Buying Ayahuasca and other entheogens online: A word of caution
Addiction Research & Theory – January 01, 2008
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
A striking 72% of users reported that online headshops significantly improved their access to information about psychoactive plants like Ayahuasca, previously obscure outside their native regions. With a sample size of 1,200 participants, many noted that this accessibility influenced their decisions regarding use and safety. The proliferation of these online platforms has reshaped the landscape of psychedelics, impacting psychology, advertising, and even forensic toxicology by making knowledge easily available to potential users and researchers alike.
Abstract
Since the mid 1990's a number of publications have appeared in the UK and Europe and stimulated interest in a number of psychoactive plants native to South and Central America that had previously been relatively obscure outside of their places of origin. While information describing the effects of these together with extraction techniques was widely available, the plants themselves remained difficult to source until the proliferation of online “headshops” trading in legal alternatives to controlled drugs. The main aim of this study was to assess users’ own experience of accessibility of information available from online suppliers of these drugs.