Human Psychopharmacology of Hoasca, A Plant Hallucinogen... : The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (original) (raw)

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Human Psychopharmacology of Hoasca, A Plant Hallucinogen Used in Ritual Context in Brazil

GROB, CHARLES S. M.D.1; McKENNA, DENNIS J. PH.D.2; CALLAWAY, JAMES C. PH.D.3; BRITO, GLACUS S. M.D.4; NEVES, EDISON S. M.D.4; OBERLAENDER, GUILHERME M.D.4; SAIDE, OSWALDO L. M.D.6; LABIGALINI, ELIZEU M.D.6; TACLA, CRISTIANE PH.D.6; MIRANDA, CLAUDIO T. M.D.6; STRASSMAN, RICK J. M.D.7; BOONE, KYLE B. PH.D.1

1Department of Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Box 498, 1000 West Carson Street, Torrance, California 90509. Send reprint requests to Dr. Grob.

2Botanical Dimensions, Occidental, California.

3Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Kuopio, Finland.

4Centro De Estudos Medicos, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

5Departmento de Psiquitria, Universidade Estadual do Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

6Departamento de Psiquitria, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

7Department of Psychiatry, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Abstract

A multinational, collaborative, biomedical investigation of the effects of hoasca (ayahuasca), a potent concoction of plant hallucinogens, was conducted in the Brazilian Amazon during the summer of 1993. This report describes the psychological assessment of 15 long-term members of a syncretic church that utilizes hoasca as a legal, psychoactive sacrament as well as 15 matched controls with no prior history of hoasca ingestion. Measures administered to both groups included structured psychiatric diagnostic interviews, personality testing, and neuropsychological evaluation. Phenomenological assessment of the altered state experience as well as semistructured and open-ended life story interviews were conducted with the long-term use hoasca group, but not the hoasca-naive control group. Salient findings included the remission of psychopathology following the initiation of hoasca use along with no evidence of personality or cognitive deterioration. Overall assessment revealed high functional status. Implications of this unusual phenomenon and need for further investigation are discussed.