Pubdate: Mon, 14 Nov 2011
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2011 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Richard Meech
Note: Richard Meech is an award-winning documentary filmmaker whose 
film, Vine of the Soul: Encounters with Ayahuasca, was released in 2010.
Bookmark: http://www.http://mapinc.org/topic/ayahuasca

DON'T SHUT THE DOOR ON NATURE'S OWN PHARMACY

Vancouver physician Gabor Mate - the subject of a recent CBC 
documentary on his use of the Amazonian plant medicine ayahuasca to 
treat addicts - has drawn the wrath of Health Canada. Facing threats 
of criminal prosecution if he didn't stop immediately, Dr. Mate has 
complied, of course. But he has said he will seek an exemption to 
continue with his treatments.

Putting aside for the moment all the legal and public policy issues 
that surround the use of a psychotropic medicine, we shouldn't lose 
sight of the larger context. We have to ask ourselves how open we are 
as a society to other modes of healing - especially from cultures so 
far from our own.

Ayahuasca is a sacred shamanic medicine from the Amazon, used for 
centuries by indigenous and mestizo peoples to heal all manner of 
psychological and spiritual ills. It has, in the past few decades, 
found its way out of the Amazon into ceremonial use throughout the 
Western world. Used in the right context and guided by experienced 
practitioners, it is achieving impressive success in alleviating 
suffering from addictions, depression and several other 
psycho-spiritual afflictions.

We know that many of our most sophisticated medicines in the West 
have their origins in the indigenous knowledge of plants. We have no 
trouble with that.

In fact, pharmaceutical companies are always scouring the rain 
forests for new plant medicines that, with a genetic twist, they can 
turn into patented products. Nature's cornucopia is vast, but it's 
the knowledge of how to use these plant medicines that is the wisdom 
and strength of the indigenous shaman. It would be the height of 
arrogance and ignorance on our part not to recognize the scientific 
knowledge accumulated over millenniums from people who are not Western.

Ayahuasca is an astonishing brew made from two different plants that 
don't even grow anywhere near one another. Its creation is a feat of 
extraordinary pharmacological inventiveness - especially when you 
consider there are more than 80,000 different plant species to choose 
from. The knowledge of how to use ayahuasca is passed down through 
apprentices, and some of these apprentices are now from the West. 
With the arrival of ayahuasca, the Western medicine cabinet has just 
expanded, and we shouldn't lose the opportunity to learn more about 
its benefits.

In fact, the vast majority of Westerners who drink ayahuasca either 
in the Amazon or abroad are not going for addiction treatments: They 
are seeking self-knowledge. They are more spiritual pilgrims than 
medical patients. Traditional ayahuasca ceremonies provide the safe 
and guided context to enter into an expanded state of awareness where 
participants lift the veil on ordinary reality - freed temporarily 
from the ceaseless chatter of the busy mind - and experience a deeper 
connection to the world around them. For many, this leads to a 
spiritual epiphany, a state of being described as "ineffable," what 
religious people would call a mystical experience.

Well, that's powerful medicine, by anyone's standards.

At the core of all Twelve-Step programs for any addiction, it is the 
spiritual connection to a "higher power" that is the ultimate key to 
sobriety. Ayahuasca is ultimately a plant-based technology of the 
sacred and must be used with great care and respect because it allows 
people to access the most vulnerable and precious part of themselves 
- - their true natures. Historically, we have always seen this as an 
area of religious inquiry, and we find it hard to imagine it could be 
available through indigenous knowledge of nature's own pharmacy.

To be fair to Health Canada, they have opened the door a crack in this regard.

They have already granted a conditional exemption for the 
"sacramental" use of ayahuasca for a Montreal chapter of the 
Brazilian religion called Santo Daime. But that's because the burden 
of proof for a religious exemption is lower than that required for 
"medical" use - years of scientific testing, double-blind studies etc.

So I wonder, just wonder, if Dr. Mate and his shamanic practitioners 
were to present their case to Health Canada as a sacramental use of 
ayahuasca, might they have a better chance of receiving an exemption? 
The centuries of shamanic use of ayahuasca within the Vegetalismo 
tradition has been recognized by the Peruvian government as part of 
the national heritage.

But that could put Dr. Mate in a tricky position, since he could no 
longer be the medical doctor offering therapeutic help, but more of a 
priestly figure offering spiritual guidance. That, of course, is what 
shamans and good doctors are supposed to be - healers of body, mind 
and spirit, the whole person. I notice Dr. Mate always wears black.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom