Buying Ayahuasca and other entheogens online: A word of caution

Since the mid-1990s, publications in the UK and Europe sparked interest in psychoactive plants from South and Central America that were previously obscure outside their native regions. Although information about their effects and extraction methods became widely available, the plants themselves were hard to obtain until online headshops began selling legal alternatives to controlled drugs. This study assessed users' own experiences of how easily they could access information from online suppliers of these substances.

Study at a glance

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.