Jasmine Virdi, writing for Psychedelics Today:
As the use of ayahuasca becomes increasingly widespread, the Amazonian vine has extended its roots beyond the traditional indigenous and religious contexts of South America, lending itself to a newly evolving field of practice. However, the economic viability of ayahuasca ceremonies combined with the vine’s complicated legal status opens the field to a plurality of malpractice, particularly when it comes to what practitioners actually serve in the cup.
Since it is a plant medicine, ayahuasca naturally varies in quality (including differences in strength, chemical makeup, psychoactive and physical effect, and taste) depending on the plants that are used, where those plants come from, the skill of the person concocting the brew, and other factors. To better understand this phenomenon, researchers from Estonia and Brazil analyzed the differences in ayahuasca brews from multiple traditions:
Their study, yet to be published, analyzed changing distributions of DMT, harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine (THH) across 102 ayahuasca samples. These samples were taken from different locations in Europe and Brazil, spanning across different traditions including indigenous shamanic, Santo Daime, and neo-shamanic.
Interesting tendencies emerged based on the traditions from which the samples came, with indigenous brews showing a balanced ratio between the concentrations of DMT, THH, and harmine. Samples that came from the ayahuasca religion, Santo Daime, also showed a similar balance between chemical compounds, although some brews tended towards increased concentrations of DMT.
However, when it came to brews received from neo-shamanic facilitators of different backgrounds, there was notably more variation between chemical constituents, and on average, they contained substantially greater concentrations of DMT than indigenous brews.
This study found that the ayahuasca brewed in indigenous communities and the Santo Daime church is more consistent than the brews made by neo-shamans. Perhaps not surprisingly, neo-shamanic brews are more likely to include additional additives and contaminants, and some neo-shamans are effectively creating a counterfeit product and attempting to pass it off as legitimate ayahuasca. That’s because so-called “anahuasca” and “pharmahuasca” brews are not made from traditional plants but instead use different plants, fungi, or pharmaceutical drugs to imitate the effects of classical ayahuasca. Interestingly, this practice is virtually nonexistent within more established ayahuasca traditions:
Comparatively, there was no counterfeit ayahuasca found among disciplined ayahuasca traditions such as the Santo Daime and among indigenous practitioners. In South America in general, the raw materials to make ayahuasca are both abundant and affordable, removing any incentive to replace them with other plants or pharmaceuticals.
Kronman argues that “we as a community [need to] work to develop self-regulating mechanisms that foster and encourage transparent practices” and I agree. The issue is not that alternative brews should be avoided altogether (I’m all for responsible psychoactive experimentation), but rather that people who drink ayahuasca should always be informed about the specific plants that were used in the brew, and they should absolutely steer clear of drinking with facilitators who aren’t fully transparent about what is in their ayahuasca brew or act offended when asked what ingredients are in it.
