Leaders
of
South
American
Indigenous
Peoples
Challenge
US
Ayahuasca
Patent
4/9/99
Marc Brandl, [email protected]Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic plant used for thousands of years in tribal ceremonies in many regions of South America, has moved from the hogan to the courtroom with a challenge to a 1986 patent on the sacred plant. Representatives of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin came to Washington recently to challenge the validity of a patent on the plant awarded to a California pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Loren Miller. Tribal leaders say they found out about the patent in 1994 and claim it is a violation of their religion and culture. Experts are troubled by the practice of seeking out plants sacred to indigenous cultures for commercial use, known as "bioprospecting." "We find it very troubling when an individual basically claims something as a new creation when it was derived from an indigenous populations culture and history," said Roy Taylor, a spokesman for the North American Indigenous Peoples BioDiversity Project. "Where are the profits going that may be derived from the bringing a patented substance to market? At a minimum, agreements should be in place that are going to give some of these profits back to the local indigenous population. But it should always be up to the these populations whether they want to give up these substances in the first place." Jim Miller, head of applied research at the Missouri Botanical Garden, voiced frustration at both sides. "I understand and am sensitive to the concerns of indigenous groups in South America that they have a sense of ownership over a plant. But this was very clearly a flawed patent. The owner of the patent realized it was flawed and never used it. It strikes me as a pointless exercise to challenge a patent that will expire in two years." Miller, who is unrelated to the California entrepreneur, said he has visited South America looking for plants with therapeutic potential. Previous court rulings have determined that individuals and businesses cannot patent a life form unless it is a developed plant variety that is produced through a breeding program that gives it special characteristics, or by isolating derivatives of the plant. "Ayahuasca," also known as Yage, roughly translates as "vine of the soul." Its existence was first documented in 1908 by European anthropologists exploring the Amazon Basin. The plant's hallucinogenic qualities come from high levels of a chemical compound known as DMT. It first entered into the American conscious in the 1950's, when surrealist writer William S. Burroughs described his experiences with it in letters he sent to Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, which were published as "The Yage Letters." The Autumn 1998 newsletter of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies includes extensive discussion of the Ayahuasca plant, online at http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v08n3/.
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