The Dallas Morning News 8/28/96 Dallas, TX
By Julie Watson
Medicine men have used ayahuasca for millennia to brew a powerful hallucinogenic tea that is said to send them dancing with the dead.
Revered by the rain forest tribes, ayahuasca is a sacred plant reserved only for shamans. So indigenous leaders were horrified to learn recently that a California man had patented a variety of the flowering rain forest vine.
"I feel violated," said Valerio Grefa, head of a group representing about 400 Amazon tribes. "This is completely immoral. It's the same as; if someone took out a patent on the eucharistic host used by Catholics."
Mr. Grefa and his organization, representing tribes in nine South American countries, had threatened to protest outside U.S. embassies, but now they say they will take their battle to the U.S. Supreme Court. They plan to file a lawsuit demanding that U.S. officials revoke the patent.
Indigenous leaders say that the dispute highlights the need to protect tribes from being exploited by pharmaceutical companies exploring the Amazon for miracle drugs that could lead to multimillion dollar profits.
"This is knowledge based on thousands of years of research by our ancestors," Mr. Grefa said. "And they come in here, spend a few hours talking to the shamans, recreate it in their laboratories and make millions of dollars without sending a dime to the community. We're not proposing to hide our knowledge. All we want is to see some of the benefits to better our lives."
Ayahuasca, which means "vine of the soul" in the Quichua language, is taken during a small ceremony. In front of his village, the shaman sinks into a trance, humming an other- worldly chant and rocking back and forth. He might call out the visions he sees. Other times he will grab a tree branch and rhythmically brush it up and e down the body of a sick person to wipe away the bad spirits.
Shamans in the Amazon Jungle believe ayahuasca gives them the power to heal the sick, meet with spirits and see into the future. But for the uninitiated, ayahuasca reportedly causes vomiting, nightmares and even insanity.
California resident Loren Miller patented a variety of the species Banisteriopsis caapi -- the Latin name for the ayahuasca vine -- to study its possible medicinal value in cancer treatment and psychotherapy, according to the patent.
Mr. Miller, the sole employee of the International Plant Medicine Corp., which he operates from his home in Palo Alto, Calif., could not be reached for comment.
Reviled in Quito newspapers as a "bio-pirate," Mr. Miller told area media that in the 10 years he has had the patent he has never tried to a market his variety, named "Da Vino."
But others who have gotten their hands on the sacred plant are making money off it by selling it to rich hippies via the Internet, indigenous leaders say, some are even arranging trips for people who want to drink the hallucinogenic tea with a shaman.
Indigenous communities tied to Mr. Grefa's organization, the Coordinating Committee of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin, vow to ban any tours from entering their land. Mr. Miller -- who reportedly learned of the plant from the Secoya Indians in northern Ecuador -- also is not welcome back.
"We want to make the world aware that we will not allow this," Mr. Grefa said. "People must respect our culture and our knowledge."
The uproar could derail a bilateral agreement between the United States and Ecuador that would govern issues of intellectual property rights. Indigenous leaders condemn the accord, fearing it would pave the way for more Americans to stake a claim on their medicinal plants.
But U.S. Embassy officials say the pact now before the Ecuadorean Congress merely provides for the recognition of already existing patents. It is designed to ease concerns of international firms considering investing in the country.
Embassy officials say they have recommended that Ecuador go one step further and implement its own system of registering native plants, a step that they say would have prevented Mr. Miller from patenting his ayahuasca variety.
Luis Macas, who won a congressional seat in May, becoming Ecuador's first indigenous national deputy, said work is under way on a new law that would grant shamans rights to their knowledge of medicinal plants. It also would require pharmaceutical companies to get authorization from community leaders before prospecting in the Amazon.
"We want to stop people from taking advantage of innocent people," Mr. Grefa said. "Most of the indigenous people here had never thought about intellectual property rights before. They didn't know they had to protect themselves against this kind of thing. But now they're learning."
Julie Watson is a free-lance journalist based in Quito, Ecuador.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright c The Dallas Morning News, 1996.