By E. Patrick Curry

It is surprising that the article “Effects of Banisteriopsis caapi Extract on Parkinson’s Disease” was published in the Summer 2001 issue of SRAM. If the research truly had merit, why would it not have been published in a neurology journal? As it was, the authors seemed unduly enthusiastic about less than dramatic results accompanied by extensive side effects of an extract from the controversial psychedelic shamanist
beverage Ayahuasca. Further questions arise in connection with the background of co-author Juan R. Sanchez-Ramos.

Dr. Sanchez-Ramos has a long history of involvement in research championed by those who promote the use of psychedelic drugs. The paranormal-oriented Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1995 listed Sanchez-Ramos’s research on Ibocaine treatment for drug addiction as one of the three most important breakthrough psychedelic research projects of the time. This same study was cited as key to the legitimization of
psychedelic drug therapy in an account of a 1994 psychedelic conference.

This work, which Sanchez-Ramos had begun with co-researcher Dr. Deborah Mash at the University of Miami, apparently was canceled due to safety considerations because of deaths attributed to Ibocaine treatment. One report indicates that Dr. Mash’s treatment protocol was intended to cause therapeutic near death experiences. Patients were asked to sign agreements promising to “come back” from the other side of death.

The Sanchez-Ramos/Mash Ibocaine research was funded by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), an active promoter of psychedelic drug use. Dr. Sanchez-Ramos also sits on the Scientific Advisory Panel of the drug-mysticism oriented Heffter Research Institute (HRI) along with familiar CAM and LSD proponent Andrew Weil. HRI has been deeply involved with MAPS in Ibocaine and
Ayahuasca research. Another listed HRI consultant, Jeffrey Bronfman, a member of the wealthy Bronfman family, runs a church dedicated to the drinking of Ayahuasca tea from his home in Santa Fe, NM.

Ayahuasca has been a longstanding interest of Dr. Sanchez-Ramos. At a 1995 Brazilian conference of Ayahuasca shamanists promoting world peace “through the wisdom obtained by regular use of the Vegetal [Ayahuasca],” he joined Heffter Director of Ethnopharmacology Dennis McKenna and Dr. Deborah Mash as a featured speaker. Dr. Sanchez-Ramos gave a “presentation of his paper on banisterene (harmaline/harmine) in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease.” Another speaker at this conference was greeted with “a solid round of applause” when he decried laws that “get in the way” of the personal use of hallucinogens or, as the psychedelicists like to call them, entheogens, referring to their belief that these drugs are a means of manipulating supernatural forces.
This is an unfortunate instance of SRAM’s editors being blindsided by questionable, probably ideologically motivated medical research that is not readily recognized as such.

References:

Grob C., Harmon W. Making Sense of the Psychedelic Issue. Noetic Sciences Review. 1995;35: 4
Available online at http://www.noetic.org/Ions/publications/review_archives/35/issue35_04.html

“Notes From a Psychedelic Revival Meeting: Psychonauts or Psychonuts?”
Available online at http://www.levity.com/rubric/psych.html

Brimingham, K. Fight to develop drug addiction therapy Nature Medicine. 1998: 4; 377
Available online at http://www.ibogaine.org/naturemed.html

Rienzo, P, Beal D. The Ibocaine Project: Has the Cure for Addiction Been Suppressed Since the 1960s Chapter 18 “Deborah Mash’s Brain” Shareware publication.
Available online at http://www.cures-not-wars.org/ibogaine/chap18.html

Ibocaine Research Update. Newsletter of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies 1995: 6(2). Available online at http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n2/06204ibo.html

The Heffter Research Institute Scientific Advisory Panel
Available at http://www.heffter.org/Advisors.html

Vincent I. Bronfman, the Guru and their Tea. National Post, January 12, 2001
Available online on site of cult expert Rick Ross at
http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general330.html

Report From the International Conference of Hoasca Studies, 11/2-4/95. . Newsletter of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies 1996: 6(3).
Available online at http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v06n3/06336udv.html
 
 

Author: E. Patrick Curry