Regulating Ayahuasca: The Global Policy Landscape

“Ayahuasca is legal in Peru, legal for specific religious organizations in the US, unregulated in many European jurisdictions, and globally subject to growing tourism demand that traditional communities did not design.”

Ayahuasca occupies a unique position in global drug law. The active compound DMT is Schedule I under the US Controlled Substances Act and under the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances. But the ayahuasca preparation occupies a legal gray area because UN conventions specifically regulate isolated chemicals rather than plant preparations.

Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador have recognized ayahuasca as legitimate indigenous cultural heritage and have not criminalized its ceremonial use. The Netherlands, which does not classify the plants as controlled substances, has become a hub for European ayahuasca retreat activity.

In the US, four religious organizations hold DEA exemptions under RFRA. All other ayahuasca use lacks federal legal cover, though prosecution has been very rare in practice.

Schultes documented ayahuasca as a practice embedded in specific Amazonian indigenous communities with specific ceremonial roles, practitioner roles, preparation methods, and integration frameworks. What has developed globally since 1990 is a commercialized form that has stripped most of this context.

The policy problem is not only legal. It is what happens to a knowledge tradition when it is commercialized faster than the communities holding it can consent to, benefit from, or shape the commercialization. The knowledge is now being accessed faster than it can be protected.

Sources

• Schultes & Hofmann Plants of the Gods (1979)
• Mindmedicinelaw.com (2026)
• ICEERS Foundation Reports (2024)