Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
May 4, 2022
Ismael Apud, Juan Scuro, Ignacio Carrera et al.
14 citations
Participants in ayahuasca rituals at a substance-use-disorder treatment center in Uruguay scored higher than a control group on Impulsive Sensation Seeking, Boredom Susceptibility, and Social Warmth scales of the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire. Qualitative analysis of their experiences revealed five categories: emotional experiences (including love and empathy), corporal experiences, spiritual/transcendental experiences, personal experiences, and visions. The findings suggest that the combination of social interactions and ayahuasca's pharmacological action may facilitate social emotions during rituals and contribute to long-term increases in empathic and social aspects of personality.
Salud colectiva
August 19, 2020
David Pere Martínez Oró, Ismael Apud, Juan Scuro et al.
12 citations
Prohibitionist drug policies present their political-moral agenda as ideologically neutral science. This article examines cannabis and psychedelics to show that prohibitionism selectively uses only scientific findings that support its predetermined conclusions while ignoring contradictory evidence. The authors argue that drug policies should instead be grounded in scientific evidence and core values—public health, social cohesion, and human rights. They advocate analyzing the power relations that shape the contradictory relationship between science and drug policy.
February 15, 2018
Juan Scuro
10 citations
Since the 1990s, three major neoshamanic lineages—Brazilian ayahuasca religions, Peruvian vegetalismo, and Mexico's Red Path—have arrived in Uruguay, a country often imagined as white, without indigenous people, and secular. These practices adapt to and challenge national hegemonic narratives, both reaffirming and breaking down stereotypes. The author describes their arrival, specificities, and therapeutic use of indigenous spiritualties and sacred plants. The chapter also analyzes ayahuasca's legal and social status in Uruguay, where medicinal, industrial, and recreational cannabis was recently legalized, exploring similarities, differences, dialogues, and tensions between these two psychoactive substances in the Uruguayan context.
Journal of Psychedelic Studies
September 2, 2022
Ismael Apud, Juan Scuro, Ignacio Carrera et al.
6 citations
Ayahuasca's psychological and subjective effects differ between two neoshamanic groups in Uruguay: a psychospiritual holistic center and a center treating substance use disorders. A mixed-methods study using the Hallucinogen Rating Scale and in-depth interviews found significant medium-sized differences in affect, cognition, and perception between groups. The group with higher scores reported more frequent and complex emotional, cognitive, and perceptive experiences. No significant quantitative differences emerged for intensity or somaesthetic domains, yet qualitative reports described the experience as “soft” in one group and noted bodily effects like purging. Stronger subjective effects may relate to differences in dosage and setting.
Journal of psychoactive drugs
January 1, 2023
Ismael Apud, Juan Scuro, Luisina Rodríguez et al.
4 citations
People who use ayahuasca in a neo-shamanic group and a Santo Daime church in Uruguay differ in personality and acute psychological effects. Santo Daime members scored lower on Neuroticism-Anxiety, Dependence, Low Self-Esteem, Anger, and Restlessness, possibly due to the protective effects of a structured church religion or because some neo-shamanic participants were undergoing treatment. During rituals, the neo-shamanic group reported stronger somesthesia and perception, linked to their high-arousal setting. Chemical analysis found typical alkaloids with no adulterants; the neo-shamanic sample had a higher β-carbolines-to-DMT ratio, which may explain the stronger somesthetic effects. Personality and acute effects correlated only in the neo-shamanic group, suggesting a more individualistic tradition.
Social Compass
December 1, 2024
Juan Scuro
3 citations
Academic publications on psilocybin are concentrated in medical and scientific fields, while those on ayahuasca come mainly from the humanities and social sciences. The use of both substances is undergoing secularization—moving away from traditional cultural roots—but to different degrees: psilocybin is more secularized and medicalized, whereas ayahuasca retains stronger ties to religious institutions and indigenous organizations. Ayahuasca also exhibits a form of 'guardianship,' with groups actively maintaining cultural authority over its practices. Clinical trials for psilocybin carefully attend to setting, but this does not necessarily emphasize traditional mushroom-use contexts.
Anthropology of Consciousness
November 10, 2024
Juan Scuro, Ismael Apud, Víctor T. Pérez Martínez
3 citations
Three former patients with substance use disorders recovered after participating in ayahuasca rituals at a neo-shamanic center in Uruguay, run by a psychologist trained in the Peruvian vegetalismo tradition. In-depth interviews collected their narratives, analyzed from a medical anthropology perspective focusing on biographical, substance use, spiritual, and entheogenic trajectories. The impact of the rituals is attributed not only to ayahuasca's psychedelic properties but to its role as a psychotherapeutic tool embedded in a social, cultural, and spiritual setting designed to treat substance use disorders.
Fermentario
June 6, 2018
Juan Scuro
3 citations
The article challenges the concept of secularism (laicidad) by examining the use of entheogens or sacred plants, such as ayahuasca. It analyzes a 2009 case in which ayahuasca, a psychoactive brew of Amazonian origin, was seized by customs in Chuy, Uruguay, while en route from Brazil to a Santo Daime church in Uruguay. The shipment never reached its destination after judicial intervention and the case was archived by the Ministry of Health. Ayahuasca is considered a sacrament in Santo Daime, where ritual use is central. The article situates Santo Daime within Brazilian religions and neoshamanism, highlighting tensions around secularism, religious freedom, and the regulation of sacred plants or drugs.
Ciencias Sociales y Religión
December 19, 2023
Juan Scuro
1 citation
A review of research on addictions focuses on Latin American literature, where addictions are approached from theoretical-methodological perspectives including social sciences of religion, drug ethnographies, and medical anthropology. It delves into two treatment models for addictions: the neo-Pentecostal and the neo-shamanic. These models are part of a broad care system where religious-spiritual dimensions are explicitly present. The review outlines their main characteristics based on the literature and offers a perspective from Uruguay. The study of the overlaps and convergences of religion and health in the case of addictions is a fertile field for developing theoretical and analytical perspectives, and debates on secularism and secularization find a particular empirical basis here.
February 27, 2023
Juan Scuro, Ismael Apud, Sebastián Torterola
Ayahuasca arrived in Uruguay in the 1990s via Santo Daime church and neo-shamanic and holistic centers, sparking legal cases and public debates where drug policies and religious rights intersect. This chapter describes recent cases: the confiscation of 30 liters of ayahuasca from Santo Daime, analyzed under Uruguayan drug law; a father's denunciation after his son, a former ayahuasca user and spiritual seeker, committed suicide; and controversies around Ayahuasca International's arrival. The discussion highlights tensions between religious freedom, concerns about dangerous sects, public health, and drug policy in contemporary Uruguay.