Environmental legislation regulating ayahuasca in Brazil, enacted to protect plant species and guide production, has created new forms of control that disproportionately burden small urban churches and Indigenous groups. Major ayahuasca groups in Acre and Rondônia—Alto Santo, UDV, and Barquinha—supported these bureaucratic standards, which the authors argue function as an "ecological façade" to restrict diverse ayahuasca practices. In response, Amazonian Indigenous groups have entered public debate, demanding free circulation, production, and administration of ayahuasca beyond their territories, and calling for dialogue with the Brazilian State to develop inclusive public policies.
The article analyzes the institutionalization of ayahuasca use in Brazil through a combination of bibliographic analysis and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in three ayahuasca centers in the North, Southeast, and South regions. It examines elements related to the consolidation of these groups, including their cultural practices and associated stigmas, and compares how academic literature describes these data with current observations in the studied groups. The paper also addresses public policies regulating ayahuasca use across drug, cultural, and environmental domains, highlighting the complexity of the legitimation process of this phenomenon in the country.