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Joseph Topper
Professor Sims
SPAN 0082
10 December 2019
The Impact of Psychedelics in Indigenous Latin American Culture
Humans have been utilizing psychoactive compounds in plants for hundreds, if not
thousands of years. These compounds, often used medicinally or ritualistically, were used as a
‘tool’ compared to the modern recreational use of psychedelic compounds. Although these
cultures would be repulsed at the thought of these compounds as “drugs” in the Western sense,
the psychedelic compounds themselves are often isolated and consumed outside of traditional
experiences. From iboga trees in western Africa to the peyote cactus used in Native American
ceremonies, many of these cultures find these experiences to be spiritual and cleansing,
especially an ayahuasca journey in Latin America. While we don’t exactly understand the
mechanism in which these compounds work, they have an incredible impact not only on the
world of pharmacological science but the world of human evolution.
The pharmacology of ayahuasca (or rather, the active ingredient dimethyltryptamine) is
similar to that of other psychedelics, including psilocybin and MDMA. All hallucinogenic drugs
work as agonists at 5-HT2A receptors, which leads to an increase in the brain chemical
serotonin. Scientists believe the increase in this chemical, along with increases in dopamine and
norepinephrine, is what causes the profound visual hallucinations. DMT is inactive orally, so it
either must be vaporized/smoked or paired with a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) and
ingested to become orally active. Traditional ayahuasca brews contain a mix of Psychotria
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viridis
, which contains DMT, and Banisteriopsis caapi
, which contains alkaloids which act as
monoamine oxidase inhibitors.
The duration of an ayahuasca journey is what differs from “Western” consumption of
DMT; the effects of vaporized DMT can last anywhere from 10-20 minutes whereas ayahuasca
journeys can be upwards of 6-8 hours. This long duration is often the reason why these journeys
are considered to be healing and purging. The use of shamans as a “guiding force” is also
attributed to the cleansing effects of ayahuasca.
Ayahuasca Shaman Alberto Manqueriapa said that ayahuasca “is not taken out of
curiosity. The ayahuasca must be respected, it must be respected… as we were taught by nature
to respect among ourselves.” Manqueriapa goes on to talk about how the rituals both before and
