The Ayahuasca Churches: From Brazil to the Supreme Court

“The União do Vegetal won at the Supreme Court in 2006. The case was unanimous. The opinion was written by Chief Justice Roberts. It is the most important legal precedent for psychedelic religious freedom in American history.”

The União do Vegetal (UDV) is a Brazilian syncretic religion founded in 1961 by José Gabriel da Costa, known as Mestre Gabriel, in Porto Velho. Its sacrament is hoasca, ayahuasca, consumed in ritual ceremonies presided over by trained mestres. The UDV has approximately 20,000 members in Brazil and several thousand in the United States.

In 1999, DEA agents raided the UDV's New Mexico temple and seized hoasca, charging the organization with violation of the Controlled Substances Act. The UDV sued, arguing that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) protected their sacramental use of hoasca.

The case reached the Supreme Court as Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal. On February 21, 2006, the Court ruled unanimously in favor of the UDV. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion: the government had not demonstrated a compelling interest that overrode the UDV's sincere religious use of hoasca under RFRA. The government's arguments, that DMT is Schedule I and that allowing UDV use would undermine drug control generally, were rejected as insufficient to meet RFRA's compelling interest standard.

The Gonzales ruling is the bedrock of American psychedelic religious freedom law. It established that RFRA protects sincere religious psychedelic use from the Controlled Substances Act, and that the government must demonstrate a compelling interest by least restrictive means before overriding such use.

As of 2026, four US organizations have DEA exemptions for ayahuasca: the UDV (SCOTUS 2006), Santo Daime (9th Circuit 2009), the Iowaska Church of Healing (DEA settlement 2024), and the Church of Gaia (first non-litigation DEA approval, May 2025). All other ayahuasca ceremonies in the US operate without federal legal protection, though prosecution is rare. McKenna's DMT visions, which he described in True Hallucinations, are the experiential territory these legal battles have been fought over.

Sources

• Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal (2006)
• Beyer, Singing to the Plants (2009)
• Mindmedicinelaw.com, Psychedelic Legal Status (2026)