I've noticed that the places where people most often travel to drink ayahuasca are also the countries with the biggest cocaine production, and if you searched the web just a little bit you've heard that they pour away the chemical waste into the rivers.

This means the water is greatly polluted and not only with trash but with very harmful and deadly chemicals.

I'm not sure why people go so far to travel across the globe and spend as much money to receive a brew that has been brewed with polluted water.

Not only that, you receive a cup of unknown contents and potency which could end up drastically different than intended with interactions you might not even thought about.

Sure you get to experience a part of the tradition, but it is hardly worth all that spendings and having to take a wild guess about your own safety.

Be safe, and please inform if you hear about someone being interested in traveling to these countries. It is way safer to brew your own brews, and be your own shaman. There's plenty information of how to do so safely online too. Also it's better to fail a brew or two and lose a little money than to lose a lot of money and play russian roulette with your life by traveling to an unknown facility with questionable products.

I have to 2nd this out of my own experience. This was one of the things on my bucket list and my awesome girlfriend made it happen which I greatly appreciate. She did tons of research and found what I truly believe is one of the best ayahuasca tours in the Amazon where it is traditional medicine.

I could tell that with this tour in particular, much effort was taken to ensure safety but despite this, there were many situations especially in the larger cities in Peru where safety was hanging by a thread. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that the number one reason I wanted to go on this trip was to try ayahuasca in the traditional setting and this ended up being the most fucked up part of the trip.

One of the things that hit me like a ton of bricks while I'm tripping balls and feeling like I just ate a bucket of rotten meat full of heavy metal salts, is that if something serious were to happen, I'm fucked. There are no doctors and no medicine in the village unless you count the perfumed water blessed by the shaman. The nearest place that might have had something resembling modern medicine was a 2-3 hour boat ride away but likely another 2 hours by auto to Iquitos.

These people know little about how ayahuasca actually works and the dangers it presents. Learn from my mistake. Until the stuff is legitamized and you can find a "tour" in a safe place, do your own research, make your own, and find someone you trust to be a trip sitter.

Why people die...

A lot of the deaths have to do with reactions with adverse reactions to medications, injuries, or perhaps other substances being used, which take the blame for Ayahuasca.

Ayahuasca can't kill you, but a lack of safety can. Strong brews in the jungle -- take one wrong step and you can get seriously fucked. If retreat centers aren't in areas where it isn't safe (ie. near a cliff, near a river, with huge stones everywhere....) people might run into complications.

I think a lot of it can be substance interactions. Or perhaps someone dying due to a tobacco purge. I don't think it has to do with dirty water. Sure, you may puke your guts out due to bacteria, but I don't think it is cause of death.

There are just too many reasons even beyond the safety concerns which are very real that it's simply not worth the time and/or money to travel to S. America to experience ayahuasca.
If you are seeking an authentic experience, you will not receive it unless you can find some back woods tribe that doesn't even speak Spanish let alone English. In this case, safety is going to be sketchy at best.

It's a bunch of White folks leveraging the native cultures to turn a profit. If you are suffering from a medical condition, they will spit some perfumed water on you or maybe some mapacho and give you a blessing. If you get sick or have a bad experience, it's because you have demons to purge. I can respect their culture for what it is, but as far as medicine and science go, they are at about the same place as when the Europeans were using leaches to bleed people. But even that might be a stretch.

I wouldn't blame the ayahuasca for deaths, but rather being uneducated on the subject. The problem here is that if you become educated on ayahuasca, that means you have the means at your disposal to make it and administer it yourself and traveling to S. America becomes a pointless endeavor unless you have other motivations than ayahuasca.

Ayahuasca tourism is a cancer and most of the locals where it happens would likely agree.

It's got nothing to do with dirty water. Peru is a huge country, and the drug production areas very far from the respective Jungle towns, anyway. I've been researching the subject for quite a while and it's quite apparent that it's either mostly due to some kind of negligence. Ayahuasca made with Chakruna is pretty safe when used with regard to set/setting/dose, and of course being careful about contra indications.

People die because of various reasons:

1. They have a terminal illness, and seek a last minute cure, in their weakened state. Some die, because they left it too late.

2. They weren't honest about disclosure of the fact they may have been on contraindicating meds, or drugs.

3. They may have become ill, but not given medical assistence, or may not have been properly supervised. (Negligence)

4. The brew may have had too much Nicotine, or Toe. (Ask to find out how the brew was made)

I have heard this one a bit... Tobacco purges, and Toe can do people in for sure.

Quoted for emphasis.

Hundreds of people die each year in the Alps due skiing or hiking, they hardly hit the news anymore unless it's like a dozen at once in an avalanche, or a celebrity is involved.

Ayahusca aside, the water situation in the Amazon is pretty dire. There is a lot petroleum in many of the water ways of the Amazon Basin (1,2). Not to mention the coca processing from the mountain regions flowing downward into these water ways (3) and the cities and dumping their waste into the rivers (4).

I don't think the polluted water is the main issue in the deaths, I expect most of the retreat centers that cater to the foreign travelers are using decent water filters. Really this is just a symptom of a larger issue which yor all aware of. I do hope we will step up and stop this devastation before our shortsightedness catches up with us.

I agree with all of this but according to peoples reports, there is something to be said about tripping with an experienced tripper who has learned much of the DMT-world (aka shaman).

There is also always the option of taking lifesaver bottle with you, it filters out pretty much everything including the AIDS virus.

I don't buy this. For one cocaine production tends to occur in more upland areas than lowland rainforest where much ayahuasca use is occurring, secondly there is no evidence that tainted water is responsible for any ayahuasca related deaths.

Any reports of deaths I have so far encountered seem to be down to:

- Use of other substances, such as Datura or tobacco, in the brew, increasing risks of consumption markedly.

- People being on drugs or medication prior to ayahuasca consumption, resulting in very real toxicity risks. (This would party fall under lack of education or preperation, which itself is a risk factor).

- Detrimental behavioural effects when under the influence of ayahuasca, resulting in accidents.

I certainly don't think one needs to venture all the way to the Amazon to experience ayahuasca, and there are certainly a lot of charlatans out there wanting to cash in on the ayahuasca tourist trade with little safety controls in place.

People can be their own shaman...but AwesomeUsername you yourself are a case study on why this sometimes can go very wrong, when you put yourself in hospital due to a pharma overdose!! So if people feel more comfortable consuming ayahuasca in a ceremonial or shamanic setting with experienced people or sitters on hand, I don't think that is any bad thing.

Good post, and I agree.

I second that. ^^^


If you review the known cases of ayahuasca deaths, which can be found HERE, you will see that the case which bancopuma outlined largely reflects the situation at hand.

I also agree about being your own shaman. I feel that most shamans are charlatans, and that it's the entheogens themselves which should be revered as the true guides and teachers. There are those out there that have found some incredible techniques and means of "guiding" the situation, and who can use these entheogens to heal in many ways, however, these people are few and far between, and often what you are left with is those seeking to capitalize on the booming ayahuasca tourist market. I'm not saying there are not real shamans out there that are worth taking entheogens with, but you must understand the actual endeavor that locating one of these people entails...and again, it's my opinion that the entheogens are the true teachers.

-eg

No, i don't think it's the water.



^^^
Agreed


And unfortunately, there is no shortage of people willing to buy into it. There's a perpetuation of the idea that taking ayahuasca out of the jungle and out of the container of the traditional setting renders it ineffective or is tantamount to some sort of blasphemy or is appropriation. Many (new age) people support these ideas, providing lots of business for charlatans.



Yes, but i don't think the assumed risk with the two endeavors is the same. I don't know about the Alps, but many booking "tours" to the Amazon do so thinking that the people giving the tour are concerned with and are taking measures to ensure the safety of participants. I don't think people are taking their lives into their own hands the way a climber on Everest is.

You're absolutely right the about difference in self responsibility, the comparison leaks. Yet how long can we pretend that the jungle is no jungle? I think there's still some shatter of self responsibility when it comes to nativity or being under informed. What does that mean: "I did not know"? An excuse or a confession?

I believe "We take care of you no problem" if I want to believe it which is a responsibility I take ime. Can't hide myself behind the advertising presented. Just speaking for myself and secretly applying on others.

Maybe tao-ism had me washed too well: the innocent circumstantial victim only exist in a superficial layer. Beyond off-the-bat human analysis (read as restricted), things make more sense to happen.
Maybe it's this I want to believe (the fall of coincidental/separation deep down)

..perhaps it's because there is no ayahusca 'tradition' which involves huge numbers of cashed up tourists flying in to go to retreat centres..
in Peru for example i think there is widespread corruption and greed within this fairly new industry..egoistic 'shamans' who want power..while a handful of curanderos in the old traditions do what they used to do, which is treat a range of illnesses of fairly poor villagers who cannot pay a lot of money..but they do it for the community..

i agree with OP in terms of at least the vibration of cocaine, and the kinds of people who operate within the intent of that..

as far as 'circumstantial' cause of death, two examples that come to mind are the stabbing at a retreat centre, where sources have told me the on duty curandero was fairly young and not hugely experienced with the Western psyche, let alone the mental pathogens that come from other cultures...and then the woman with multiple broken bones in Ecuador, while unsolved, speaks to me of serious abuse, corruption and contempt by the Shuar shaman holding it..

the emerging idea of the past 20 years of flying into to some south American country to sit with a shaman who is advertised etc is imo the increasing risk factor..

personally i do not think Peru is a particularly safe environment anymore to go for the purposes of ayahusca, though there are still some reputable and trustworthy curanderos..

ultimately there is a risk factor in any entheogenic endeavour (like mountain climbing), and the company of strangers will increase that risk..

Absolutely.

South American countries are plagued with problems, and most Western people do not understand this. If they want 1'st world guarantees of safety, then they need to stay in their 1'st world countries. In Peru, there are no regulations, and they should make themselves aware of that.