This article contains promotional content .(April 2024) |
Founded | 2009 |
---|---|
Founder | Benjamin de Loenen |
Legal status | Non-profit organization |
Focus | Research and advocacy on psychoactive plants (psychedelics, cannabis) and drug and substance use-related policies advocacy. |
Location |
|
Area served | Worldwide |
Website | www |
The International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service (ICEERS) is a non-profit organization (NPO), headquartered in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain). ICEERS is dedicated to transforming society's relationship with psychoactive plants by engaging with some of the fundamental issues resulting from the globalization of ayahuasca, iboga, and other ethnobotanicals. Founded in 2009, ICEERS is registered as a non-profit organization, and has charitable status in the Netherlands and Spain, and through partner organizations in the US and UK. [1] ICEERS also has consultative status with the United Nations' ECOSOC.
ICEERS envisions a future where psychoactive plant practices are valued and integrated parts of society. [1] Dedicated to turning challenges into opportunities, their vision is that of a future where society's relationship with these plants is transformed – where every individual and each community is granted the right to pursue healing and self-empowerment, where indigenous cultures are respected, and where bridges are built between traditional knowledge and science. [1] ICEERS is dedicated to bridging the ethnobotanical knowledge of indigenous peoples with modern science and therapeutic practice, responding to the urgent need for efficient tools for personal and social development. [2]
According to their website, the organization's mission includes:
The International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research & Service (ICEERS) was founded on May 20, 2009, by Benjamin De Loenen (director of the 2014 documentary Ibogaine - Rite of Passage) as a philanthropic, tax-exempt non-profit organization (charity) dedicated to the integration of ayahuasca, iboga and other traditional plants as therapeutic tools in modern society, and the preservation of indigenous cultures that have been using these plant species since antiquity. [4]
According to its founder and executive director, Benjamin de Loenen, "Over time more people joined the team with scientific and drug policy reform backgrounds, and we started to broaden our scope and address the subject matter from these different angles. Right now, we do scientific research, we also try to make science understandable for policy makers and broader audiences. We educate through the website, offering harm reduction and risk reduction information, and we are involved in policy reform." [5]
ICEERS has grown since 2009 from having a few volunteers and no budget at that time, to 14 staff in 2019. [6] In 2010, ICEERS offered their first training to health departments about ibogaine, as well as organizing a conference about this subject at the Catalan Health Department in that same year. [7] They have also engaged in relationship building and advocacy with decision-makers and international bodies at the United Nations. [8] In 2010, in a letter [9] responding to an ICEERS' query, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) confirmed that "no plant or concoction containing DMT, including ayahuasca, is currently under international control." [10] Moreover, ICEERS has participated in the development of important guidelines [11] for human rights and drug policy, led by the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy, co-published by the WHO, UNDP and UNAIDS. They have also organized side-events at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna for several years and have engaged several times at the UN Human Rights bodies in Geneva.[ citation needed ]
Between 2016 and 2019, the team supported more than 120 legal cases with plant medicine in 27 countries [12] through their legal defense program, the Ayahuasca Defense Fund, [13] creating positive legal precedents.
ICEERS has built a united, culturally diverse and international community [14] through the World Ayahuasca Conference, held in Ibiza, Spain, in 2014, Rio Branco, Brazil, in 2016, and in Girona, Spain, in 2019. The 2019 edition was the largest ever ayahuasca event in history with 1400 participants from 35 countries.[ citation needed ]
ICEERS has also seeded community self-regulatory processes in different countries [15] fostering collective responsibility, ethics, safety and efficient strategies towards regulation. [16]
In Catalonia and Spain, ICEERS has played a leading role advancing an integral cannabis regulation and creating spaces for the voices of medical cannabis patients and medical doctors in the political debate. [17]
Moreover, they have published dozens of scientific peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and other educational materials. [18] ICEERS has organized events at the United Nations, EMCDDA, numerous government agencies, and has presented at conferences worldwide. [19] In 2019, the Catalan Health Department commissioned ICEERS to write and publish a new informative guide on ayahuasca, [20] which is a compilation of basic ethical and security standards for the use of ayahuasca in non-Amazonian contexts and deals with areas of legality and both individual and collective responsibility.
Through their support service they have helped hundreds of people who have faced challenging or adverse experiences after the use of psychoactive plants and are leaders in developing approaches to the integration of psychedelic experiences. [21] Apart from that, they are committed to learning new ways of reciprocal alliance building with indigenous peoples, and gaining and sharing deeper understandings of the indigenous knowledge that surrounds these plants. [22] They collaborate with the Union of Indigenous Yagé Doctors of the Colombian Amazon, an organization created in 1999 that includes five indigenous ethnicities from southwestern Colombia that works to preserve the Amazon rainforest and to revitalize and protect cultures and ancestral medicines. [23]
ICEERS has a decade of legal defense experience, which was formalized in 2016 with the launch of the Ayahuasca Defense Fund program. By September 2019, they had offered support in over 56 cases in 22 countries, several of which set positive legal precedents, and negative precedents were avoided in most other cases. [24] From 2008 to 2017, the ADF noted a significant increase in the legal incidents across the globe. [25] The ADF continues providing assistance around legal incidents, creating new supporting documents for legal teams, updating their online legal information, and developing new legal and human rights arguments based on previous casework.[ citation needed ]
This service provides integration psychotherapy sessions for people in challenging situations after experiencing non-ordinary states of consciousness. ICEERS' support program has helped people worldwide to integrate challenging or adverse experiences since 2013. This donation-based offering was a pioneer in offering integration services and has provided a unique perspective into why and how these situations occur. Over time, they have analyzed and consolidated these key learnings in order to develop training programs [26] and an integration manual for practitioners and integration specialists.[ citation needed ]
ICEERS is a generally trusted reference point for information on science and socio-political transformation. They have organized three CANNABMED conferences in 2016, 2018 and 2020. Through this process, they successfully supported cannabis patients to self-organize (they now have their own patient's organization, the Patients Union for Cannabis Regulation) and also bringing medical professionals together so that they can work together collectively.[ citation needed ]
CANNABMED has promoted the creation of a patient association [27] and a clinical society of professionals [28] interested in the therapeutic potential of cannabis. Hundreds of people with health problems have found a benchmark from CANNABMED and have organized to fight for their rights. [29]
CANNABMED events have provided a framework for civil society, health professionals and politicians to meet, discuss, and build relationships. [30] Since the first event, ICEERS has led several community development processes that resulted in the creation of two new actors in the cannabis regulation scene. First, a patient's union, [31] and in 2019, a health professional NGO that is now operating autonomously (the Endocannabinology Clinical Society [32] ). The first CANNABMED Congress was held at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), [33] the second one at the College of Physicians of Barcelona, [34] and the third at the College of Pharmacists of Barcelona. [35]
ICEERS has authored and collaborated in several publications about the topic of the Cannabis Social Clubs in Spain. [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41]
In 2017, ICEERS received an EU Commission grant for a project called PsychēPlants, through which they developed a series of reports [42] about psychoactive plants, fungi and animal secretions as well as a risk-reduction website to share this important information. This funding also resourced their support service for 18 months and funded a 4-hour course for the EMCDDA (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction), as well as an online course for health professionals.[ citation needed ]
The first World Ayahuasca Conference was held in 2014 in Ibiza, Spain, and the second in 2016 in Rio Branco, capital of Acre, in Brazil. The third edition took place in Girona, Spain, from May 31 to June 2, 2019.
According to their website, the World Ayahuasca Conference is "much more than a conference. It is an instrument for social change – an opportunity to create alignment within the community so that we can co-create a positive future for these plant practices. It's an opportunity to cross-pollinate between different social movements, seeding new collaborations. And, importantly, it's an opportunity to shine a light on the intrinsic connection between the globalization of ayahuasca and the on-going resistance being waged by indigenous peoples against the destruction of sacred land – the Amazon rainforest – so essential for ecological balance." [43]
Practices with iboga and ibogaine are expanding. The cultural, social, and political contexts surrounding the human relationship to this plant and its alkaloids, are complex and ICEERS has sought to bring careful consideration to the impacts of their globalization. The Iboga/ine Community Engagement Initiative sought to engage with the global community [44] to crowdsource opinions and ideas about what an ideal future looks like for iboga and ibogaine in global society – from African and international stakeholders.
ICEERS has been working to develop strategies to leverage more interest and capacity for efforts to conserve and regenerate the plants and indigenous knowledge systems of the Amazon, Gabon and beyond. [45] This work is enabled through collaborations with Dr Bronner's, RiverStyx Foundation, and the Union of Indigenous Yagé Doctors of the Colombian Amazon. [46]
ICEERS builds bridges between traditional knowledge and science to address some of society's most challenging health conditions and to build a more connected society. [47] [48] ICEERS conducts scientific studies on the potential benefits of psychoactive plants, principally cannabis, ayahuasca, and ibogaine, public health, and the role of traditional medicine practices in Global Mental Health. [49] In order to embrace the complex systems in which these ethnobotanicals are embedded, the research team has carried out several studies [50] from a multidisciplinary approach, effectively combining different disciplines ranging from the biomedical research in lab settings to ethnographic explorations.[ citation needed ]
ICEERS, in collaboration with other institutions, published the Ayahuasca Technical Report, [51] as well as the most complete study [52] about neuropsychiatric long-term effects of ayahuasca, the first study [53] showing brain changes in long-term ayahuasca ceremony participants, studies about ayahuasca therapeutical potential, [54] theoretical reflections [55] regarding therapeutic potential of ethnobotanicals, and research in cannabis therapeutic potential for chronic diseases, among others. [56] ICEERS collaborates closely with the group of the Department of Neuroscience and Behavior, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, with the Medical Anthropology Research Center (MARC) at the Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, and with the Autonomous University of Madrid. ICEERS is initiating the first-ever clinical trials with ibogaine for opioid dependence [57] in collaboration with Tre Borràs Cabacés from the Hospital Sant Joan de Reus. [58]
Ayahuasca is a South American psychoactive beverage, traditionally used by Indigenous cultures and folk healers in the Amazon and Orinoco basins for spiritual ceremonies, divination, and healing a variety of psychosomatic complaints.
Entheogens are psychoactive substances, including psychedelic drugs, used in sacred contexts in religion for inducing spiritual development throughout history.
Tabernanthe iboga (iboga) is an evergreen rainforest shrub native to Central Africa. A member of the Apocynaceae family indigenous to Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic of Congo, it is cultivated across Central Africa for its medicinal and other effects.
Bwiti is a spiritual discipline of the forest-dwelling Punu people and Mitsogo peoples of Gabon and by the Fang people of Gabon. Modern Bwiti incorporates animism, ancestor worship, and in some cases, Christianity, into a syncretistic belief system.
Psychedelic therapy refers to the proposed use of psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin, ayahuasca, LSD, psilocin, mescaline (peyote), DMT, 5-MeO-DMT,Ibogaine,MDMA, to treat mental disorders. As of 2021, psychedelic drugs are controlled substances in most countries and psychedelic therapy is not legally available outside clinical trials, with some exceptions.
Harmala alkaloids are several alkaloids that act as monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). These alkaloids are found in the seeds of Peganum harmala, as well as Banisteriopsis caapi (ayahuasca), leaves of tobacco and coffee beans. The alkaloids include harmine, harmaline, harmalol, and their derivatives, which have similar chemical structures, hence the name "harmala alkaloids". These alkaloids are of interest for their use in Amazonian shamanism, where they are derived from other plants. Harmine, once known as telepathine and banisterine, is a naturally occurring beta-carboline alkaloid that is structurally related to harmaline, and also found in the vine Banisteriopsis caapi. Tetrahydroharmine is also found in B. caapi and P. harmala. Dr. Alexander Shulgin has suggested that harmine may be a breakdown product of harmaline. Harmine and harmaline are reversible inhibitors of monoamine oxidase A (RIMAs). They can stimulate the central nervous system by inhibiting the metabolism of monoamine compounds such as serotonin and norepinephrine.
A smart shop is a retail establishment that specializes in the sale of psychoactive substances, usually including psychedelics, as well as related literature and paraphernalia. The name derives from the name "smart drugs", a class of drugs and food supplements intended to affect cognitive enhancements which are often sold in smart shops.
The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is an American nonprofit organization working to raise awareness and understanding of psychedelic substances. MAPS was founded in 1986 by Rick Doblin and is now based in San Jose, California.
Santo Daime is a universalistic/syncretic religion founded in the 1930s in the Brazilian Amazonian state of Acre based on the teachings of Raimundo Irineu Serra, known as Mestre Irineu. Santo Daime incorporates elements of several religious or spiritual traditions, mainly Folk Catholicism, Kardecist Spiritism, African animism and indigenous South American shamanism, including vegetalismo.
Ibogaine is a psychoactive indole alkaloid obtained either by extraction from plants in the family Apocynaceae such as Tabernanthe iboga, Voacanga africana, and Tabernaemontana undulata or by semi-synthesis from the precursor compound voacangine, another plant alkaloid. The total synthesis of ibogaine was described in 1956. Structural elucidation by X-ray crystallography was completed in 1960.
Jonathan Ott is an ethnobotanist, writer, translator, publisher, natural products chemist and botanical researcher in the area of entheogens and their cultural and historical uses, and helped coin the term "entheogen".
Sacrament of Transition is a new religious movement based in Slovenia, based on and promoting the sacramental use of the psychoactive plant Tabernanthe iboga and its psychoactive chemical constituent ibogaine. The founder of Sacrament of Transition is Marko Resinovic. The organization routinely sponsors psychedelic-related conferences and meetings.
The Beckley Foundation is a UK-based think tank and UN-accredited NGO, dedicated to activating global drug policy reform and initiating scientific research into psychoactive substances. The foundation is a charitable trust which collaborates with leading scientific and political institutions worldwide to design and develop research and global policy initiatives. It also investigates consciousness and its modulation from a multidisciplinary perspective, working in collaboration with scientists. The foundation is based at Beckley Park near Oxford, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1998, and is directed by Amanda Feilding, Countess of Wemyss.
Kenneth A. Symington of Cañal was a British-Cuban civic leader, the last National Executive Commissioner of the Asociación de Scouts de Cuba.
A psychoactive drug, mind-altering drug, or consciousness-altering drug is a chemical substance that changes brain function and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior. The term psychotropic drug is often used interchangeably, while some sources present narrower definitions. These substances may be used medically; recreationally; to purposefully improve performance or alter consciousness; as entheogens for ritual, spiritual, or shamanic purposes; or for research, including psychedelic therapy. Physicians and other healthcare practitioners prescribe psychoactive drugs from several categories for therapeutic purposes. These include anesthetics, analgesics, anticonvulsant and antiparkinsonian drugs as well as medications used to treat neuropsychiatric disorders, such as antidepressants, anxiolytics, antipsychotics, and stimulants. Some psychoactive substances may be used in detoxification and rehabilitation programs for persons dependent on or addicted to other psychoactive drugs.
Jerome Sarris is Co-CEO of Psychae Therapeutics and Co-Director of the associated Not-For-Profit Psychae Institute. He was appointed Professor of Psychedelic Medicine at The Centre of Mental Health at Swinburne University of Technology He also holds Adjunct roles at NICM Health Research Institute at Western Sydney University, Australia, and at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
For Alternative Approaches to Addiction, Think & do tank is an international non-profit organization working on drug policy, created in 2015 and based in Paris, France.
This is an overview of the legality of ibogaine by country. Ibogaine is not included on the UN International Narcotics Control Board's Green List, or List of Psychoactive Substances under International Control. However, since 1989, it has been on the list of doping substances banned by the International Olympic Committee and the International Union of Cyclists because of its stimulant properties.
Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc., doing business as MindMed, is a New York-based biotechnology company that is currently developing clinical and therapeutic applications for psychedelic and, more broadly, psychoplastogenic drugs.
A psychedelic retreat is a guided, multi-day program with a set or semi-set itinerary hosted by one or more facilitators where psychoactive substances or processes are administered to guests to improve their mental well-being. The program includes learning and lifestyle workshops on topics such as meditation and healthy eating. These retreats may include an overnight stay, ranging from just one night to one month or more, with meals, a variety of healing modalities, and other activities. A retreat may own its own facility or rent a space to provide suitable accommodation.