Brazilian Federal Prosecutors Just Reopened the Fight Over Ayahuasca Rules — for the First Time Since 2006
Brazil's Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) in Acre issued two formal recommendations on September 2, 2026, pushing the National Council on Drug Policy (CONAD) and the health regulator Anvisa to convene working groups and update the country's ayahuasca and DMT rules — the first real push to revisit a framework that's stood since 2006. That original rule drew a sharp line: religious ceremonial use was protected, but commerce, tourism, advertising, proselytizing, and therapeutic use explicitly were not. Two decades on, all of those lines have blurred — ayahuasca churches have grown internationally, secular retreat tourism has expanded, and therapeutic framing has become far more common, which is the pressure the MPF's recommendations are responding to.
The author, Henrique Fernandes Antunes, is Chacruna's Research Director and wrote the 2025 book Religion, Drug, or Cult? Ayahuasca's Legal Path in Brazil, the United States, and France — he's one of the more credentialed people writing on this specific question. Worth reading alongside our own country-by-country look at DMT's legal status in Europe: Brazil is ayahuasca's country of origin and still hasn't settled this, which says something about how unresolved the legal question remains even where the practice is oldest and most established. As of this writing, CONAD and Anvisa haven't publicly responded to the recommendations.