.
In their 2019 paper titled Ayahuasca: Commerce equitable for the empowerment and protection of indigenous people’s intellectual property rights, Marta Carolina Giménez Pereira and Samantha Albuquerque de Mello stressed the importance of protecting indigenous knowledge.
“Indigenous communities are exploited of their knowledge. This knowledge is not so much a commercial tool as it is an expression of their culture, their traditions and their religious beliefs. To appropriate of that knowledge without so much as a gratification or recognition does not sit right with the very idea of intellectual property. If IPRs’ purpose is to celebrate and encourage intellectual development, appropriating and patenting TK does not seem fair, considering that only the final “owner” of the knowledge is granted with the benefits patents can bring.”