e use of ayahuasca among rubber tappers of the Alto Juruá

Abstract

This chapter presents the Brazilian Federal Narcotics Board, concerning the brew called ayahuasca, known in Brazil by the names 'Daime', 'Santo Daime' or 'Vegetal'. It evaluates a decade of non-policing government monitoring of ayahuasca use, in order to promote, from this pioneer experience, the adoption or modification of just public policies that are directed to the question of drugs, ordinarily subject to multiple peculiarities. The chapter convinces that the cost-benefit analysis of the drug problem is fundamentally resolved on the cultural level. It emphasizes that a developed and mature understanding with reference to drugs cannot accept a simple mechanistic point of view, like that of pharmacological determinism. The Uniao do Vegetal (UDV) has expressed that they do not see the brew as an end in itself, but as a vehicle in a path of much sacrifice and austerity. Nevertheless, ayahuasca is itself an important element for the communities that use it, since it is an instrument for achieving spiritual goals.