Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines & Hoots, A. (2021). Guide to RFRA and Best Practices for Psychedelic Plant Medicine Churches. San Francisco, CA: Chacruna...

This is a community alert about the seizures of sacred plants and arrests by law enforcement that have been increasing across the US, most of which have been in religious and ceremonial settings of indigenous peoples. Chacruna is taking action to provide free education, resources, and support of other organizations who are also advocating for the protection of sacred plants.

https://youtu.be/BnaYwqsxkbk Now, the California legislature is on the verge of becoming the first legislative body to fully decriminalize several psychedelic substances. The psychedelic revolution is in...

On August 25, 2020, a proposal presented in Colombia’s Congress to regulate coca and its derivatives, including cocaine, made history. This article dispels the equation of coca and cocaine; highlights the sacredness of the plant to Indigenous Americas; analyzes the underlying questions of the legislative proposal; and discusses the new economic models and regulation of coca.

One of the psychoactive mushrooms described by Gordon Wasson in LIFE magazine (1957) is today an endangered species. This article describes how mycologists located the fungus Conocybe siligeneoides in the Sierra Mazateca of Oaxaca (Mexico).

Mexico is currently debating ritual and traditional uses, as well as non-Indigenous and therapeutic uses of entheogens. During the past year, two legal reform proposals have been introduced to Mexico’s drug policy reform landscape. One of which is focused on the reclassification of psilocybin mushrooms and peyote, and the second is a request for legal consumption of the same sacred plants. This article describes the initiatives’ intentions, analyzes the proposals’ impact on the landscape for drug reform, and highlights the importance of a multicultural and human rights perspective, especially for the protection of Indigenous peoples’ rights.

In February 2021, the Church of the Eagle and Condor (CEC) and the Chacruna Institute joined forces to initiate the “Ayahuasca Religious Freedom Initiative.” On March 16, 2021, lawyers for the CEC and Chacruna Institute filed Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests on U.S. Customs Border Patrol and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. This article reviews the insights gained from the government’s disclosures, or lack thereof, to the Initiative’s public records requests.

For four years, Soul Quest and their lawyers petitioned for Religious Freedom Restoration Exemption against the DEA for interfering with ayahuasca ceremonies. On April 16, 2021, the DEA’s Diversion Control Division denied their petition to carry on its ayahuasca ceremonies legally. This article describes key takeaways on the DEA’s denial, the impacts for the larger ayahuasca community, and the road ahead.

“The Right to Try Act” gives patients with life-threatening diseases a way to access investigational drugs that are not yet approved by the FDA. The Advanced Integrative Medical Science Institute, a Seattle-based palliative care clinic, has partnered with a patient rights attorney to appeal the DEA to be able to provide psilocybin-assisted therapy for two of their patients with life-threatening diseases.

In recent times, there has been more advances in medical research on cannabis. Francisco Savoi de Arauja and Mauro Machado Chaiben demystify the modalities that go beyond the medical model. They primarily focus on the political need to decriminalize marijuana, and include references to the religious and social uses of marijuana by Rastafarian culture, Santo Daime religion, and “Cannabis Social Clubs.”