ABSTRACT
The religions were originally developed by members of the poorer strata of Brazilian society and their use of Ayahuasca harks back to ancient indigenous traditions, particularly in regions of the south-western Amazon. Until 1976, African-Indian-Brazilian religious centres were legally obliged to register and to submit to police supervision, with all the arbitrariness this entailed. The first republican penal code, which was passed in 1890, considered 'witch-doctory', as African religiosity was then generically labelled, to be a crime, linking religious issues to the illicit practice of medicine. In the international scene, Brazilian approach appears as a pioneering example with wide implications for the general issue of drug control. The scientific and academic members of the Ayahuasca Working Group were selected from researchers who had previously provided advice to government offices dealing with drug use such as National Drug Policy Council (CONAD).
