Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines is a registered California 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (EIN 84-3076078). We are a community-oriented organization run by a small staff of experts and enthusiastic volunteers who work to bring education and cultural understanding about psychedelic plant medicines to a wider audience. We promote a bridge between the ceremonial use of sacred plants and psychedelic science and envisage a world where plant medicines and other psychedelics are preserved, protected, and valued as part of our cultural identity and integrated into our social, legal, and health care systems.
Help us to achieve our mission! From our beginnings in 2017, we have stood apart from other psychedelic education and advocacy organizations by pioneering initiatives that support and provide a platform for diverse voices, including women, queer people, people of color, Indigenous people, and the Global South. In efforts to address the lack of diverse representation in the expanding psychedelic landscape, we centered our mission around the empowerment of marginalized voices to foster cultural and political reflections on topics like race, gender, and sexuality in psychedelic science. We believe now more than ever, given the current social and political climate, our work is critical to the future of psychedelic healing for humanity.
Please become a member so that you are able to help Chacruna, yourself, and the world. Support of any amount helps this cause and allows us to provide psychedelic education to anyone who wants to access it.
Simon Ruffell, et.al. provide a systematic review of the pharmacological interaction of chemical compounds in ayahuasca. The researchers wanted to better understand which chemicals in ayahuasca are required to achieve positive outcomes, questions remain regarding which components are essential, how they interact, and what happens if they are removed.
Chacruna Institute and Sacred Plant Alliance have filed an amicus brief in support of Iowaska Church of Healing in their suit against the Internal Revenue Service. They are nonprofit organizations providing research, education, and advocacy regarding the rights of churches like Plaintiff-Appellant to practice their sincere beliefs under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”).
Our new Chacruna series will highlight the global history of psychedelics. It will highlight some of the dynamic ways that historic traditions, cultures, and research spaces have contributed to the field of psychedelics, as well as raise questions about whose knowledge and expertise has been centered through time.
The United Nations has played a significant historical role in the control of psychedelic drugs worldwide. 2023's World Drug Report marks a renewed interest in psychotropic substances on the part of the international governing body.
Psychedelic Science 2023 brought together 12,000 registrants in Denver, Colorado, four times as many people as the previous conference in 2017, crowning the movement to rehabilitate psychedelics for therapeutic use against depression and other disorders. Science unveils unsuspected mechanisms of brain reconfiguration and ends decades of research bans imposed by the war on drugs, but serious obstacles remain to be overcome.
Wednesday, July 26th, 2023 from 12:00-1:30pm PST
Register for this event here.
Colorado’s Proposition 122 passed in November of 2022 and, signed into law by Colorado Governor...
At a Chacruna retreat in Brazil, Marcelo Leite and other team members took part in a feitio ayahuasca ritual at a Santo Daime church. Leite describes the steps of the ceremony and his experience.
Transgender activist, Taylor Bolinger, reflects on her experience navigating the psychedelic community in Texas. Using Spinozan naturalism as a baseline, Bolinger discusses gendered embodiment and the significance of ritual.
In partnership with leading ayahuasca experts, the Chacruna Institute published an article in the Journal of Psychedelic Studies in response to the DEA's 2020 ayahuasca report.
Wednesday, July 5th, 2023 from 12:00-1:30pm PST
Register for this event here.
BIPOC folks face a number of challenges to achieve the radical healing promised via psychedelic-assisted...