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    Legal Advocacy, Drug Policy and Psychoactive Plants

    03.12.2024

    On the Frontlines: Legal Advocacy, Drug Policy and Psychoactive Plants

    Authors:
    Constanza Sánchez Avilés, and Andrea Langlois

    Book:
    Infinite Perception

    Year:
    2024

     

    About the study

    This chapter explores the growing global expansion of practices involving psychoactive plants, such as ayahuasca, iboga, and psilocybin mushrooms, which are increasingly crossing cultural boundaries and encountering legal challenges. As these practices spread beyond their traditional territories, their classification as “drugs” under contemporary drug control systems has led to regulatory complications. This is especially true for religious groups and individuals using these plants in rituals, who often face legal uncertainty and criminalization. The chapter highlights ICEERS’ role in supporting individuals caught in legal battles, particularly through the Ayahuasca Defense Fund (ADF), which has provided legal assistance in several cases and engaged with criminal cases across many countries.

    The authors emphasize the disconnect between traditional plant practices and the modern drug control system, which fails to account for cultural, historical, and ritual contexts. The global drug control regime, established in the early 20th century, did not originally consider psychoactive plants like ayahuasca, mescaline, or psilocybin mushrooms. As a result, these plants exist in a legal limbo in many countries, where their use for ritual or therapeutic purposes is often misunderstood and criminalized. The chapter notes how international drug control bodies, such as the INCB, do not recognize the legal status of these plants, leaving their regulation to be interpreted differently by individual countries. This has led to the criminalization of practices that were previously culturally embedded and understood as sacred.

    Furthermore, the study critiques the reductionist approach of modern drug policy, which tends to categorize psychoactive plants solely by their active chemical components, disregarding their cultural significance. For example, ayahuasca is often reduced to its DMT content, and San Pedro cactus to mescaline, neglecting the rich spiritual and ritual contexts in which they are used. Despite these challenges, there have been legal successes, such as religious exemptions for ayahuasca use in certain countries. The authors conclude by advocating for the continued evolution of drug policies that integrate cultural, scientific, and human rights considerations. They call for greater support for Indigenous rights and the legal recognition of traditional plant-based practices to ensure their safe and legitimate use in modern societies.

     

    Abstract

    Over the course of our first official year, the ADF team engaged with over 40 in-depth legal queries and we also worked with 20 criminal cases in 11 countries. Since we embarked on this journey, there have been many lessons learned about what happens when traditionally-used psychoactive plants meet the criminal justice and drug control systems. This chapter is a short overview of some of our experience with litigation and provides an overview of trends that we have observed along the way with regards legal prosecution and policy development around psychoactive plants.

     

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    Categories: Studies & papers , Drug policies
    Tags: legality , ayahuasca , scientific research , study , drug policy , psychedelics , psychoactive plants , hallucinogens , legal advocacy