Article: Is access to sacred plants a human right? | Cannabis Law Report

RN Collins 

Introduction In the Amazonian city of Iquitos, a Shipibo-Konibo healer prepares for a traditional nixi pae ceremony, a practice her people have carried out for generations. Thousands of miles away, in Oakland, California, a Black-led entheogenic church gathers in prayer, offering psilocybin mushrooms as a sacrament for community healing. In Amsterdam, a multicultural group attends a psilocybin-truffle ceremony openly, without fear of prosecution. All three communities are united by the same thread: the use of psychoactive plants as sacred sacraments. Yet the legal landscapes they navigate could not be more different. For the Shipibo Konibo healer, ayahuasca use is recognized as part of Peru’s cultural heritage and bolstered by international Indigenous rights frameworks such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, Arts. 11–12). The Oakland congregation faces ongoing federal risk under the U.S. Controlled Substances Act—despite local decriminalization ordinances— with disproportionately high vulnerability for Black-led and working-class groups due to racially selective policing patterns. Meanwhile, Dutch law allows regulated psilocybin truffles, creating a commercialized ceremony market—but one largely detached from the cultural safeguards that traditionally prevent appropriation or exploitation of source traditions.

This disparity poses a central question: Is access to sacred plants a human right—or merely a privilege granted to certain communities, in certain jurisdictions, under specific market conditions? The answer depends not only on national law but also on whether governments frame entheogenic practice as religious freedom, cultural survival, public health, or economic regulation—and on how race and class shape these determinations. International human rights law offers a broader lens. Binding instruments like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, Art. 18) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD, Art. 5) affirm that cultural and religious practices should be protected free from discrimination. Non-binding but influential frameworks such as UNDRIP underscore Indigenous peoples’ rights to maintain and develop traditional medicines and ceremonies. Yet enforcement remains uneven, leaving marginalized communities—especially Indigenous and diasporic groups—bearing the brunt of legal risk and cultural erosion. This article begins from that tension: the promise of international human rights protections and the reality of structural inequities in how psychedelic religious rights are recognized, enforced, and lived.