This review (2011) explores common themes and contradictions found between the biomedical, anthropological, and ayahuasca-users' perspectives on the consumption of ayahuasca by children and pregnant women. It raises central issues regarding the limits of freedom of religion and the state's right to interfere in family matters.
In 2010, the Brazilian Government agency responsible for drug-related issues formulated official Resolutions that categorized the consumption of ayahuasca by pregnant women and children in the Santo Daime and União do Vegetal ayahuasca-based religions as an “exercise of parental rights.” Although ayahuasca groups do enjoy a relative degree of social legitimacy and formal legal recognition in Brazil, the participation of pregnant women and children nevertheless continues to provoke heated discussion. This article raises the main issues involved in the public debate over this subject. In the first part, a diverse group of biomedical and health specialists was consulted, and their opinions were briefly analyzed. In the second, a full interview with a follower of one branch of Santo Daime, mother of four children who took ayahuasca during all her pregnancies, and whose children all drink ayahuasca, is presented. Her interview reveals important cultural parameters of ayahuasca consumption. The article explores common themes and contradictions found between the biomedical, anthropological, and ayahuasca-users' discourses. It raises central issues regarding the limits of freedom of religion and the state's right to interfere in family matters. The following analysis also has implications regarding the role of science in influencing policy decisions on drug use.
Ayahuasca, a psychoactive brew made from Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis that contains DMT, is used in Amazonian indigenous and Brazilian urban religious contexts such as Santo Daime and União do Vegetal (UDV). Although these ayahuasca religions have gained social legitimacy and some legal recognition in Brazil, the participation of pregnant women, children and adolescents in rituals remains controversial. Media reports and public debate have repeatedly raised concerns about potential risks to fetuses and young consumers despite a sparse empirical literature addressing these questions. Labate sets out to map the main issues in the Brazilian debate over ayahuasca use by pregnant women and minors. The paper combines a review of regulatory history and available biomedical and social-science literature with consultations of selected biomedical specialists and an in-depth interview with a Santo Daime follower who is also a doula and mother. The aim is to highlight points of agreement and contradiction across biomedical, anthropological and user perspectives, and to indicate implications for policy and future research.
Papers cited by this study that are also in Blossom
Callaway, J. C., Mckenna, D. J., Grob, C. S. et al. · Journal of Ethnopharmacology (1999)
da Silveira, D. X., Doering-Silveira, E., Grob, C. S. et al. · Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (2005)
de Rios, M. D., Grob, C. S., Lopez, E. et al. · Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (2005)
Doering-Silveira, E., Grob, C. S., Dobkin de Rios, M. et al. · Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (2005)
This article is an anthropological comment that draws on three complementary sources: (1) a review of the history of regulation and of the limited published literature regarding ayahuasca use by pregnant women and children; (2) consultations with a select group of biomedical and health specialists directly involved in ayahuasca research, conducted primarily by email in February 2010; and (3) a single, extended ethnographic interview with a Santo Daime practitioner, Clarice Andreozzi, conducted by email between February 17 and March 4, 2010. The author states that specialists were chosen for their direct involvement in ayahuasca research, producing a very select sample of expert opinion. The documentation of regulation includes official Brazilian resolutions and their interpretations. The biomedical component summarises one published study of adolescents associated with UDV and mentions an unpublished or incomplete retrospective pilot study announced by UDV's Medical-Scientific Department. The ethnographic element consists of a full interview with a practicing doula and mother who reports on dosing practices, baptismal rituals and family customs within Santo Daime. Interviewees were informed of the study purpose and consented to be interviewed; one participant requested anonymity. The author acknowledges limited ethnographic sources and the selective nature of expert consultations as methodological constraints.
Regulatory history: During the 1980s and subsequently, Brazil negotiated the religious use of ayahuasca against drug-control laws. By 2004, CONAD (the National Council on Policies about Drugs) interpreted article 1.634 of the Civil Code to treat consumption of ayahuasca by pregnant women and minors as falling under the exercise of parental rights. Resolution No. 5/2004 allowed parents or guardians to decide on ayahuasca use by minors and left pregnant women responsible for their own participation, while noting a lack of sufficient scientific evidence and calling for caution. Later CONAD guidance (2010) reaffirmed respect for religious practices while calling for further research. Biomedical evidence and expert opinions: The extracted text reports no published biomedical studies directly addressing the effects of ayahuasca on pregnant women or fetuses. A retrospective pilot study announced by UDV's Medical-Scientific Department aimed to assess obstetric outcomes and neuropsychological development in children born to mothers who used ayahuasca, but further information or publication was not obtained. One published study evaluated 40 adolescents from UDV against 40 matched non-ayahuasca-using adolescents and found broadly similar neuropsychological and psychiatric test results; the UDV adolescents reported lower rates of alcohol and substance use and lower anxiety in that sample. Several researchers provided emailed commentaries. Dartiu Xavier da Silveira emphasised the absence of evidence proving harm and urged more research, noting that lack of observed adverse outcomes in some cases does not establish safety. Charles Grob reported that studies of UDV adolescents and adults revealed no evidence of injurious effects and in some measures suggested lower substance use and anxiety among hoasca-exposed youths. Jaime Hallak and others urged caution: Hallak recommended avoiding ayahuasca in pregnancy until safety data exist. Rafael Guimarães dos Santos noted that while adolescent data from UDV are reassuring, there are preclinical toxicology signals for harmala alkaloids (for example harmine) and limited understanding of their implications for humans. An anonymous German pharmacologist summarised that no animal or human data address teratogenic, embryotoxic or uterotonic effects of DMT or related compounds, and stressed both the paucity of evidence and the need for caution. Synthesis of expert positions: The commentators display two recurring lines of reasoning: one that treats psychoactive substances as potentially harmful in the absence of evidence to the contrary (a ‘‘guilty until proven innocent’’ stance), and another that adopts an agnostic or permissive attitude pending definitive evidence. Despite differences, most experts agree on the need for precaution and further study. Religious/ethnographic findings: In the interview, Clarice Andreozzi described Santo Daime practices concerning pregnant women and children. Dosing is adjusted by age and circumstance: pregnant women and children receive smaller doses, and participation is optional. Santo Daime practices include use of daime during labour (often at small doses) and a baptismal rite for newborns that may include a drop of daime administered with water and salt; infants may receive minute quantities (drops or the dregs of the glass), increasing with age. Children participate in age-appropriate sessions, song-teaching and catechism-like activities; families vary in whether they give daime to their children. Andreozzi reported that all four of her children were raised within the doctrine and had freedom of choice as they matured. Author's recommendations reported in results/concluding material: Labate highlights the need for interdisciplinary research, proposing longitudinal matched-cohort studies of UDV or Santo Daime children, developmental designs that consider timing and frequency of exposure (in utero, infancy, childhood, adolescence), and cautious experimental work under ethical approval. The author also calls for social-science studies on identity formation, an ‘‘ethnography of power’’ examining how biomedical discourses influence policy, and comparative analyses with substances such as alcohol and tobacco. The author notes significant ethical, legal and methodological challenges to research on pregnant women and children.
Labate interprets the findings as revealing a field marked by contradictory discourses and a relative scarcity of direct scientific evidence regarding ayahuasca use in pregnancy and childhood. The paper emphasises that legal regulation in Brazil emerged from dialogue among governmental agencies, scientists and religious representatives, leading to a framework that privileges religious freedom while recognising the need for further study. Within this framework, parental rights have been invoked to justify permitted use by minors and pregnant women under guardians' decisions, but such permissions continue to provoke public controversy. The discussion positions the limited biomedical literature—principally the adolescent UDV study and unpublished pilot efforts—against ethnographic evidence that rituals exert strong dose- and context-based controls. Labate stresses that religious practices include structured dosing rules and monitoring within ritual settings, which believers and practitioners cite as protective mechanisms. At the same time, several researchers cited in the paper underline unknowns about harmala alkaloids and the absence of teratology data for DMT-related compounds, reinforcing the call for caution. Key limitations acknowledged by the author include paucity of empirical studies on pregnancy and childhood exposure, the selective nature of expert consultations, and ethical and methodological hurdles to conducting rigorous research in these populations. Labate also notes the political and media dynamics that amplify both precautionary and permissive narratives. Implications for research and policy: The paper calls for interdisciplinary, ethically approved research—developmental cohort studies, careful experimental work where appropriate, and expanded social-science inquiry into identity, power and how biomedical evidence is mobilised in legal debates. Labate suggests comparative work with well-studied substances such as alcohol and tobacco to clarify standards of evidence and policy responses. Finally, the author frames the debate as one balancing parental rights to determine upbringing against claims that children should be protected from religious indoctrination or exposure to psychoactive substances, and advocates that future decisions rest on expanded empirical, social and ethical reflection.
Ayahuasca, also known as daime, hoasca, or vegetal, is a psychoactive mixture made from the Amazonian plants Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis and contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a controlled substance subject to international drug laws. The brew is used in religious and shamanic rituals by Amazonian indigenous groups as well as by urban religions based in Brazil, notably Santo Daime and União do Vegetal (UDV) (for a discussion of the concept of ayahuasca religions, see; for a broader reference on this phenomenon see. A cover article from the Brazilian magazine Isto É, which is the third-highest selling weekly magazine in Brazil, recently reignited a heated discussion about the consumption of ayahuasca by pregnant women and children. The article, entitled "A Encruzilhada do Daime" (a play on words that means both "the Daime crossroads" and "the Daime deadlock"), claims that "the use of ayahuasca by pregnant women is dangerous . . . it is believed that it can provoke neurological alterations in the fetus . . . and for the same reason should not be consumed by children". The journalist credits these claims to two psychiatrists, Dartiu Xavier da Silveira and Downloaded by [University of Virginia, Charlottesville] at 06:25 11 October 2012 Jaime Hallak. At about the same time, National Geographic aired a series called Taboo of which one episode, entitled "Narcotics", included a segment filmed at the Santo Daime religious community of Centro Eclético da Flor de Lótus Iluminado (CEFLI [The Eclectic Center of the Illuminated Lotus Flower]) in the Brazilian state of Acre. The fifteen-minute segment emphasized the consumption of ayahuasca by infants and children, repeatedly showing close-ups and scenes of this activity. It is apparent that even if the ayahuasca religions currently enjoy a relative degree of social legitimacy and actual formal legal recognition in Brazil, the participation of pregnant women, children and adolescents continues to dominate public debate and is frequently used to question the validity of the use of ayahuasca in general. Very little is known about this subject. From the human sciences literature, there are only a few mentions of ayahuasca use by pregnant women and children: one short personal anecdote about ayahuasca use during childbirth published in the appendix of Vera Fróesseminal book on Santo Daime; an interview with a professional midwife from the Céu do Mapiá community, the headquarters of one branch of Santo Daime religion in the Amazon interior; and a brief reference to the frequency with which youths of different ages are permitted to consume ayahuasca in the União do Vegetal church. According to the latter source, children less than twelve may participate in no more than five rituals per year; from twelve to fourteen years of age, they are allowed to consume once a month; from fourteen to eighteen, twice a month; and over eighteen, they may become full members of the church.. From the biomedical point of view, only one study is known. This focused on 40 adolescents from UDV, and their results were published in a special edition of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, "Ayahuasca in Cross-Cultural Perspective," edited by Marlene Dobkin de Rios and Charles Grob in 2005. The editors' introduction mentions the use of ayahuasca by pregnant women (Dobkin de Rios & Grob 2005a: 119) but no further information was given. The current article raises the main issues involved in the public debate over ayahuasca use by pregnant women and minors in Brazil. The controversies surrounding this aspect of ayahuasca use highlight the conflicting discourses between anthropologists, the biomedical field, media, ayahuasca users and leaders of other religious denominations. This article presents a history of the regulation of the use of ayahuasca for pregnant woman and children in Brazil, and references relevant biomedical and social science research, as well as native religious perspectives. It serves as an anthropological comment on the topic, pointing out the contradictions and continuities between the different perspectives, and the difficulty in establishing a dialogue between them. First, a diverse group of biomedical and health specialists was consulted, and their opinions are presented. Note that only specialists directly involved in research on ayahuasca and its uses and effects were interviewed, which resulted in a very select group. The field of debate on psychoactive substances is broad and very polarized, so more diverse and more extreme opinions certainly exist. However, it was possible to identify a variety of perspectives inside this field. Following this is an attempt to briefly analyze these discourses and predict possible outcomes for policy making which result from these approaches. In the second part, given the paucity of published ethnographic information on this aspect of ayahuasca use, the full text of an interview with a follower of one branch of Santo Daime is provided. I have chosen to interview one person at length, rather than provide several briefer interviews of less depth. This person is of particular interest because she is both a professional involved in perinatal activities and also has had profound personal experiences with ayahuasca herself. In this interview some of the cultural parameters of the use of ayahuasca by pregnant woman and children in the context of Santo Daime are revealed. Those interviewed for this study were informed of the purpose of this anthropological study and consented to be interviewed and quoted by name. One subject asked to be quoted anonymously.
During the mid-1980s, the ritual and religious use of ayahuasca was regulated in Brazil through a process of negotiations between the government, scientists and representatives of ayahuasca-using groups. This process has gone through various stages since then and continues to develop. At the broadest level, what was at stake here was a dispute between laws concerning the use of controlled substances, such as the DMT found in ayahuasca, and the right to religious freedom. In contemporary Brazil, the latter has trumped the former. Until 2004, the legal right of children and pregnant women to use ayahuasca was nevertheless uncertain. In 2004, Resolution No. 5 of Conselho Nacional de Políticas sobre Drogas (CONAD, [National Council on Policies about Drugs]), the government agency responsible for drug-related issues, drawing on the article 1.634 of the Brazilian Civil Code, interpreted the right of pregnant women and children to consume ayahuasca as falling under the domain of the "exercise of parental rights." Parental rights are, "a parent's rights to make all decisions concerning his or her child, including the right to determine the child's care and custody, the right to educate and discipline the child, and the right to control the child's earnings and property"IV.VIII -USE OF AYAHUASCA BY MINORS AND PREGNANT WOMEN 46. Keeping in mind the lack of sufficient scientific evidence and that Ayahuasca has been used for centuries and has not shown damaging health effects, and considering the terms of CONAD Resolution 05/04, the use of Ayahuasca by minors under 18 (eighteen) years old is left up to the deliberation of the parents or legal guardians, within the domain of adequate exercise of parental rights (article 1634 of the Civil Code); and with reference to pregnant women, they themselves assume the responsibility for deciding the degree of their participation, always attentive to protecting the development and personality structure of their underage and unborn children.
I have found no mention of biomedical research on the effects of ayahuasca use on pregnant women or unborn fetuses. On a prior version of the official website of the, the following information was provided concerning a research project underway called Efeitos da Hoasca na Gestação (Effects of Ayahuasca during Pregnancy): With the goal of studying the effects of ayahuasca tea on pregnancy and the development of children born to mothers who used ayahuasca during pregnancy, a group of health professionals from UDV's Medical-Scientific Department (DEMEC) carried out a retrospective pilot study in the city of Fortaleza, Ceará. Using interviews, questionnaires and tests, they attempted to identify the occurrence of obstetric pathologies in such pregnancies, and evaluate the neuropsychological development of children born to such pregnancies. The results require critical methodological evaluation and statistical study sufficient for publication. [author's translation from Portuguese] It was not possible to obtain further information about the progress of this research, however, and the notice has since been removed from the UDV website. Only one published study on young consumers of ayahuasca is known. It was carried out by an international consortium of researchers who evaluated 40 adolescents from UDV in three different cities in Brazil, and compared them with a matched control group of 40 non-ayahuasca using adolescents. Overall, the UDV adolescents showed similar results to the control group on most neuropsychological and psychiatric tests applied. One of the researchers, Dartiu Xavier da Silveira, a psychiatrist at the Programa de Atendimento e Orientação a Dependentes (PROAD [Program for Orientation and Assistance to Dependents]) of the Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP [Federal University of São Paulo]), was quoted in the polemical Brazilian magazine piece mentioned in the introduction. In an email sent to the author on February 21, 2010, when asked about his thoughts concerning the consumption of ayahuasca by children and pregnant women, he responded, No scientific studies have proven that ayahuasca is harmful during pregnancy. We can take other psychoactive substances as counter-examples. Alcohol, for example, we now know, is absolutely contraindicated during pregnancy, even in small quantities, for the risk of fetal alcohol syndrome. Despite this, we have reports of many people who drank alcohol during pregnancy and nothing happened to their children-which doesn't change our knowledge that something could have happened due to alcohol consumption. In the case of ayahuasca, we carried out research with adolescents in UDV and found no significant differences between them and a control group of nonconsumers of ayahuasca. However, more research is needed. Scientific rationality is very different from common sense. [author's translation from Portuguese] Charles Grob, coauthor of this and other important studies on ayahuasca) was also consulted. Grob is professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the medical school of the University of California, Los Angeles and director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Harbor UCLA-Medical Center. In an email sent to the author on February 19, 2010, he stated that, Along with colleagues from the United States, Finland, and Brazil I conducted a series of biomedical-psychiatric research studies on the effects of hoasca in subjects who were members of the syncretic religion União do Vegetal. In 1993 we studied long-term adult members of the UDV and in 2001 we studied adolescents who came from families who were affiliated with the UDV. Our findings have been published in the mainstream psychiatric and neuroscience literatures. Our research investigation of the effects of hoasca on adolescents contrasted their psychological function with a matched non-hoasca using adolescent control population. In our study we found that these young people from UDV families, many of whom had been exposed in-utero to hoasca and who had been baptized as infants with a very small quantity of hoasca, were allowed to participate in UDV religious ceremonies where hoasca is used as a psychoactive sacrament after reaching puberty. Participation in ceremonies and ingestion of hoasca by adolescents was entirely optional and left to the adolescent to decide. The results of our investigation revealed that the adolescents from UDV families who participated in hoasca ceremonies were in very good psychological health. In fact, the hoasca-exposed adolescents reported lower rates of alcohol and substance use than the non-hoasca exposed control adolescents as well as overall lower levels of anxiety. Their neuropsychological function was evaluated as normal. In conclusion, we detected no evidence that hoasca use had caused any injurious effects in adolescents from the UDV who had been exposed to hoasca. Another researcher cited in the Isto É piece is Jaime Hallak, a psychiatrist at the Departamento de Neurociências e Ciências do Comportamento (Department of Neurosciences and Behavioral Sciences) at the Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (Ribeirão Preto Medical Faculty in São Paulo state). His research team has studied the potential antidepressant effects of harmine, a beta-carboline alkaloid found in the ayahuasca brew, by injecting the substance into laboratory animals. In an email sent to the author on February 23, 2010, he expressed his view that: . . . lacking any evidence about safety and/or risk, the consumption of ayahuasca should be avoided by pregnant women until safety evidence exists. I know of several who are carrying out studies of safety and toxicity to evaluate such aspects, but their evaluations are not yet complete, including those of our own group. In an email sent to the author on February 26, 2010 biologist Rafael Guimarães dos Santos, who is carrying out doctoral research on the human pharmacology of ayahuasca at Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau (Hospital of the Holy Cross and Saint Paul) in Barcelona, stated his opinion: I know of only one study carried out with adolescents of União do Vegetal. It demonstrates that there is no scientific evidence that ayahuasca use in this context by this religious group produces psychiatric, neuropsychological or substance abuse problems. Most of the adolescents in the study have been exposed to ayahuasca since the prenatal period and throughout childhood. In the case of Santo Daime and Barquinha (another Brazilian ayahuasca religion), there are no published studies. Thus, from a scientific perspective, the available information is limited. On the other hand, there is evidence that some of the beta-carbolines present in ayahuasca, for example harmine, show toxic effects in some preclinical studies. But we do not yet understand the implications of this for human consumption of ayahuasca. Personally, I believe that ayahuasca use by pregnant women and children should be extremely limited to small and infrequent doses. [author's translation from Portuguese] In an email sent to the author on February 26, 2010, a German specialist in the pharmacology of psychoactive substances who chose not to be identified by name in this article said: After reviewing all of the pharmacological and clinical studies-more than 500 scientific publications over the past ten years-on DMT and 5-methoxy-DMT (a substance similar to DMT that is sometimes found in the ayahuasca mixture), it can be asserted that not a single study exists, either in animals or humans, that examines the teratogenic, embryotoxic or uterotonic effects of DMT or 5-MeO-DMT. So we know nothing about (potential) risks. However, we must realize that DMT is naturally present in the body, so it is very unlikely that it destroys parts of an organism, unless used in overdose. There is also no evidence of children with mutations or disabilities as a result of the mother's consumption of ayahuasca during pregnancy. What we do know is that psilocybin, a derivative of DMT, produces some minor chromosome aberrations (cf., even when used in small doses (see also. But these mutations occur in doses equivalent to those which can be caused by aspirin or coffee, which are normally considered harmless even for pregnant women. However it is possible to imagine that this would present a risk to the baby only during labor and birthing, and not the pregnancy per se. In sum, we do not know much, but there is no documented evidence of a pregnant woman or child who has suffered any harm due to DMT/5-MeO-DMT. But we have to mention other aspects. There are many other substances present in ayahuasca preparations. These other substances, especially harmala alkaloids, have not been well studied to date. In reality, we don't know anything about all the substances present in these beverages. It could also be dangerous to a fetus if a pregnant woman consuming ayahuasca vomited or became extremely frightened. But again, it could also be true that the woman has very positive experiences. I would conclude by saying that it is not possible to assert that taking ayahuasca causes harm to children or pregnant women, because there is no evidence (either experimental or among actual mothers and children) on the matter. However we should be cautious. We need to have more research to provide definitive evidence. A central theme in all of these commentaries is an oscillation between what might be called in common parlance viewing the glass as half empty or as half full, which is to say, the various researchers interpret the same fact in different ways. The two lines of reasoning might be summed up as follows: (1) There are no studies showing that ayahuasca use by pregnant women and children is innocuous, and (2) There are no studies proving it is harmful. Proponents of the former appear to assume that psychoactive substances are "guilty until proven innocent," as it were, while the latter takes a more agnostic stance, suggesting it is up to scientists to do more research to determine these results. The problem here involves linking scientific knowledge and practical action. Although most of those interviewed appear to assume that their research should provide a scientific basis for public policies, they stop short of expressing explicit political views. However, the news media, activists, judges, and politicians exploit both the "half empty" and "half full" opinions for a variety of purposes. The former ultimately lends ammunition, directly or indirectly, to those Downloaded by [University of Virginia, Charlottesville] at 06:25 11 October 2012 who would like to see ayahuasca use, at least in certain circumstances, either prohibited, suspended or, at the very least, treated with extreme caution until more research can be done. The onus would appear to fall on the users themselves to prove that ayahuasca is not harmful. The more or less explicit implications of the other branch, the "half full" attitude, are that, in the absence of contrary evidence, use should continue to be permitted, albeit with caution, while more studies are carried out. Here, the onus would appear to fall on the state to provide solid evidence, whether from scientific studies or reports concerning problems among users, that use is harmful before any modification to the current, permissive regulation should be made. Despite the differences, both perspectives agree on the need for precaution and further study.
Legal decisions regarding the use of ayahuasca are not only subject to the outcomes of biomedical discussions, they require an interdisciplinary approach which includes anthropological discussion and the perspectives of users themselves, among other possible points of view. Seeking to understand the context of ayahuasca use by pregnant mothers and children in Santo Daime, a series of interviews were conducted with Clarice Andreozzi through emails to the author between February 17 and March 4, 2010. Andreozzi is a 34-year-old biologist born in Brasilia who is a practicing doula, a profession akin to midwifery dedicated to the emotional and physical management of pregnancy and childbirth. As is the case with children, pregnant women take a smaller dose than the adults. We usually give half the usual dose, but if they want less than that, they can drink less. They can participate in all the rituals as they wish, there is no restriction but also no obligation to participate, it is a personal decision. It is common for women members of the church to take Daime during labor. The beverage itself as well as the prayers are good for childbirth, they help the woman relax and maintain contractions. In some cases it can even increase the contractions, which is good, because they are natural and healthy contractions which allow her to experience the pregnancy and contact with the baby, to interiorize the experience more profoundly. The dose of Daime during childbirth is also small, and varies according to the duration and intensity of labor. We should remember that Mapiá, in Pauini, Amazonas, has a very strong tradition of childbirth with Daime, more so than in the cities. In the big cities, Daime is used less during childbirth and less for medicinal purposes more generally, because here we have access to public health services and pharmacies. But out in the forest people turn to Daime, for example when babies have colic or constipation; or when babies get colds they give them home-made syrup with a little Daime to clear the mucus. BCL: Do children take Daime? From what age? CA: Children do take Daime, but there is not a specific age to begin drinking the beverage, nor is it obligatory. It is a decision left entirely up to the parents. We have a doctrine, and for us, Daime has a whole lot of meaning, as you know. But every family has its own way of approaching this question. Some parents give Daime to their children, and others prefer not to. We respect the family life of everyone, and there is no requirement that parents give Daime to their children. Some parents give Daime to their newborn children right after birth, as a kind of baptism. In addition, we have a formal baptism ritual, which happens during the "hymnal" days (ritual sessions during which people wear white uniforms and sing and dance for many hours). There is a specific moment for baptism, when those responsible for the household or someone they delegate carries out the ceremony. It is a simple and quick ritual, in which the child is baptized with water, salt and Daime. During the baptism, everyone present utters the Lord's Prayer, "Hail Mary" and "Hail holy Queen." I think most Santo Daime followers baptize their children in this way, and some baptize them in the Catholic Church as well. During infancy and childhood, the parents give Daime to children only if they seem interested or ask to take it. Children generally take Daime during hymnal days or when there are specific sessions for children. During these sessions we also tell Biblical stories. We teach the children to sing and play the rattle, and those who show talent are taught other instruments as well. We see this like a spiritual school, a catechism, where we teach our children the values of fraternity, justice, love and peace. The dose for children is small but increases as they grow. Babies take Daime by the drop, which we squeeze into their mouths with cotton balls. Infants of one to three years old drink just the dregs from the bottom of the glass, I doubt it's even one milliliter. The dose is increased as the child grows older. By thirteen or fourteen, youths can take as much as one-third the adult dose, if they want. If not, they can take less. In fact it's up to the children to indicate their interest in participating in the spiritual sessions. BCL: Do you have children? CA : Yes, I have four children, three sons and a daughter, ages five, thirteen, fourteen and sixteen. They were all raised within the Santo Daime doctrine. They all had the freedom to choose.
This article has explored some of the common themes and contradictions found between various discourses, including those of scientists and ayahuasca users, surrounding consumption of ayahuasca by children and pregnant women. The anthropological literature has described the ritual and religious contexts and detailed the behavioral, dietary and Downloaded by [University of Virginia, Charlottesville] at 06:25 11 October 2012 ethical prescriptions expected of practitioners of religious groups such as Santo Daime and União do Vegetal. The existing literature has also pointed to the strict controls surrounding access to the beverage, particularly in terms of dosage and frequency. In the context of these religions, dosage is generally determined by age, weight, gender and experience within the group, as well as according to specific health and psychological conditions gleaned through ongoing evaluation and observation of participants within and outside the ritual setting). The interview with Clarice Andreozzi highlights how the same factors come to play in the use of ayahuasca by children and pregnant women in the Santo Daime tradition. Ayahuasca use is not free or loose; rather, it takes place within specified ritual, cultural and religious parameters that provide strong control mechanisms. The CONAD resolutions that govern the use of ayahuasca in Brazil for both adults and children resulted from a dialog between biomedical, social science and native perspectives. It recognizes, among other things, that users have important and valuable empirical knowledge about ayahuasca through accumulated use and experience. The most recent CONAD resolution, while respecting the practices and knowledge of ayahuasca religions, also calls for further research on these and other aspects of ayahuasca use (CONAD 2010). Building on the preliminary studies mentioned here, more research of an interdisciplinary nature is required to evaluate short-term and long-term cognitive effects of ayahuasca use in children. Studies of pregnant women and children could be done using research designs similar to that which were used to study teenagers in the UDV. Controlled-matched cohort studies of UDV or Santo Daime children could be done as they grow up within the religions. These studies would ideally have a developmental focus, taking into account the duration and frequency with which the children and their pregnant mothers participated in the rituals. It would also be helpful to distinguish between the findings seen in adult members of UDV and Santo Daime and those in other ayahuasca-using contexts who started consuming ayahuasca and attending rituals at different periods (i.e. in utero, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood), focusing on central stages of neurodevelopment. Finally, experimental research could be done in which ayahuasca is administered in shamanic, religious or therapeutic contexts or to other populations without previous experience with ayahuasca and the harms and benefits could be evaluated. These studies on children and pregnant woman would have to be approved by university ethical review committees; in any case, this research would involve great ethical, legal, methodological and funding challenges. Important avenues for more social science research include studying how the consumption of ayahuasca by pregnant woman and children is important for building religious and cultural identity within these groups, and also how the religious minority status of ayahuasca users comes to play out in the definition and expression this identity. Researchers in the field of anthropology of science should examine how biomedical research is constructed, and look at how doctors, judges, journalists and religious leaders translate the rodent physiology to human physiology and use rodent data to estimate human health risks. It is also important to do an "ethnography of power" to understand how different social agents mediate access to and influence the formulation of public policies on the use of ayahuasca. It is of special relevance to study how biomedical discourses tend to receive greater weight in public debates than other discourses, such as those in the social sciences and religion, and also to analyze biomedical science's role in the context of legal cases involving the use this substance. Furthermore, social science research should compare the use of ayahuasca by children and pregnant woman with the use of other substances such as alcohol and tobacco, where the ill effects for pregnant women, fetuses and children have been clearly documented, and where laws and public health campaigns have been designed to limit, if not prohibit outright, their consumption among certain categories of people. This, in turn, raises the broader issue of the legal, historical and moral roots of the prohibitionist laws and educational campaigns that hope to "save our children from drugs." This article has been limited to a few cases related to several of these discourses. Future research should extend the range of social agents and those with differing perspectives seen as stakeholders in the current debate. The case of ayahuasca, as we have seen, raises important questions about the rights of religious minorities, and how these rights fit within the questions concerning controlled substances more generally. On one side, there are the parental rights to determine what constitutes appropriate upbringing of children, which would include religion, education, and the consumption of foods, medicines and psychoactive drugs. On the other side are those that claim children have the right not to receive religious indoctrination or certain psychoactive drugs. These decisions should be based on extending both our empirical, social and biomedical knowledge on the subject, as well as broader philosophical and ethical reflections on human rights. I hope to have called attention to the richness of this field of inquiry that remains so unexplored. Downloaded by [University of Virginia, Charlottesville] at 06:25 11 October 2012
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Passie, T., Halpern, J. H., Stichtenoth, D. O. et al. · CNS Neuroscience and Therapeutics (2008)
Santos, R. G., Landeira-Fernandez, J., Strassman, R. J. et al. · Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2007)
Papers in Blossom that reference this study
Dos Santos, R. G., Balthazar, F. M., Bouso, J. C. et al. · Journal of Psychopharmacology (2016)
Dos Santos, R. G. · Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (2013)