The Church of the Eagle and the Condor had its own ayahuasca seized by CBP in September 2020. As New Times reported last year, Clay Villanueva - the late leader of the Vine of Light Church - was raided and jailed in 2021 for his possession of ayahuasca (though he faced other drug charges as well, for selling pot and for possessing psilocybin mushrooms). These successful court cases, however, have not protected other ayahuasca churches from seizures or prosecution. But other U.S.-based congregations - notably, the New Mexico-based União do Vegetal and the Santo Daime churches in Oregon - have won legal battles arguing that their religious use of ayahuasca is protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Under the Controlled Substances Act, DMT is illegal. That's because brew is made from several plants native to the Amazon basin, which, when stewed together, activate the hallucinogen N,N-dimethyltryptamine, or DMT.
But he has been an outspoken advocate of religious freedom for ayahuasca congregations, numerous YouTube videos and material on the church's website make clear.Īyahuasca's legal status in the U.S. Tafur declined to comment for this story, saying he is directing questions to his attorneys now that the lawsuit has been filed. He calls himself an "ayahuascero," having studied traditional uses of the brew in the jungles of Peru for seven years. Tafur, of Phoenix, is Colombian-American and works in naturopathic medicine. The Church of the Eagle and the Condor was founded, in part, "to help protect our sacred right to use ayahuasca," explained physician and church founder Joe Tafur in a podcast last year. government after seizures of its own ayahuasca. Another church, in Tucson, is still battling for legal recognition from the U.S. One, the Vine of Light Church, also based in Phoenix, was the subject of a Phoenix New Times story last fall, which delved into a drug raid of that church by a federal task force, and the church's lawsuit against the DEA that followed.
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government, in its efforts to crack down on drugs coming into the country, is bypassing longstanding religious freedoms. One church in Phoenix filed a similar lawsuit just over one year ago. The Phoenix place of worship is now the newest of a number of ayahuasca churches in Arizona that have, in the last two years, launched fights for legal status. The government has yet to respond to these claims in legal pleadings. These actions amounted to a "substantial burden on exercise of their religious beliefs," attorneys for the church argued. Customs and Border Protection, and its parent agency DHS over the confiscations and warnings by federal agents about possible escalation. On June 9, attorneys for the Church of the Eagle and the Condor filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S.
This month, the church began a legal battle over these seizures, aiming to become one of the relatively few ayahuasca churches nationwide that have won legal recognition by the U.S. The small community has been threatened with federal prosecution. Department of Homeland Security - which says the drug is contraband. Over the last two years, however, shipments of the Church of the Eagle and the Condor's ayahuasca have been seized by the U.S. The drug, which has a long history of religious use, induces intense visions and hallucinations when ingested. In fulfillment of this prophecy, they say, members of the church drink ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew from South America. The Church of the Eagle and the Condor, a religious congregation in Phoenix, gets its name from a prophecy originating in the Andes of Peru, which foretells a cultural unification of the North and South Americas.
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