Health Canada is threatening to prosecute a Vancouver physician successfully using the Amazonian plant medicine ayahuasca to treat addiction. In a two-page letter sent last week, Johanne Beaulieu, director of Ottawa's Office of Controlled Substances, reminded Gabor Mate that mere possession of ayahuasca is illegal under Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Unless he immediately ceased all activities relating to the substances involved, the letter warned, the RCMP would be notified. Dr. Mate, a family practitioner who specializes in addiction, said he will reluctantly comply with the order. [continues 548 words]
How A Mind-Bending Plant-based Drug Made Its Way From The Amazon Jungle To The Us Supreme Court Every tree, every plant, has a spirit. People may say that a plant has no mind. I tell them that a plant is alive and conscious. A plant may not talk, but there is a spirit in it that is conscious, that sees everything, which is the soul of the plant, its essence, what makes it alive. - Pablo Amaringo, Peruvian ayahuasquero In 1984, a young Ph.D. student at Stanford University named Jeremy Narby travelled to the Peruvian Amazon to conduct field research for his thesis in anthropology. Raised in Canada and Switzerland, Narby lived for two years with Peru's Ashaninca tribes, and had read accounts of the remarkable healing abilities of their shamans. [continues 4989 words]
On the walls of dozens of caves in southern France and northern Spain lie some of the most majestic works of art ever painted. Drawn 25,000 to 40,000 years ago, the paintings have puzzled anthropologists since they were discovered more than four decades ago. Where did this astonishing display of talent come from? Why did these prehistoric societies decide to paint these scenes in such remote locations? And what inspired them to paint the strange array of bisons, horses and therianthropes (part animal, part man)? [continues 1085 words]
