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.