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.
Analysis of ayahuasca DNA by geneticists confirms lineages known to traditional users that might be three different species: tucunacá, caupuri, and pajezinho. This study represents a corroboration of traditional Indigenous knowledge with Western science.
May 22nd – August 21st 2023, 10am-12pm PST/1pm-3pm EST
Price $700
Price $300 for CE credits
This course will be taught by leading experts in the field...
Last week, Chacruna brought to light the Drug Enforcement Agency's 2020 report on ayahuasca and its risks to health and safety. In the report, the DEA overestimates the risks of ayahuasca and underestimates its therapeutic potential.
On February 13, 2023, the DEA released a single document to the legal team representing the Church of the Eagle and the Condor (“CEC”). This risk assessment document concludes that ayahuasca is a risk to public health and safety and conflates dimethyltryptamine (“DMT”) with ayahuasca.
Wednesday, April 26th, 2023 from 12:00-1:30pm PST
Register for this event here.
This event is a partnership between Chacruna and Sociedade Brasileira de Genética Regional Leste.
This community...
What impact did Chacruna's Ayahuasca Community Guide for the Awareness of Sexual Abuse have within the psychedelic community? 745 individuals were surveyed and the results are now available, including a summary of behavioural changes resulting from the survey.
Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines has published a new article, “A Call for Public Support Against the Current Demonization of Ayahuasca Practices in Spain,” standing in solidarity with 110 thought leaders around the world in support of ayahuasca groups in Spain, as well as Europe in general. Together, they call for a serious discussion and the reconsideration of ayahuasca’s status in Spain, where its use has been increasingly repressed, and they urge authorities to respect the religious freedoms of ayahuasca groups.
Recent fallout from a YouTuber's infiltration of a Santo Daime group in Spain has brought to the forefront the need to destigmatize ayahuasca use. In response, scholars, researchers, NGOs, and members of ayahuasca groups have united to fight for the religious freedom of the use of ayahuasca. This call, signed by members of the psychedelic community, outlines the situation and steps that need to be taken to honour religious and ethnic minorities' use of ayahuasca and other psychedelic medicines.
A Canadian company, Filament Health, plans to develop ayahuasca pills. These pills promise to provide a standardized ayahuasca experience, but what does the commodification of ayahuasca mean for ethical consumption. Indigenous peoples with cultural and spiritual connections to ayahuasca need to be given the opportunity to provide full consent.