Mexican Ayahuasca Retreats In Peril?
José Campos – a curandero from the Shipibo-Conibo tribe in the Peruvian Amazon – was travelling by plane to Mexico in March of 2022 carrying approximately 9 pounds of Ayahuasca paste – presumably for Ayahuasca retreats.
In the process, he was stopped by a combination of Customs officials and Mexican Marines, and he openly showed them the medicine and told them what it was since he didn’t think there was any issue with it because people have been brining Ayahuasca into Mexico for decades without issue.
But after doing some testing, federal prosecutors decided to charge him with drug trafficking, which meant he could serve up to 25 years in a Mexican prison. So he was arrested and placed in preventative detention.
Campos, who is 64, is one of eight people who were charged and arrested for trafficking for the sin of flying into Mexico with Ayahuasca in 2022, and all of these arrests took place after the Marines took over control of Customs in key Mexican airports, in an effort to curb corruption.
Problem is, Ayahuasca isn’t illegal in Mexico!
Campos’ lawyer Pepe Ramos explained that Mexico bases their drug trafficking regulations on the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which doesn’t specifically outlaw Ayahuasca.
It does make DMT a scheduled substance, but the International Narcotics Control Board which oversees the treaty has ruled that Ayahuasca itself is excluded from that definition, and that if countries want to outlaw it they need to pass specific legislation – which Mexico has not done.
“It has expressly clarified that there are certain traditional medicines…that are not part of this treaty,” Ramos said. “This is not a grey area. It’s simply not illegal in Mexico.”
But apparently, these particular federal prosecutors didn’t get the memo.
Fast-forwarding to December of 2022, a reporter asked Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador about the case of Lauro Hinostroza – one of the other Mexico’s Ayahuasca prisoners – during a press conference, and he said:
“We will look for him to be freed… Surely, they consider it a drug and that is why they arrested him… The other thing is what the Supreme Court decided about the use of these herbs. I don’t have more to go by.”
Then in January (of 2023), the Mexican Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection, Rosa Icela Rodríguez Velázquez, explained that they are actively looking into the case against Hinostroza and the other Ayahuasca prisoners:
“The secretariat team is working on a legal route to free them, actions are being coordinated with the wife, with Mr. Lauro’s family and the group of lawyers… There is already a very good approach with public servants of the Attorney General’s Office and documentation is currently being concentrated to request the change from preventive detention to house arrest due to to the age and health status of the person, of this traditional Peruvian doctor.”
And finally, just 8 days ago on March 13, 2023, Jose Campos was acquitted of all charges, though unfortunately, there are no further updates regarding Hinostroza or the other 6 Ayahuasca prisoners who are all still in preventative detention.
We will certainly be keeping a close eye on this situation, and will update you as things progress.
Until next time,
Tim G.
AyaAdvisors.org
Sources:
https://ioangrillo.substack.com/p/mexicos-ayahuasca-prisoners/
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