Artistic rendition of hallucination while on Ayahuasca

Ayahuasca is quite possibly the most intense and powerful hallucinogen known. Although the hallucinations induced by the substance can be pleasant, some people experience nightmarish visions that last for hours. The agony, Weiskopf says, is part of the allure. “You get these near death experiences,” he says. “And once you see life from the perspective of death, you become a bit more philosophical and have a better sense of what’s important and what’s not.”

I wish I can share with you the interviews I have conducted of  individuals who have experienced Ayahuasca; however This National Geographic article does a decent job describing one of those significant “trips”.

Peru: To Hell and Back [National Geographic article]

The encyclopedia of psychoactive substances [ethnopharmacology]

Do you do drugs? Realizing I get this question about twice a week, I wanted to have a meaningful discourse and give an example of the most interesting hallucinogen I have studied. I sincerely believe the real enemy is misconstrued through our media & propaganda machine, the medical industrial complex, and the individuals who declared a war on drugs, not the individuals that use them. I can write with confidence, as a student and educator of ethnic studies, that demonizing and attaching terms like ‘delinquency’ to certain types of natural drug-use is an act of cultural genocide. My enemy is the pharmaceutical companies and the lawmakers who profit off of both encroaching on and the marginalizing of people’s right to their traditions and cultural heritage.