This is from a swedish newspaper and i have just translated it from google...



followed by a drug overdose is 41-year-old Swedish man abandoned in a hospital in Peru.

UD does not want to help him home and he is now in danger of dying.

- He has abandoned himself by traveling without insurance, "says Anders Jörle, press officer at UD.


41-year-old Swedish citizen and became seriously ill, four days ago after he drank the traditional jungle drug ayahuasca.

He's in a coma at a hospital in the city of Iquitos, and there is no indication that he will recover.



Danger of dying

State Department says the situation looks bleak because the man has no insurance. Thus he can not get help to pay for their care of SOS International.

The man's treatment is paid for the time being of a friend.

- Foreign Ministry does not pay. It is taxpayers'money, "said foreign ministry spokesperson Anders Jörle.

The Peruvian television described him as "abandoned".

- He has abandoned himself by traveling without insurance, "says Anders Jörle.



Shaman warns

Swede drank the strong drink along with some other foreign tourists in the Amazon rainforest. The drink, which is known to give hallucinations, struck.

- Since he has been preparing the drink properly, he has gotten a bad reaction. It could make you fall ill, suffer vomiting, dizziness, diarrhea, and that you end up in a coma, "said Suely Jaramillo, shaman, El Comercio.

According to Peruvian media, the man began vomiting after he drank the liquid. He was helped by two villagers to get to the nearest hospital in the Peruvian Amazon.








Ayahuasca - part of the Peruvian tourism

The Ayahuasca is a powerful hallucinogenic drug class a substance called DMT. The drug LSD is described as very mild in comparison with DMT.

The drug is used traditonellt among some Indian tribes in the Amazon in religious rites and helps to induce visions and spiritual insights.

When using the drug should always be a guide, a shaman, appear. He prepares the drink, which consists of plants, and trying to help the drugged not to feel bad.

To experiment with ayahuasca attracts a not insignificant proportion of young tourists to Peru.

Earlier this year, reported El Comercio on the German tourists Catina Uti Klingelfeld, 23, who was raped and beaten during a ayahuascaritual near the city of Iquitos.





END


Not alot of info on anything really, as far as we know he could have been drinking 10doses by himself or something,


This sounds like the fear mongering now has spread to ayahuasca aswell, probably since it´s starting to get more popular, also i guess alot of fake shamans are trying to make some cash by having rituals without any real knowledege.

Seems like something went wrong with the dose or the preparation method. This is what happens when there are ayahuasca tourists in the amazon bringing in their money (and even ignorance): most likely a fake shaman who didn't supervise or made wrong brew. This is very unusual if everything's done correctly. And now ayahuasca might be seen as "bad drug" by some readers of this news.

And yet alcohol is still accepted... I wonder how this compares to the percentage of alcohol casualties when looking at #-of-casualties/#-of-users... I'm pretty sure alcohol is still worse. No one sees that as a bad drug... How can the mind be so selective and unreasonable?? makes my head spin...

Fear-mongery and prejudice prevail... At least not here though. So maybe there is hope.

This is sweden in a nutshell, we have the highest % of alcoholics heroinists and poeple poping benzos in the world, coupled with highest suicide rates outside of china and still the politicians protect their extremely hard drug laws like it´s something positive, like we are cutting edge or something.

Or who knows, maybe it could have been a brew with datura or similar, which is known to be done by some people in the amazon.

With the popularization of ayahuasca tourism, the money from foreigners encouraging the appearance of unscrupulous greedy pseudo-shamans, and/or people with no critical thinking and little care for themselves, there are bound to come bad stories. Its hard to judge this particular case though, without knowing exactly what happened, that news is way to general we cant know anything. If you have any more thorough news about it do tell us.

It´s funny how they mention that he is basicly left to die since he didnt have any insurance, they say it´s "tax payers" money, lol like we don´t waste any money on other shit...

That´s why i don´t pay tax, or as little as possible

About matters that came up in this thread: "waste" of tax money, alcohol and drug laws: Well, we do live in mostly f****d up society where selfish thieves make up the rules!
Changes will come anyway, we will see how soon...

That's what I was thinking.

There is no reason whatsoever to implicate the constituents of the brew. None. Other folks took the same brew and are not in a coma. It is MUCH more likely that dehydration and electrolyte imbalance due to purging both up and down (MAJOR loss of potassium and water) caused the initial problems, compounded by no way to parenterally administer fluid and electrolyte replacement ---> coma. This can happen in SEVERAL ways. More likely the gentleman suffered an acute renal insufficiency, less likely cardiac arrhythmia ---> anoxic brain injury.

All the above is speculative (obviously) but much more likely than the brew if others drank it and did not suffer an identical fate. You can take that to the bank.

N.B.

perhaps similar to Mark's bad trip in the ayahuasca journey filmed for Discovery Channel's "The Adventures of Mark and Ollie", in which as things turned out a perhaps less than respectable ayahuasca brewer lit up the broth with some datura or brugmansia. Ollie seemed to have a good time, however!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...tVes&feature=related

Ollie had his own show some time after this, and it wasn't long before he was running around the Peruvian desert with a glass of San Pedro.

Due to the lack of medical research on this patient it's unfair to say anything caused it.

yeah, good point. Sometimes things just draw attention because it's out of the ordinary. Sometimes people will focus on one of the least likely things that might happen, while ignoring the terrible things that happen all the time, and are much more likely to affect them and people they know. Don't worry Sweden, you're about a million times more likely to die of alcohol poisoning than going to Peru, not buying health insurance, and going in to a coma after ayahuasca. But, people read something like this and it scares impressionable people. Ooooh... a weird drug in Brazil that is killing a guy. They say lsd is "mild" in comparison. They just take it all at face value, don't bother questioning what actually happened, and don't frame a single incident in context with the whole picture. And of course, don't know anything about dmt except what it says in this article, that lsd is mild in comparison. No. Sometimes it's probably better to remain completely ignorant of things rather than read misleading, false things.



The article isn't even specific or clear about what actually happened, or what substances were used. The article makes a connection between ayahuasca use (4 days earlier, it says), and then a coma. Who knows what really happened? It doesn't make sense for someone to take ayahuasca, and get sick 4 days later. If he did get sick, it wasn't the active alkaloids, nor an overdose that made him sick. The body would have completely rid itself of the actives after 1 day. There are any number of things that can make a person sick, especially in a foreign country. The article just points out the fact that ayahuasca drinking was one of the many things that man came in contact with, and he got sick later.

Poor guy.

This business about lacking insurance is a bit of a red herring-Ive filled out enough insurance claim forms for people over the years and they ALWAYS ask whether or not the ailment suffered was caused by drugs or alcohol.Nice cop-out for the criminal insurers.

We also need more details regarding what actually occurred here.What people often forget is the idiosyncratic reaction, ie the odd person gets really messed-up by something that others can take with impunity.

You know this just raised a question in my mind.

In a traditional setting(the amazon,peru etc.) is it common place, when introducing new people, too administer an allergy dose prior to dosing in active amounts?

Some obscure allergy to some obscure saponin, alkaloid or whatever else, in a large enough amount could cause coma could it not?

Illegal drugs are put into a scheduled hierarchy according to their potential to be abused... Funny that the most commonly abused drug is nowhere in the Controlled Substances Act.

man, this is really sad.. I hope that he comes out of it, we should all send him good wishes

Im sending my best wishes and positive thoughts to the man, his family & to his friends.

My guess would be drug interactions. Who knows what other drugs he was on. Or maybe a rare form of allergy. But you can be allergic of almost anything and fall into a state of shock.



That -->

Ummmmm....no. First off - the timing is all wrong. An allergic reaction would not take four days to evolve. Secondly, in order to have an anaphylactic reaction, a prior exposure to the ingredient would be REQUIRED. Allergic reactions are EASY to recognize clinically and this does not fit the information at all. Malaise followed by flushing followed by cutaneous manifestations (rash) and/or wheezing, difficulty breathing and hypotension follow one another VERY quickly following exposure to an allergic agent that ultimately results in a coma.

I'm sticking to my guns. Warm humid environment, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, (maybe even caused by a water-borne parasite and not the Ayahuasca at all!) dehydrated this fellow, caused a severe, uncorrected electrolyte imbalance leading to either acute renal failure or (much less likely) a cardiac arrhythmia.

N.B.

These ayahuasca tourists IMO should stay out of these jungles and avoid ruining the small remains of proper ayahuasca practices of the original shamans. If they want the experience, order the ingredients from the web and find a proper guide for preparation!
That rape-case mentioned above is an example of what money and tourism can bring into the jungle in worst case.