[Buddha-l] Buddhism and psychoactive substances

[curt]

Joy Vriens wrote:
> Bonjour curt, 
>
>   
>> (4) I've been told that lots of westerners who practice Buddhism have  
>> experimented with hallucinogens - and that many, perhaps most, of them  
>> credit these experiments with being helpful, in some way, to their  
>> practice. I wouldn't know about anything like that myself personally,  
>> though. 
>>     
>
> And there is the fact that the body's physical, mental and emotional distillery can produce or change the balance of its own powerful psychoactive substances.  
>
>
>   
Et bonsoir mes ami Joy,

 From my understanding this is actually Rick Strassman's primary 
"thesis" with respect to DMT - it's why he calls it "the spirit 
molecule". Strassman's idea, very broadly speaking, is that the body 
does in fact produce dimethyltryptamine (DMT). This is the "active 
ingredient" in ayahuasca. It is incredibly unstable in the body - 
because it is a good fit for various enzymes that are always on the 
lookout, so to speak, for molecules to break down and recycle. This is 
why ayahusca is called ayahuasca - by the way. The "ayahuasca" vine does 
not, in fact, contain DMT. Rather, it contains MAOI's - monoamine 
oxidase inhibitors. Those enzymes that break down DMT are MAO's - which 
are inhibited by MAOI's. So the MAOI's give the "good stuff", DMT, a 
chance to get into your brain. The DMT itself comes from other 
ingredients in the ayahusaca - like mimosa hostilis root bark, for example.

Strassman thinks that the pituitary gland (this might start sounding 
familiar to any Tantrikas out there) produces "endogenous" DMT during 
birth, death - and any really good spiritual experiences that might 
occur in between. Since the pituitary is deep inside the brain itself - 
the DMT produced there will get to brain cells without being 
enzymatically degraded first. This is a very "testable" hypothesis in 
principle but doing the experiments requires getting over some 
significant hurdles. First - DMT is a class one controlled substance in 
the United States and it's almost impossible to get legal permission to 
use it at all - let alone in experiments on humans. Which brings us to 
the second hurdle - experimenting on humans. But not just on humans in a 
general way - you have to find some way of measuring the levels of DMT 
inside people's brains. It's hard to find a lawyer who would even 
consider trying to draw up a "consent form" for that kind of experiment! 
One of the really great things about Strassman's book, by the way, is 
the first section in which he goes through the early history of 
"psychedelic research" - when any Tom, Dick or Timothy Leary could just 
give their "patients" (or friends or students) some LSD and just sit 
back to watch what happened. Ah - those were the good old days.

- Curt