Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca (caapi, yage, vegetal) is a plant-based hallucinogen that users ingest as a drink containing a combination of plant products. Although formulations vary, the two essential components are the bark of the vine Banisteriopsis caapi and the leaves of Psychotria viridis. The active ingre­dients provided by this combination are the beta carbolines harmine and harmaline, and DMT (see previous section). This combination produces a period of intense nausea and vomiting, a period of anxiety or fear, fol­lowed by an intense hallucinatory and dissociative experience. The hallu­cinations are predominantly visual, although users report increased sensitivity to sensory stimuli also. Users frequently experience the disso­ciation common to other hallucinogens and a profound sense of insight. The experience lasts a number of hours.

Ethnobotanists including Richard Schultes documented use of this drug by indigenous peoples of the Amazon that probably goes back centuries. The Beat writer William Burroughs recorded his experiences with this drug in The Yage Letters, and the sixties generation learned about it from The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda. Use of aya huasca has migrated to the United States from South American religious groups like the Uniao do Vegetal (UDV) and Santo Daime that have revitalized the once common use of this drug by native shamans for magico-religious purposes, such as healing and divination. Unlike many hallucinogens, ayahuasca is almost never used recreationally, but more typically as a pharmacologic aid to per­sonal insight and enlightenment.

SALVIA DIVINORUM

Indians of Mexico use a plant called Salvia divinoruin (a rare member of the mint family) for religious purposes, and it has generated some curios­ity in the United States mainly because it is not yet illegal. Indians chew the leaves, but in the United States, people more typically smoke the leaves. Salvia causes an intense and sometimes unpleasant hallucinatory experience that lasts about an hour. Users report a unique experience that resembles neither LSD nor other hallucinogens. This drug is more likely than other hallucinogens to produce an unpleasant experience due to its novel mechanism of action, and so repeated use is somewhat unusual. The active agent is probably a compound called Salvinorin A, the second most potent hallucinogen known after LSD. A smoked dose of as little as 200 to 500 micrograms produces hallucinations.