Program Notes
Guest speaker: Benjamin De Loenen
http://iceers.org/International Center for Ethnobotanical Education Research and Service
Year this lecture was recorded: 2017
In today’s podcast Benjamin De Loenen, the founder of ICEERS (International Center for Ethnobotanical Education Research and Service), talks about things that led him to start this organization, which comes to the defense of plants and is dedicated to sharing the science and best practices around their use.
ICEERS.ORG
The Ayahuasca Defense Fund
http://ayahuascadefense.com/
Ayahuasca Technical Report
http://news.iceers.org/2017/07/2017-ayahuasca-technical-report/
Ayahuasca Good Practice Guide
http://iceers.org/Documents\_ICEERS\_site/Safety&Ethics/Ayahuasca-Good\_Practice\_Guide\_ICEERS2014.pdf
Videos from the second World Ayahuasca Conference
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFSYWkLS73y6hwEaBHmIJyyQ9XCbMauc1&mc\_cid=a1a4803e3a&mc\_eid=4d4a945542
Psychedelic Salon Magazine
https://flipboard.com/@lorenzohagerty/psychedelic-salon-beqt65mhy
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Transcript
00:00:00 ►
Greetings from cyberdelic space.
00:00:19 ►
This is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in Psychedelic Salon 2.0.
00:00:24 ►
This is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in Psychedelic Salon 2.0.
00:00:32 ►
And I think that it may be time once again to remind you about the Psychedelic Salon magazine that I publish on Flipboard.
00:00:38 ►
I’ll put a link to it in today’s program notes, which you can find at psychedelicsalon.com.
00:00:44 ►
But here are a few headlines from the almost 3,000 stories that I’ve already posted there.
00:00:46 ►
And I quote these headlines,
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the 10 biggest companies that spare their employees the humiliation of drug testing.
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What if legal pot costs more than black market pot? The seven worst states in the union to get caught with cannabis. Marijuana is now a driving engine of the American economy.
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Three years after legalizing pot,
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Colorado has the lowest unemployment rate in America.
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A marijuana drive-thru could be coming to a corner near you.
00:01:18 ►
How to choose a weed vape pen.
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The six least marijuana-friendly colleges in America, and the essential guide
00:01:28 ►
for the first-time cannabis tourist.
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As I said, there are now almost 3,000 stories about psychedelics and cannabis that I’ve
00:01:36 ►
posted in that magazine over the years, and if you’re a student who’s looking for a quick
00:01:41 ►
source of interesting information for a paper you’re writing,
00:01:47 ►
well, this may be a good place for you to begin.
00:01:54 ►
And now I’m going to turn the microphone over to Lex Pelger, who will introduce today’s podcast.
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I’m Lex Pelger, and this is the Psychedelic Salon 2.0.
00:02:09 ►
Today we hear from the founder of iSeers, Benjamin DeLonen.
00:02:16 ►
Eight years ago, he decided to start the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service.
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He already had done important work in the field by making his master’s thesis film, called Ibogaine, Rite of Passage. As he became an advocate for plant
00:02:27 ►
medicines, he saw the need for education as well as a defense for those practicing with the plants.
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So now you can go to iSeers.org for a large collection of research on ayahuasca and ibogaine,
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as well as information about integration and support around psychedelic journeys.
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In fact, the reason I reached out to talk to Ben now about his organization
00:02:47 ►
was because they recently released a technical guide on ayahuasca
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that is an excellent breakdown of the peer-reviewed science,
00:02:53 ►
and I’ll link to that in the episode notes.
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They also have a thorough good practice guide for ayahuasca
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that’d be worth the time of any seeker, and I’ll link to that too.
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As well, they just released the
00:03:05 ►
videos from their AYA 2016 conference that you can view on their website. At iSEERS,
00:03:11 ►
as you’ll hear, they defend any practitioner caught up in the legal battles of the war
00:03:17 ►
on drugs. iSEERS is doing important work, and I appreciate Ben taking the time to talk
00:03:22 ►
to us today. I do wish that the audio quality was
00:03:25 ►
better but with him being in Spain the remote audio didn’t work quite as well as normal
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but so it goes. Please enjoy this talk with Benjamin DeLonen.
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Hello everybody welcome to Psychedelic Salon 2.0 and I am here with Benjamin DeLunen of
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ICERS and the Ayahuasca Defense Fund. Thanks so much for joining us.
00:03:51 ►
Thank you, Lex.
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And so before we dive into that really impressive and helpful report that you put out, can you
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tell us a little bit about ICERS and what the Ayahuasca Defense Fund does?
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Yeah, ICERS is a non-profit organization, charitable non-profit organization, and we
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basically focus on building a world where psychedelic plant practices are valued and
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integrated parts of society.
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And we do that through, on one hand, scientific research.
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We want to advance scientific knowledge about this the use of these plants um we also you know do a lot of education about you know what are the risks what are the
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potential benefits how can you minimize risks maximize benefits and basically trying to um
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you know shed some light about really what these practices are about knowing the role they can play
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in our contemporary society and then thirdly we also serve very much the community.
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And so, you know, we do a lot of legal defense through a program we set up, which is called
00:04:52 ►
the Ayahuasca Defense Fund.
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You know, we have been for the last four or five years supporting people that go through
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either difficult experiences, you know, with ayahuasca, iboga, or other traditional plants,
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experiences uh you know with ayahuasca iboga or other traditional plants um or people who you know just need some support in integrating or uh you know some more information because they’re thinking
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about um you know getting an experience with these plants so that’s a bit the the type of
00:05:17 ►
work we’ve been doing and we have been organizing also the the world ayahuasca conference
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which is the largest ayahuasca conference you know
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the first one was done in ibiza the second one in brazil where we also really tried to bring
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together the more indigenous and traditional voices that have been you know utilizing ayahuasca
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for for centuries with more the the international drug policy environment also also in ibiza we
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brought together a lot of lawyers who had been defending cases,
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drug policy experts to really sit down all together about this growing, you know,
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practice in our society and how we can deal with the challenges that arise from that.
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Wow.
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That’s a big spread from helping people’s experiences to the lawyers to help defend it.
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Yeah, we’re a multidisciplinary team, all with very different backgrounds.
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And we kind of try to really combine all of that experience and really also try to build network.
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So it’s not just about us doing, but really to build community and trying to figure out what directions we need to move towards
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and how we can achieve that.
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Excellent.
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And what is your background that brought you to this work and doing this?
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Well, I’m a filmmaker from training, so I enrolled in film school in Holland.
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And in my second year, I read a small article about ibogaine,
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one of the plants coming from from Africa which is used there in the
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Buiti traditionally for probably you know thousands of years and then in the
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60s was discovered to also be very useful in addiction treatment so you
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know I got very interested I thought if that’s true although the story around
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the iboga then I have an interesting topic for my final exam project and basically started to make the film and two and a half years later i
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graduated with a documentary called ibogaine right of passage um and which had become kind of a
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reference worldwide you know to educate about ibogaine and i got very involved in in that
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whole ibogaine movement and it drew me away from my five years
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of being a TV show editor and documentary editor
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to really dedicate my life to these traditional plants.
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That’s wonderful.
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Can you see the film online now?
00:07:38 ►
Yeah, the film is online.
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We have a YouTube channel as well,
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which is youtube.com slash iceears, I-C-E-E-R-S.
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And there’s also fragments there. The which is youtube.com slash iceers i c e e r s and there there’s also fragments there the film is online and we just uh released um a documentary which is a spin-off from that project
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because i had 10 hours of footage of the whole initiation in gabon where you see a woman being
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initiated during five year pros um you know or a five-day. So we made a 40-minute documentary really explaining
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and showing that whole initiation process in the Bwiti,
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which is very inspiring because I think we can learn a lot
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also from the way they have incorporated the use of Iboga in their culture.
00:08:19 ►
Yes. Yeah, there’s so much to learn from what’s been done for so long.
00:08:23 ►
And when you meet someone who’s never heard of ayahuasca,
00:08:27 ►
how do you describe it to them?
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What language do you use?
00:08:32 ►
You know, it’s very difficult to describe what ayahuasca is
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because it’s a different thing to different people, no?
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To some, it’s a sacrament that’s really connecting them to the divine
00:08:42 ►
in their spiritual practice.
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To others, it’s a sacrament that’s really connecting them to the divine in their spiritual practice. To others, it’s a medicine.
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It’s a plant medicine which helps people overcome challenges in life with health
00:08:52 ►
and also with their relationships and so forth.
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So really a kind of a holistic way of dealing with life.
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To others, it’s a tool to explore consciousness
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and kind of, you know, advance in the understanding of the universe,
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you know, and people’s place in the world.
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So it’s really many things.
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And one thing which is an interesting description
00:09:18 ►
comes from Jacques Mabit, who is a French medical doctor
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who owns a center in Tarapoto.
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We’ve been dealing with drug dependency
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for a long time. And he appeared in court in a court case in Chile. And he said, you know,
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how do you explain life, what life is? Life is so multifaceted. So it’s very difficult to explain.
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He said, kind of ayahuasca has many facets to it as well and many different layers to it. But
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I think people generally, and we see that also in our studies,
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they come to ayahuasca because they’re in search to improve something
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in their life, you know, or they want to grow as human beings
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or kind of, you know, be connected to purpose in life.
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Very often when we lose kind of a sense of purpose to, you know,
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when people suffer and so forth um you know the the experiences whether
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what we are seeing is that they help connect people with their their purpose no and and
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increase their quality of life so generally it’s it’s not a pleasant experience um very often also
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people you know vomit often and they you know they can have diarrhea and really sometimes a very
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challenging experiences but well contained in a ceremonial setting,
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very often can be turned into growth experiences
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where people really can see things from a different novel perspective
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that gives new tools to kind of then, after the experience,
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also integrate properly and make sure that they benefit from it in daily life.
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And we see also that the average age of people coming to ayahuasca is rather late,
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so over the 30s.
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35 seems to be kind of the average age of the volunteers that we get in our studies.
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So it’s where people in that moment in their life kind of have things more or less on track
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or they already walked parts of
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their life path and then come to ayahuasca to really you know deal with some aspect of it and
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improve their life and some people obviously also go in because they have pathologies they have
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certain issues like depression anxiety you know ptsd complicated grief and then also in our studies, we see that they come to ayahuasca
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to really deal with that.
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So many different uses.
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And it makes sense because, I mean, according to your report, there’s 5,000 different recipes
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for ayahuasca as well.
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So even the definition, I mean, in general, it’s two different plants mixed together,
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correct?
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But that can be many different ways.
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Ayahuasca is really the name of one plant plant which is a bonisteropsis capi you know it’s a vine and that’s really traditionally the central
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plant so ayahuasca means that vine and then the brew is also called ayahuasca after the vine
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and with the vine so there’s also ayahuasca with just the vine and then know, other plants can be added to that mixture.
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And so generally there’s a few plants like chacruna,
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Cicotria viridis is the one mostly used.
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And there’s chacropanga as well, which is another one.
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It’s more in Colombia, in the Cipivo tradition as well.
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So it’s generally the mixture of those two plants.
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But then there’s many other admixtures,
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and there’s a lot of
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rituals even around how it’s being cooked no so the the diameter of the fatios where they’re
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ritually cook ayahuasca while they drink as well and you know they sing so put their their intentions
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into the brew so it’s a very rich culture just only the preparation of the brew and it’s important
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to take into account that when we talk about ayahuasca,
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really generally we’re not just talking about the substance.
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In court, we often see that prosecutors just reduce everything.
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Literally, they extract one molecule, DMT,
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out of this very complicated cultural practice where there’s the chanting,
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there’s the Icaros in Peru that are used, there’s energy work chanting there’s the you know the icaros in in peru that
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are used there’s a energy work there’s a whole world view around it there’s ceremony uh you know
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there’s tobacco is a very important plant as well as being used tobacco smoke no in in terms of
00:13:17 ►
protecting the the space so according to the united nations, there were conventions that were signed by all the different nations that are part of the UN.
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So one was in 1961, which is the Convention on Narcotic Substances.
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And there’s three plants included in that list.
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And that’s the opium poppypy the cannabis and the coca leaf and then in the 1971
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convention on psychotropic substances different molecules that are present in different plants
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are included like dmt like mescaline and so forth but the plants themselves are not illegal and so
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the incb the international narc Control Board, which is the body
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of the UN which looks at
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the implementation of those treaties
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by the different
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UN states,
00:14:13 ►
they have written a letter
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to us for a court case
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we were defending in 2010
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and as well in their reports that
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no plant or concoction
00:14:23 ►
that contains DMTs is under international control.
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So according to them, ayahuasca is not illegal, no?
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And they clearly separate extracted, purified DMT,
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so where you take out the molecule out of the plants from concoctions where plants are brewed
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and where just the naturally occurring DMT, you know, is present.
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And so in, you know, the brewing of ayahuasca, of course,
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there’s no chemicals involved in extracting DMT.
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So from the moment you would extract the molecule,
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then it becomes illegal.
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That’s on UN level.
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So, of course, that’s very confusing on a national level, you know,
00:14:59 ►
and in the court cases we see very often there’s no specific law
00:15:02 ►
in that country.
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But it’s, you know, the judge is kind of confused about the fact that DMT is illegal
00:15:11 ►
and ayahuasca, which contains DMT, is not illegal.
00:15:14 ►
So that’s very often an important defense to really make them understand
00:15:20 ►
what the UN perspective is on these things and really going into that whole way of understanding plant material
00:15:30 ►
with naturally occurring molecules versus purified alkaloids.
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Some countries, they have a specific law like France
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where ayahuasca was made illegal in 2005.
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There are some other countries as well.
00:15:43 ►
Some countries also then have, like the US,
00:15:46 ►
they consider ayahuasca being illegal
00:15:47 ►
but then there are some churches
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like the UDV obtained
00:15:52 ►
a permit from the DA
00:15:53 ►
after a 10 year legal process to
00:15:55 ►
legally use ayahuasca in their
00:15:59 ►
ritual
00:16:00 ►
practice.
00:16:02 ►
And also Santo Daime in two states
00:16:04 ►
have an exemption now recently in
00:16:06 ►
Canada as well there was one Church of the Santo Daime in Montreal they
00:16:11 ►
achieved after 15 years of battle legal status along with the UDV so there’s you
00:16:17 ►
know different countries it’s there’s a different situation in Peru for example
00:16:22 ►
it’s also culturally protected in those countries.
00:16:26 ►
Also, like in
00:16:27 ►
Brazil, the church’s religious
00:16:29 ►
use is legally protected.
00:16:33 ►
On our
00:16:34 ►
website of our Ayahuasca Defense Fund,
00:16:36 ►
we have a lot of information about legal
00:16:37 ►
status on a national level
00:16:39 ►
and also international. So, if people are
00:16:41 ►
interested in more information, I would
00:16:43 ►
advise to check the website,
00:16:45 ►
which is defendayahuasca.org.
00:16:47 ►
And then you go to the country by country section,
00:16:49 ►
where every month we update new,
00:16:51 ►
add new countries.
00:16:53 ►
That’s a great place for information.
00:16:55 ►
Do you,
00:16:56 ►
do you have any favorite country where you think they have the best laws
00:16:59 ►
around ayahuasca?
00:17:03 ►
I mean,
00:17:07 ►
you know, it’s Peru, obviously,
00:17:09 ►
is the country where it’s culturally protected and legally protected as well.
00:17:12 ►
You know, so, I mean, of course, that sets an example.
00:17:15 ►
So we organized in the Second World Ayahuasca Conference
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in Brazil, in Rio Branco,
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we did a whole meeting about cultural patrimony protection
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there was a process in Brazil that was
00:17:27 ►
started many years ago which at the end
00:17:30 ►
didn’t work out
00:17:31 ►
to work towards cultural protection
00:17:33 ►
so ideally there is a recognition
00:17:36 ►
of the cultural
00:17:38 ►
value of these practices
00:17:39 ►
and then a legal protection of
00:17:41 ►
the practices
00:17:43 ►
and then decriminalization of use.
00:17:47 ►
So in ICRs, we are anti-prohibitionists in beliefs.
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So prohibitionist politics obviously has really failed.
00:17:57 ►
So the ideal country would kind of combine those three elements.
00:18:03 ►
That makes sense.
00:18:05 ►
And now just to shift a little bit, because it’s also about science in your report, how
00:18:10 ►
do you describe the biochemical method of what’s going on with ayahuasca?
00:18:17 ►
It’s a complex mechanism, and I’m not a scientist myself, I have to say.
00:18:21 ►
We work with scientists, and we have a scientific director who knows much more about that.
00:18:26 ►
But to kind of simply explain it, what happens is that two plants
00:18:32 ►
are boiled together and so now there’s different alkaloids,
00:18:35 ►
active principles present in that brew.
00:18:38 ►
One of them is DMT, dimethyltryptamine, which would be destroyed in the gut
00:18:44 ►
if you would drink it orally.
00:18:47 ►
And so the other alkaloids that are present, which are different MAO inhibitors,
00:18:52 ►
so they inhibit the activity of that enzyme, the MAO enzyme in the gut that would destroy DMT.
00:18:59 ►
So they temporarily block that MAU enzyme from working.
00:19:07 ►
So that allows the DMT to be really absorbed and to reach, you know, the blood and have its effects.
00:19:13 ►
But of course, I believe it’s not that simple in that there’s, you know, an entourage effect going on
00:19:19 ►
and that there’s really, you know, synergy between the different alkaloids present in the plant.
00:19:22 ►
synergy between the different alkaloids present in the plant.
00:19:25 ►
And then
00:19:26 ►
when people are under the effect of
00:19:28 ►
ayahuasca, the experience
00:19:30 ►
lasts several hours.
00:19:32 ►
Sometimes people have
00:19:34 ►
one intake or sometimes a few
00:19:36 ►
cups over the night.
00:19:38 ►
So ceremonies tend to be
00:19:40 ►
three, four, five, six hours and longer.
00:19:44 ►
And it
00:19:44 ►
really induces a kind of introspective
00:19:46 ►
state very much where you know in the peruvian settings for example there’s no light people
00:19:51 ►
really are you know in total darkness and have an inward experience with eyes closed
00:19:55 ►
and so generally people always know that where they are that they ingested ayahuasca so they
00:20:02 ►
don’t really touch that sense and then you, you know, really have their inward journey, you know.
00:20:08 ►
It’s a visionary phase with a lot of emotional charge to the visions.
00:20:13 ►
Sometimes people are confronted with their fears,
00:20:16 ►
which they then, you know, need to overcome or phase in the experience.
00:20:22 ►
Experiences can be very different to different people in different settings
00:20:26 ►
and moments.
00:20:28 ►
So sometimes in the same experience or in the same ritual,
00:20:32 ►
there’s somebody who with the same ayahuasca,
00:20:34 ►
with the same amount has a very strong experience while the other one has a
00:20:39 ►
very light experience.
00:20:40 ►
So it’s really depends very much on the set and setting of course.
00:20:46 ►
And really, you know, there’s there’s i mean everybody is different so it’s very difficult to kind of describe the type
00:20:51 ►
of experience it um it induces but yeah generally what’s what can be said is that there’s a lot of
00:20:56 ►
emotional um stuff moving and linked to visions that people have and also it’s very somatic so
00:21:03 ►
people generally when they throw up,
00:21:05 ►
they kind of release somatic tension
00:21:09 ►
or things that have caused pain physiologically
00:21:12 ►
that might be linked to emotions.
00:21:14 ►
So there’s a lot moving on all kind of dimensions,
00:21:18 ►
both spiritually, physically, and mentally.
00:21:23 ►
It generally impacts people’s lives
00:21:26 ►
and really very often becomes
00:21:29 ►
an important experience to them.
00:21:33 ►
And so, as I said before,
00:21:36 ►
sharing or providing new perspectives
00:21:38 ►
on their lives
00:21:39 ►
and the connection with the universe,
00:21:43 ►
with nature and with themselves.
00:21:46 ►
Wow. It makes a lot of sense. One of the great things about your report, all of those imaging
00:21:51 ►
studies of the brain and all the different places that things are going on, I mean, it’s amazing
00:21:56 ►
how much this plant admixture does. And you also collected a lot of great work about the long-term
00:22:03 ►
mental health and physical pain improvement from ayahuasca.
00:22:07 ►
Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe how that collaborates what you’ve seen in your own life?
00:22:13 ►
It seems like a lot of studies saying people are getting better in all of these different ways.
00:22:18 ►
Yeah, and it’s important to know that in terms of the science that’s available with ayahuasca, there’s quite a lot of science into more of, you know,
00:22:27 ►
how does it work in the body and, you know, psychologically,
00:22:30 ►
what are the risks, you know, for example, blood pressure and heart rate
00:22:34 ►
and all of those things.
00:22:36 ►
So there’s quite a lot of science that was done about that.
00:22:38 ►
And the conclusions of that, which is also a conclusion of the report, is that ayahuasca is an acceptable psychological
00:22:47 ►
and physiological safety profile.
00:22:51 ►
And then on top of that, there’s science into more of the therapeutic effects
00:22:57 ►
and the effects on quality of life.
00:23:01 ►
And indeed, there’s been studies, one that was done,
00:23:04 ►
the principal researcher was
00:23:06 ►
jose carlos bosso our scientific director who looked at quite a big sample in brazil of people
00:23:14 ►
who were drinking ayahuasca for i think it was 15 years about two times a month in their
00:23:19 ►
diamond practice and then compared it with a control group and then replicate it one year later.
00:23:26 ►
And indeed, they’re looking at quality of life, which is improved,
00:23:29 ►
and that’s something we’re kind of generally seeing in our studies.
00:23:34 ►
And even there also there were some cognitive functions that were increasing.
00:23:39 ►
What is important to note is that, you know, of course,
00:23:42 ►
people have been drinking ayahuasca for 15 years.
00:23:45 ►
There might have been dropouts in the way.
00:23:47 ►
People started with the daimyo and then eventually abandoned their practice.
00:23:51 ►
So then after that, we started to research also more people from before the first time they drink ayahuasca and doing a follow-up.
00:23:58 ►
And one of the studies now we have in the Temple of the Way of Light, there’s, I think, about 64% so far of the sample
00:24:06 ►
that are first-time drinkers.
00:24:07 ►
So also that’s going to tell us a lot about, you know,
00:24:11 ►
how people evolve from the first time they drink ayahuasca.
00:24:15 ►
But indeed, you know, we’re seeing very much also
00:24:19 ►
the way people kind of deal with their problems, you know,
00:24:22 ►
and quality of life also very often depends on how you kind of deal with the issues problems no and quality of life also very often depends on
00:24:25 ►
how you kind of deal with the the issues that are going on in your life you know somebody might have
00:24:30 ►
the same problems than you and and that person is quite happy or seems to have a good quality
00:24:35 ►
of life and you’re suffering very much uh from the same issues so it’s also kind of shifting
00:24:40 ►
perspectives on how to relate to all of those issues, I think, you know,
00:24:45 ►
is also something that we’re seeing pretty much.
00:24:48 ►
And then now, of course, even more of the studies with pathologies, you know, like depression,
00:24:54 ►
there’s now a first one that was done in Brazil, which is still going to publication.
00:25:00 ►
It was presented in our last conference where a double-blind placebo-controlled study was done in people with depression
00:25:07 ►
and showing that ayahuasca is more efficient than the placebo effect,
00:25:13 ►
which is an important effect always in research.
00:25:17 ►
So I think in terms of looking into the therapeutic benefits of ayahuasca,
00:25:23 ►
we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg.
00:25:25 ►
And I think there’s a lot to discover.
00:25:28 ►
Also, of course, new studies into neurogenesis that’s created by the hormones in the ayahuasca
00:25:36 ►
vine.
00:25:37 ►
So that might kind of unlock a whole new potential for investigation in reversing kind of neurodegenerative diseases or
00:25:47 ►
things related to memory so yeah we still have to do a lot of research to really
00:25:53 ►
you know understand really the full therapeutic benefits of ayahuasca but what we’re seeing in
00:26:00 ►
in kind of the groups who have their spiritual practice or, you know, in churches
00:26:05 ►
that are using ayahuasca or people that are going through more the shamanic settings,
00:26:10 ►
you know, we’re seeing in the observational research that there is an important increase
00:26:15 ►
in quality of life. Yeah, that makes so much sense. I actually was just reading the paper
00:26:20 ►
from some of your researchers about ayahuasca causing neurogenesis, which is a wild idea that this is growing new brain cells, which would help for depression.
00:26:28 ►
And it kind of speaks to how inadequate it must feel in some ways to be using all of this
00:26:35 ►
reductionist, peer-reviewed science applied to ayahuasca when it’s helpful, but it can never
00:26:41 ►
really capture the whole thing. The stories I’ve heard from people’s healings from ayahuasca is so much more convincing than the science, but the science has to be done.
00:26:51 ►
Yeah. And I think, I mean, I think science is very important because, you know, one thing is
00:26:56 ►
like a case study where you see one person and you’re the story, the anecdotal evidence is very
00:27:00 ►
important as well, no? Because it gives us a sense of what’s going on um but i think
00:27:05 ►
you know from when you start saying you know ayahuasca can help with cancer or with different
00:27:09 ►
things it’s also dangerous because you can give people false expectations uh when they’re you
00:27:15 ►
know in need you know and nothing worked or they are you know really scared sometimes going to that
00:27:20 ►
with certain expectations it might just be um, you know, a few cases that
00:27:26 ►
were reported.
00:27:26 ►
That doesn’t mean that that really works for everybody.
00:27:28 ►
So I think as we kind of promote ayahuasca as, you know, tools for therapeutic use for
00:27:39 ►
different pathologies, I think that’s where science is really important.
00:27:43 ►
And then on the other hand, also kind of more science into safety
00:27:46 ►
and looking into the reality
00:27:48 ►
also observational research I think is
00:27:50 ►
important because it gives us more a sense of the
00:27:52 ►
reality of use
00:27:53 ►
and also how can we, if we
00:27:56 ►
see negative
00:27:58 ►
outcomes, what can we learn
00:28:00 ►
from that and that’s also something we try to do
00:28:02 ►
in our research, like really
00:28:04 ►
if there’s somebody who had,
00:28:06 ►
you know,
00:28:07 ►
a difficult,
00:28:08 ►
challenging experience,
00:28:09 ►
which was maybe not fully,
00:28:10 ►
properly integrated and,
00:28:12 ►
you know,
00:28:12 ►
had some negative impact,
00:28:14 ►
you know,
00:28:14 ►
why did that happen?
00:28:15 ►
What were the,
00:28:15 ►
the factors that played and how can we,
00:28:18 ►
you know,
00:28:18 ►
make things safer in the future?
00:28:20 ►
So,
00:28:21 ►
so,
00:28:22 ►
but yeah,
00:28:22 ►
I mean,
00:28:23 ►
the,
00:28:23 ►
the richness of just the, the human experiences and, and as a filmmaker, but yeah, I mean, the richness of just the human experiences and as a filmmaker,
00:28:27 ►
of course, when I made my film on Iboga, for example, I spent time next to the bed of several
00:28:33 ►
people, you know, some of them had dependency for over 20 years with opiates and other drugs
00:28:40 ►
and then seeing what type of process they went through and and the way they
00:28:45 ►
were talking the next day and you know everything that was kind of coming up in their lives and
00:28:49 ►
emotionally it was you know it was so um convincing and and it seemed so important to me that and that
00:28:57 ►
was really what led me to starting ice years no it was not personal experience i mean i’ve
00:29:02 ►
personal experience but it came a few years
00:29:05 ►
later but initially it was just observing people going through these you know very profound
00:29:11 ►
processes catalyzed by these plants uh and and just seeing that you know with a camera was was
00:29:18 ►
an amazing experience wow so the story convinced you more than the science well i think you’re i
00:29:24 ►
mean your films are as important as a whole pile of peer-reviewed evidence
00:29:28 ►
for making people understand why this is important.
00:29:31 ►
Yeah, they’re complementary.
00:29:34 ►
And there’s also, of course, qualitative research and quantitative research.
00:29:37 ►
So I think all of that plays an important role.
00:29:41 ►
The double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials,
00:29:44 ►
they’re important to advance
00:29:46 ►
things, but I think there’s more to the story than that. And so that’s where the qualitative
00:29:51 ►
research plays a role, and that’s where filmmaking plays a role in really showing those human
00:29:58 ►
experiences. And just seeing the human experiences from the front row as a filmmaker and then presenting my film.
00:30:08 ►
I remember one day where I screened my film being, you know, I was 25, you know, showing my film to 500 women and of, you know, middle, upper class women of 50 plus, quite conservative audience.
00:30:22 ►
And they would see the film and then get angry almost at the end
00:30:25 ►
saying why is there not much research into this and why is this not made available and i was
00:30:29 ►
wondering what you know why is that because at the end we’re talking about a plant which alters
00:30:33 ►
consciousness you know it’s a psychedelic plant it comes from this very weird tradition in gabon
00:30:39 ►
where people you know paint their faces and all of that which can be scary to an audience that
00:30:44 ►
doesn’t really understand very much of
00:30:45 ►
that culture.
00:30:47 ►
But what really triggered them was the human experiences that they saw.
00:30:51 ►
A father with a, was, you know, losing his daughter,
00:30:54 ►
who was 16, a severe heroin and crack addicts, you know,
00:30:58 ►
a destructured family.
00:31:00 ►
And then, you know, through Ibogaine, you know,
00:31:02 ►
needing to do something illegal,
00:31:04 ►
even because in the U.S. Ibogaine is needing to do something illegal, even because in the US Ibogaine is illegal, to kind of help the daughter who now overcame that whole phase in her life.
00:31:14 ►
So just the audience seeing that and relating to that really led me to then start ICS, initially as an educational organization, trying to bring closer the scientific facts and the human experiences to people.
00:31:33 ►
That’s an excellent path. It’s an excellent combination.
00:31:36 ►
And that’s one question I want to ask you, mentioned briefly.
00:31:39 ►
I wanted to ask about harm reduction.
00:31:41 ►
When people ask, what groups of people, when they ask you,
00:31:45 ►
should be cautious about ingesting ayahuasca?
00:31:48 ►
And are there any conditions where people shouldn’t be taking it at all?
00:31:53 ►
Yeah, I mean, like any very powerful tool,
00:31:56 ►
ayahuasca is a very powerful one,
00:31:59 ►
and it can be used on one hand constructively and in a responsible setting,
00:32:04 ►
and on the other hand, it can also be used problematically and cause damage.
00:32:09 ►
So on one hand, the setting, where you are going for your experience is very important.
00:32:15 ►
There’s a lot of information that’s kind of misleading,
00:32:19 ►
and so people really need to do their research.
00:32:22 ►
That would be my first advice.
00:32:24 ►
Do your research and really do your due diligence.
00:32:26 ►
Not really look at places where if you’re going to do it,
00:32:30 ►
that you ask the right questions and really assess
00:32:35 ►
if it’s a responsible setting to have your experience.
00:32:39 ►
And then on the other hand, there’s important exclusion criteria as well.
00:32:44 ►
People with psychotic
00:32:45 ►
history or with personality disorders uh you know you know they’re they can be vulnerable to
00:32:53 ►
having that psychotic episode re-triggered or uh you know different difficult um you know it can
00:33:00 ►
be really distracting their their personality further. So there are mental disorders that are excluded.
00:33:07 ►
And also I think it’s important when people consider having an ayahuasca
00:33:12 ►
or an iboga experience to have an environment where they afterwards can be supported.
00:33:20 ►
So in case it’s a challenging experience where they are faced with, you know, different aspects of themselves or their lives, that they can really, you know, find support and are not just alone after that.
00:33:32 ►
So also the social context, if you compare it to the traditional, you know, more, I mean, the countries of origin with the cultures where these plans are fully integrated, they’re just living in that community is that support no and it’s that integration but in our society very often it’s
00:33:49 ►
stigmatized it’s taboo so sometimes people have their experiences and then afterwards if nobody
00:33:53 ►
to really share the experience or find support if they if they need it so i think also that’s
00:33:59 ►
that’s very important to have to have in place yeah and then you know physiological as i said
00:34:04 ►
ayahuasca is
00:34:05 ►
relatively safe you know you know if you have severe heart conditions i would not
00:34:09 ►
uh you know go for ayahuasca you you cannot combine it with certain medication
00:34:13 ►
because there’s a risk for serotonin syndrome so if you’re taking medication also do your research
00:34:19 ►
um and you know and just understand that ayahuasca can be a very life-changing experience.
00:34:27 ►
It can really have a big impact in one’s life,
00:34:30 ►
so people really should be ready for that.
00:34:33 ►
Sometimes you hear people say,
00:34:35 ►
well, ayahuasca was great for me,
00:34:37 ►
and I think it would be good for you as well.
00:34:39 ►
Why don’t you drink ayahuasca?
00:34:41 ►
I think it’s not good to invite people to do that
00:34:46 ►
and project something that worked for yourself to other people.
00:34:51 ►
And the choice should really come from them,
00:34:52 ►
and really based on a full understanding of what it is they’re getting involved with
00:34:59 ►
and where they are in life,
00:35:01 ►
if it’s a good moment for them to really go for an ayahuasca or an iboga experience.
00:35:06 ►
And then iboga physiologically is more risky.
00:35:09 ►
It produces bradycardia, so it lowers the heart rate and prolongs the QT interval,
00:35:18 ►
which is the repolarization of the heart.
00:35:20 ►
So there are people with heart issues, they cannot take ibogaine.
00:35:23 ►
So there are people with heart issues, they cannot take Ibogaine.
00:35:30 ►
And there’s some more exclusion criteria that really should be taken into account if you’re going to do Iboga.
00:35:31 ►
Yeah. And more so for addiction treatment, where there’s all of other chemicals involved and detoxification is kind of a difficult thing to do.
00:35:41 ►
Yeah.
00:35:45 ►
thing to do. Yeah, I have some friends in the scene around here. And the thing they say is,
00:35:51 ►
if you have a practitioner needs to know how to use cardiac paddles, you know, one, he said,
00:35:55 ►
one time out of 100, you’re going to have a heart incident, especially with vulnerable populations who heart might have been stressed by many years of drug abuse. And don’t go with someone who
00:36:00 ►
is downplaying the risk to somebody’s heart with Ibogaine specifically.
00:36:05 ►
with someone who is downplaying the risk to somebody’s heart with ibgain specifically yeah yeah you know and and that’s where we as a community need to you know organize and and kind
00:36:11 ►
of make sure that the minimum safety standards are um you know raised no there’s it’s a new field
00:36:18 ►
really um you know the there’s a lot of empirical knowledge that people have generated over the
00:36:23 ►
years and and providers who had more incidents in the past have now way less or none.
00:36:29 ►
And that’s all based on learning and also making mistakes.
00:36:32 ►
But collectively, I think we have learned a lot.
00:36:35 ►
Still, there’s, you know, people who kind of underestimate the difficulty of working,
00:36:40 ►
you know, doing addiction treatment and then, you know, just start working with iboga
00:36:44 ►
and they’re really not prepared to do so. So I think also education, I mean, you know,
00:36:50 ►
compare, generally psychedelics are substances that people take, you know, they get a substance,
00:36:56 ►
maybe they have a sitter, they, you know, they take psychedelics. In this case, very generally,
00:37:00 ►
we see that people go to a ceremony, they go to a facilitator, it’s a shaman or it’s a therapeutic center.
00:37:07 ►
So there’s a whole other thing that becomes involved
00:37:09 ►
because you now put your life in the hands of somebody else.
00:37:13 ►
So what are the skills of that person?
00:37:17 ►
Does that person really have the knowledge
00:37:19 ►
to lead you through that experience?
00:37:22 ►
And so there’s important due diligence
00:37:24 ►
that people really have to do when
00:37:26 ►
they,
00:37:26 ►
you know,
00:37:26 ►
put their lives in the hands of somebody else.
00:37:30 ►
Yeah.
00:37:31 ►
You are responsible.
00:37:33 ►
Absolutely.
00:37:35 ►
And thank you so much for,
00:37:36 ►
for sharing and for your work on education before we let you go.
00:37:39 ►
I just wanted to ask what projects you have going on right now.
00:37:43 ►
They’re most exciting.
00:37:44 ►
And for the people listening at
00:37:45 ►
home that want to follow more about your work or want to support it financially with their time
00:37:50 ►
what would you recommend yeah so on one hand we you know as I said we have the ayahuasca defense
00:37:56 ►
fund which is a program that’s always ongoing we have you know we’re going to release next month
00:38:02 ►
annual reports from the first year since it was officially established, the Ayahuasca Defense Fund.
00:38:09 ►
So that’s a program that always requires funding to continue working with cases worldwide.
00:38:16 ►
So if people want to support that, they can go to defendayahuasca.org
00:38:20 ►
and do a donation there and also read more about the work we’re doing,
00:38:25 ►
which is not just legal defense.
00:38:27 ►
It’s not just ayahuasca.
00:38:28 ►
It’s also, you know, most of the cases that come in are related to ayahuasca.
00:38:32 ►
But we have one case also around mambe, the traditional coca leaf,
00:38:36 ►
you know, preparation that is made in Colombia, which, you know, is illegal.
00:38:42 ►
Unfortunately, coca is very stigmatized in the illegal plan.
00:38:46 ►
So we’ve defended cases around that.
00:38:48 ►
Peyote, San Pedro as well, Iboga.
00:38:51 ►
So that’s one of the big programs we have
00:38:54 ►
where we both educate about legality of these practices worldwide
00:39:00 ►
and also then support and work with people who are prosecuted
00:39:03 ►
and really try to kind of shift the challenge of being in that situation
00:39:09 ►
to also an opportunity to really educate judges and prosecutors
00:39:13 ►
and authorities about what they really have at hand.
00:39:18 ►
So that’s one big program we have.
00:39:23 ►
Then we’re developing some other lines
00:39:26 ►
of work,
00:39:28 ►
but they are still
00:39:30 ►
in a more initial phase
00:39:32 ►
around the community model, which
00:39:34 ►
we are working on.
00:39:37 ►
Also, we’ve been doing
00:39:38 ►
workshops with
00:39:40 ►
community to really assess
00:39:42 ►
what does legal harm
00:39:44 ►
reduction look like,
00:39:45 ►
best practices, and so forth.
00:39:48 ►
So we work a lot also with community to collectively kind of explore
00:39:53 ►
the challenges that are currently arising and how we push that forward.
00:39:58 ►
And then we have several scientific research programs that we are doing.
00:40:02 ►
We’re working on one Ibogaine study that we want to do.
00:40:06 ►
We have a few projects that are ongoing.
00:40:09 ►
As I said, the observational research project at the Temple of Way of the Light,
00:40:15 ►
where I think by now we have about 600 people are enrolled.
00:40:18 ►
So it’s quite a bit, it’s a big study.
00:40:22 ►
And yeah, then, you know, we’ve been this year really kind of you know slowing down a bit
00:40:27 ►
to then accelerate again and and really you know having an in-depth look at the structure of ice
00:40:34 ►
here is that you know the the way we uh kind of are organized and the directions we’re taking to
00:40:39 ►
really kind of crystallize that out after you know the first years of growth that we have we’re still a small foundation um so so yeah we’re also at this point looking very much for core support for the
00:40:50 ►
organization uh which allows us to you know have a solid basis to kind of build on and then also the
00:40:57 ►
the next big conference uh to expect um is going to be the the world Ayahuasca Conference in 2019. We are now looking into and we’re looking still at the place.
00:41:09 ►
So I think also in a few months,
00:41:10 ►
we’ll be ready to announce where that’s going to happen.
00:41:14 ►
So also we’d invite everybody to join us.
00:41:18 ►
The last two editions were really fascinating.
00:41:21 ►
In Brazil, we had like 170 indigenous participants it was very multicultural
00:41:27 ►
and and really also you know for me a very rich professional experiences just to learn from their
00:41:34 ►
perspectives their their needs their worries uh you know their wisdom them as well and then
00:41:39 ►
kind of you know how that fits more in the global picture around ayahuasca globalization that’s beautiful
00:41:46 ►
so yeah these are a few you know projects uh we have some more smaller things ongoing we also do
00:41:52 ►
some work around cannabis in catalonia you know we have the cannabis social club model uh so we
00:41:58 ►
are very active here as well in um you know advocacy and and kind of more the drug policy reform work.
00:42:07 ►
That’s good.
00:42:09 ►
Yeah, it seems like Spain has the most sane model for cannabis going on.
00:42:14 ►
Yeah, it’s a very interesting model
00:42:16 ►
because it’s a non-profit user, private user association model.
00:42:21 ►
And now the Catalan parliament just voted,
00:42:23 ►
I think 118 votes of the 129 in favor of fully regulating the model.
00:42:31 ►
And so it is, in a way, a community model,
00:42:34 ►
which is based on you becoming a member,
00:42:35 ►
and it’s not kind of more the capitalist model
00:42:40 ►
of making cannabis available.
00:42:46 ►
So, yeah, it’s a very interesting reality.
00:42:49 ►
We’re very close to it.
00:42:50 ►
We did the CannabMed conference as well here in Catalonia,
00:42:55 ►
bringing together patients who are using cannabis.
00:42:59 ►
So, you know, this model kind of also allows those people
00:43:03 ►
to have access to cannabis in moments where there’s no official medical cannabis program available, which we hope is going to change in the near future.
00:43:12 ►
So it’s an interesting reality, along with the fact that drug use and possession of quantities for personal use is decriminalized here in Spain, like in Portugal.
00:43:21 ►
Everybody knows about Portugal, but here it’s really never been criminalized.
00:43:29 ►
And then there’s something called the collective purchase or collective use,
00:43:34 ►
where groups of users together can have a collective supply,
00:43:39 ►
so that would not be considered drug trafficking,
00:43:42 ►
but just personal use in a shared, in a community way.
00:43:45 ►
So there’s a few interesting bases at drug policy here in Spain,
00:43:50 ►
and there’s a very active civil society.
00:43:51 ►
So, you know, it’s good.
00:43:54 ►
It’s a good environment to be in and kind of think about improving drug policy
00:43:58 ►
away from prohibition and law enforcement approaches.
00:44:03 ►
Excellent.
00:44:04 ►
So for everyone listening out there,
00:44:06 ►
you hear this is excellent work.
00:44:07 ►
If you go to an ayahuasca ceremony
00:44:09 ►
a couple of times a year
00:44:10 ►
and spend a couple of hundred dollars on that,
00:44:12 ►
you can afford to send some money to ICERS
00:44:14 ►
and the Ayahuasca Defense Fund
00:44:16 ►
to support this work.
00:44:18 ►
Benjamin DeLunen,
00:44:19 ►
thank you so much for your work
00:44:20 ►
and for taking the time to talk to us.
00:44:22 ►
It’s very appreciated.
00:44:23 ►
Thank you so much.
00:44:24 ►
And if people need information also, if they’re thinking about having an
00:44:28 ►
experience with ayahuasca or iboga, on our website, icehears.org, there’s a lot of information,
00:44:33 ►
both for people seeking experiences as for their relatives as well, and understanding better,
00:44:38 ►
you know, why their relatives are doing ayahuasca and everything that comes with it. So there’s,
00:44:43 ►
I think there’s a lot of valuable information that people can find useful. Talk to your family about plant medicines.
00:44:50 ►
All right. Thank you so much, Lex. Thank you.