Recent police operations in ayahuasca ceremonies have caused justified alarm among the ayahuasca community, who are questioning the motivations behind this offensive against a practice deeply rooted in Spain, and which to date, has not caused any serious health problems and is legally protected by current legislation and by recurring judicial rulings based on it.
Who orders these police operations? For what purpose? Is the excessive use of force, as shown in videos released by the police themselves, justified? These are some of the questions asked by facilitators and practitioners of ayahuasca, following half a dozen police operations that, to date, have not resulted in a single judicial conviction.
In this context, the participation of a police officer in a recent symposium on shamanism at least partially revealed the police perspective on ayahuasca and answered some of the previously asked questions. The event took place last May in Tarragona, thanks to ICEERS, which invited sub-inspector Marcos Quinteiro to participate in the colloquium ‘Shamanism, Science, and Knowledge: Challenges of the Globalization of Master Plants,’ featuring prominent members of the Barcelona-based NGO, as well as teachers and researchers from the Medical Anthropological Medical Center (MARC) at the Universitat Rovira i Virgil, which hosted the meeting. All videos from that event are available on ICEERS’ website.
Read more