PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release Contact: Deborah Parrish Snyder Tel: 505 424 0237 Email: [email protected] PUB DATE: July 6, 2018 Consciousness | Sustainability | Cultural Anthropology Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs: 50 Years of Research (1967 - 2017)

Essential for academic libraries, pharmaceutical and ethnobotanical collections.

ERTAIN PLANTS have long been known to contain healing properties and used to treat Ceverything from depression and addiction, to aiding in on one’s own spiritual well-being for hundreds of years. Can Western medicine find new cures for human ailments by tapping into indigenous plant wisdom? And why the particular interest in the plants with psychoactive properties? These two conference volume proceedings provide an abundance of answers. The first international gathering of researchers held in San Francisco, California on this The defining scholarly publication subject was in 1967, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and U.S. on the past and current state of Public Health Service. It was an interdisciplinary group of specialists – from ethnobotanists research with psychotropic plant to neuroscientists – gathered in one place to share their findings on a topic that was gaining widespread interest: The use of psychoactive plants in indigenous societies. The WAR ON substances for medicinal, DRUGS which intervened slowed advances in this field. therapeutic, and spiritual uses. Research, however, has continued, and in the fifty years since that first conference, new and significant discoveries have been made. A new generation of researchers, many inspired Two-volume, Hardcover by the giants present at that first conference, has continued to investigate the outer limits of Boxed Set $125.00 ISBN 978-0907791-68-3 ethno-psychopharmacology. At the same time, there has been a sea change in public and Vol. 1 488 pages, Vol. 2 344 pgs medical perceptions of psychedelics. There is now a renaissance in research, and some of 6.625 x 10.25 inches these agents are actively being investigated for their therapeutic potential. They are no longer Numerous illustrations, b & w photos, as stigmatized as they have been in the past, although they remain controversial. There still charts and graphs, index. remains much work to do in this field, and many significant discoveries remain to be made. 1 Bluebird Court So, in June of 2017, once again specialists from around the world in fields of ethnophar- Santa Fe, New Mexico 87508 macology, chemistry, , and anthropology gathered to discuss their research and find- ings in a setting that encouraged the free and frank exchange of information and ideas on EDITORIAL BOARD the last 50 years of research, and assess the current and possible futures for research in eth- Professor Sir Ghillean Prance, nopsychopharmacology. The papers given at the 2017 Symposium, organized by Dr. Dennis Director (emeritus) Royal Botanic McKenna, appear in this handsome two-volume boxed collectors set represents perhaps the Gardens, Kew most significant body of knowledge in this interdisciplinary field available. Dr. Dennis McKenna, Director of Ethnopharmacology, Heffter Re- “This collection represents a milestone in the research and publish- search Institute; Symposium Chair ing history on classical and obscure psychoactive plants, as well as pioneering ideas from some of the world’s greatest experts on the Benjamin De Loenen, Founder, subject of the legitimate therapeutic roles that these plants can and Executive Director of ICEERS do offer to modern medicine and society.” —Mark Blumenthal Founder & Executive Director, American Dr. Wade Davis, Professor of Botanical Council, Editor-in-Chief, HerbalGram & HerbClip Anthropology at the University of British Columbia Vol 2: TABLE OF CONTENTS Dennis J. McKenna, What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been: Reflections on the Ethnopharmacolog- ic Search for Psychoactive Drugs (1967-2017) Stephen Szára, contributor to 1967 Symposium, A Scientist Looks at the Hippies

AYAHUASCA & THE AMAZON Luis Eduardo Luna, , a Powerful Epistemological Wildcard in a Complex, Fascinating and Dangerous World Constantino Manuel Torres, From Beer to Tabacco: A Probable Prehistory of Ayahuasca and Yagé Evgenia Fotiou, Plant Use and Shamanic Dietas in Contemporary Ayahuasca Shamanism in Peru Glenn H. Shepard, Substance, Soul and Sensation in Amazonian Shamanism Dale Millard, Broad Spectrum Roles of Harmine in Ayahuasca Mark J. Plotkin, Brian Hettler & Wade Davis , Viva Schultes: A Retrospective

The medicines of the future will come from the forest primeval. AFRICA, AUSTRALIA & SE ASIA Nigel Gericke, Kabbo’s !Kwaiń: The Past, Present and Possible Future of Kanna –Dr. Richard Evans Schultes, Christopher R. McCurdy, Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) as a Potential Therapy for Opioid , Founder of Dependence Contemporary , Speaker at the 1967 Symposium Kenneth Alper, The Iboga Project: Urban for Opioid Use Disorder Jean-Francios Sobiecki, Psychoactive Initiation Plant Medicines: Their Role in the Healing and Ethnopharmacology is the interdis- Learning Process of South African and Upper Amazonian Traditional Healers ciplinary scientific investigation of Snu Voogelbreinder, Psychoactive Australian Acacia Species and their Alkaloids biologically active substances used or David E. Nichols, From ‘There’ to ‘Here’: Psychedelic Natural Products and Their Contributions observed by humans in traditional or to Medicinal Chemistry indigenous cultures.

–D. J. McKenna MEXICO & CENTRAL AMERICA Stacy B. Schaefer, Fertile Grounds? and the Human Reproductive System Keeper Trout, Mescal, Peyote and the Red Bean; A Peculiar Conceptual Collision in Early Modern For a review copy or any other Ethnobotany questions, please contact the Jerry Patchen, Reflections on the Peyote Road with the Native American Church – publisher, Deborah Parrish Visions & Cosmology Snyder at: [email protected] THE BIOSPHERE or call (505) 424 0237. Jeanmaire Molina, Phylogenetic Analysis of Traditional Medicinal Plants: Discovering New Drug Sources from Patterns of Cultural Convergence Worldwide Trade Distributor: Dennis J. McKenna, Ethnopharmacology Meets the Receptorome: Bioprospecting for PUBLISHERS GROUP WEST Psychotherapeutic Medicines in the Amazon Rainforest Available through Amazon.com Dale Millard, A Preliminary Report on Two Novel Psychoactive Medicines from Northern and your local bookstore. Mozambique Conference was sponsored by: Michael Heinrich, Ethnopharmacology - From Mexican to a Global Symbiosis, Tyringham Initiative, Transdisciplinary Science Heffter Research Institute, MAPS, Botanical illustrations for for the cover by Donna Torres. Institute of Ecotechnics, Beckley Foundation, and ICEERs Published by Synergetic Press, in association with the With thanks to these individuals: Heffter Research Institute Jerry Patchen, Robert Barnhart, Betsy Lambert, T. Cody Swift, SYNERGETICPRESS.COM David Petrou, Carey and Claudia 1 Bluebird Court Turnbull Santa Fe, New Mexico 87508