The Expansion of Brazilian Ayahuasca Religions: Law, Culture, and Locality - Kevin Feeney

Brazilian ayahuasca religions like Santo Daime and Uniao do Vegetal have experienced significant international growth since the 1980s. This expansion highlights a fundamental conflict between traditional cultural practices and international drug control frameworks. Inflexible global drug conventions often fail to accommodate these syncretic traditions because they rely on rigid, biomedical, and geographically bounded definitions of drug use. Such legal frameworks are poorly equipped to handle the realities of modern transnational communities, whose adherence to ritual practices often transcends specific political borders. By mandating that ayahuasca must be sourced from its native Amazonian ecosystems, these legal requirements can inadvertently entrench a dependence on international importation, which complicates the legal status of religious groups operating in non-native jurisdictions.