Dr. Bia Labate | What Most People Get Wrong About Indigenous Plant Medicine

Who is Dr. Bia Labate?

Bia Labate, PhD, is an anthropologist, author, and globally recognized scholar whose work focuses on Indigenous plant medicines, drug policy, and the social and political dimensions of the psychedelic renaissance. Born in Brazil, she has spent nearly thirty years researching ayahuasca, peyote, psilocybin, and the communities and traditions that steward these practices. Her career blends academic rigor with deep cultural engagement, making her a leading voice at the intersection of psychedelics, anthropology, and social justice.
She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines, a pioneering organization dedicated to promoting cultural understanding, ethical practices, and equitable representation in the psychedelic field. Through Chacruna, Dr. Labate leads initiatives in Indigenous reciprocity, psychedelic justice, and the protection of sacred plant traditions. Her work emphasizes decolonization, meaningful inclusion, and the redistribution of resources toward communities historically marginalized within the psychedelic movement.
A prolific writer, Dr. Labate has published 28 books, multiple special journal editions, and numerous articles exploring ritual, shamanism, religion, race, gender, and the politics of psychoactive plant use. She is also a seasoned conference organizer, educator, and advocate whose programs, publications, and public scholarship continue to shape global conversations around the ethical future of psychedelics. Through her leadership, Chacruna has become a central hub for cross-cultural dialogue, community empowerment, and responsible evolution in this rapidly expanding field.
What did Dr. Bia and Boomer discuss?

00:00 Intro to Bia Labate & ayahuasca
01:00 First psychedelic experiences
02:00 How ayahuasca shaped her life
04:00 Becoming a reference in the field
07:00 International research journey
10:00 Creating the ayahuasca track at MAPS
12:00 Moving to the U.S. & founding Chacruna
17:00 Indigenous reciprocity & decolonizing philanthropy
29:00 Psychedelic justice: race, gender & queer inclusion
44:00 Psychedelic churches & responsible practice
50:00 What’s next for Chacruna
Full Transcript:

Bia Labate: [00:00:00] So I said, Hey, how about including ayahuasca? This is also healing. This is also part of the psychedelic renaissance. I think that has been kind of my main contribution to this entire field. I mean, of course not only one single person does everything, but definitely that's something I can raise this flag that has been a lobby.

Bia Labate: Advocacy of mine to bring these discussions into psychedelic science and talk about psychedelic science is not just biomedicine, not just health, not just white American celebrities, but there were also other voices and other forms of knowledge and other ways of healing and other traditions that marriage.

Bia Labate: Uh, examination and dialogue.

Boomer Anderson: All right, BIA. This is, uh, a conversation that I've wanted to have for a very long time. Um, we have a number of [00:01:00] mutual friends, so I have to thank Sean Carr for the introduction. Um, welcome to the Smarter Not Harder podcast. 

Bia Labate: Hi. Thank you. Appreciate the invite. It's nice to be here. 

Boomer Anderson: So, BIA the fir. The first thing I would love to dive into with you is what got you interested in psychedelics, uh, at such a young age and, and you know, the work that you've done.

Boomer Anderson: What, what really drove that interest? 

Bia Labate: Uh, I'm not sure about so young. I, I, I think there's a lot of people that start experimenting with substances, much younger, like 15 or something. I. I, I had the chance to eat mushrooms when I was around 1920. Um, I was starting to study social sciences in the University of Sao Paulo, uh, and had a big road trip that I visited different communities and tried different.

Bia Labate: Um, substances and later on [00:02:00] tried ayahuasca and it has been very influential, very mind opening and heart touching and spiritually awakening and just really feel, uh, a bigger understanding about nature and life and the mystery of existence. And. And the challenges not of not knowing what is death and what's ahead and, uh, so have been very comforting for me existentially.

Bia Labate: And very inspiring in terms of the cultures related. I've always been a lover of cultures, languages, and different traditions, and that's why I decided to study anthropology. So these two interests have always gone hand in hand for me. 

Boomer Anderson: I actually don't know if there was there one defining moment where you said like, Hey.

Boomer Anderson: Know the, this is what I wanna focus the rest of my life on, or have it be my life's work. With regards to psychedelics, ayahuasca, [00:03:00] or, you know, sort of seeding that moment, uh, where you knew that this is what you wanted to be your focus? 

Bia Labate: No, it was more like I was hijacked or something when I saw I was completely involved in so many levels and I kind of.

Bia Labate: You know, I was dragged into it. It was very organic. Uh, like I just go to. A ceremony and start asking, you know, where is this music coming from? Oh, that person, you know, he knows more about that. So go talk to that person. And then that person say, well, you know, if you really wanna know, you should come to my house.

Bia Labate: And then you go to their house and say, well, that person, you know, I got a good story. Let's go and meet da da da, and then just go one thing after the other, or, and then you see a movie and. You know, somebody tells you about a documentary and then you meet the person who did the documentary and they, he had a lot of stories, and then he had questions, and then he had comments.

Bia Labate: And so, [00:04:00] uh, at a early age, I kind of become already a, a reference because there wasn't so many people studying this in Brazil. And so my books, they attracted a lot of. Of people and I started to put together events and when we organize events, it was like putting this, you know, little piece of cheese in the middle of, of the room and finding all this, you know, different creatures coming from all over, smelling that piece of cheese and wanting to gather around it because there were not a lot of spaces to.

Bia Labate: To talk about this kind of thing, and then just people with different interests, like all kinds of interests. A mother that is lost because her son. Is bipolar and hasn't found any healing or, you know, some remote ethnobotanist kind of gardener that is interested in getting a seed of this plant that he read about and somebody that, uh, is like doing a media documentary and whose [00:05:00] dream is to document different, uh, styles of, uh, music across the Amazon.

Bia Labate: It's just like there's. I became a kind of lost and found or central observatory of Ayahuasca related topics. And I am still, I get about, uh, I'd say at least one message per day kind of question. And sorry to say, I don't answer all of them, but I try, I try to answer, I try to help, you know. We also have like a frequently asked questions button and we create resources.

Bia Labate: Uh, if you analyze both my inbox from my website and from Chaum, it gives you a map of the needs of people. So those needs made me who I am. And it was like more like this came to me than, you know, I decided, oh my God, you know, I wanna be this since I was age five and this is my goal. It's a [00:06:00] very. Needy area.

Bia Labate: There's a lot. There's a hole, there's a lack, there's a gap. And it's uh, you know, like if you're interested in gardening or whatever, basketball or reading or weaving, you can find a club. You can find a, you go to the library, you find somewhere to. Express their interest, but when it comes to sacred plants or psychedelics, there's different ways to call it plant medicines.

Bia Labate: It's not, there's not a lot of institutional things at place. Yeah. So I organically became a reference and became that sort of knowledge and by extension created a whole work, and Chacruna is an extension of this. That started as at an as an early age. 

Boomer Anderson: Okay. Very cool. So at what point did, uh, initially it sounds like this all started in Brazil, right?

Boomer Anderson: And, and your studies, and then at what point did you [00:07:00] decide like, I need to be in the United States, or was there another organic push into that US And if so, what was that push? 

Bia Labate: Well, that was like my whole life history because I was. I originally, uh, tried mushrooms and, and peyote and LSD when I was backpacking in Mexico and later on tried ayahuasca in the south of Minera and then went to the Amazon, to the Brazilian Amazon, and later to Peru.

Bia Labate: So since, uh. Ayahuasca since 1996. I went to Peru in 1997 at beginning of 1998. Uh, and continued going to the Amazon every year, sometimes a few times a year. Uh, and my main collaboration contribution to the conversation has been always publishing books. So I have published on. Drug policy, [00:08:00] plant medicines, ceremony, ritual, religion, indigenous shamanism, social justice, uh, issues related to gender and race in psychedelics.

Bia Labate: And by organizing books and conferences, I became that kind of expert. Uh, and that led me to be invited to organize conferences, give lectures, uh. Support media projects and then got different jobs. So I lived in Germany and uh, worked in the Institute of Medical Psychology in the University of Heidelberg.

Bia Labate: Then I worked in Cisas and cde, both in AEs and Guadalajara. The other order around Es Guadalajara, uh, working as an anthropologist and later moved, uh, to California. That was in [00:09:00] 2017 around psychedelic science 2017. Uh, so basically, uh, I guess the last glorious and more accurate way to say was. I was a researcher jumping from contract to contract, from job to job.

Bia Labate: There's not a lot of jobs for an anthropologist. It's mainly academic career. So I got different university appointments, uh, and I, I stayed a few years in each one of them. They're all really nice universities. And then in 2000 and. And 10 in, I attended a map psychedelic science conference. I actually proposed to maps to create an ayahuasca track, uh, because there wasn't, they had a clinical, a clinical trials track, and I interdisciplinary one, which basically they stuck everything else that existed that they couldn't [00:10:00] classify as.

Bia Labate: Um. Clinical. Mm-hmm. And so I said, Hey, how about including ayahuasca? This is also healing. This is also part of the psychedelic renaissance. I think that has been kind of my main contribution to this entire field. Uh, I mean, of course not only one single person does everything, but definitely that's something I can raise this flag that has been a lobby and advocacy of mine to bring this discussions into psychedelic science and talk about psychedelic sciences.

Bia Labate: Not just biomedicine, not just health practitioners, not just, uh, you know, white male, uh, cis biomedical researchers, not just. White American celebrities, but there were also other voices and other forms of knowledge and other ways of healing and other traditions that merit, uh, examination and dialogue.[00:11:00] 

Bia Labate: And so lobbied for the creation of, uh, an ayahuasca track. And they kind of, you know, let us keep like this basement, you know, without a wall, a window. Like kind of, okay, go do your hippie thing somewhere, you know, down there. Uh, but it was very popular and we created like a kind of association organic listserv of ayahuasca researchers around that meeting, uh, which exists until today.

Bia Labate: It's a 15-year-old, uh, listserv. And, um, at that time I met Clancy Kaner. Uh, who later on became my wife. So Clancy and I met in psychedelic science 2010. Wow. We're like a conference couple. 

Boomer Anderson: I didn't know that. That's, uh, that's awesome. 

Bia Labate: Yeah. That's why when they, they talk about, you know, going to conferences and all that, I'm like.

Bia Labate: Keep an eye open, although there's a lot of policies about how to [00:12:00] behave in public these days. Uh, but it's definitely somewhere that you can find kindred people. Uh, and, you know, starts all, I'm a fan of conferences. You can start all kinds of relationships and partnerships. Business, romantic, existential, spiritual.

Bia Labate: It's a place that a lot happens. It's a kind of condensation of. Time and space. Anyway, Clancy and I dated long distance, uh, seven years from 2010 until 2017, while I was in Germany and then in Mexico. 

Boomer Anderson: Wow. 

Bia Labate: And then we married and I moved here, and I've been here for, since 2017, so eight years. So ultimately, um, what brought me to the United States was Clancy and my collaboration with maps and working as a volunteer for many years.

Bia Labate: Met Rick Dublin like [00:13:00] 2007 in the DPA conference, and was a volunteer for MAPS for almost 10 years, and then worked on the main tracks of Maps conferences to, uh, 2010. Uh. 13, 15, 19. Wow. 23, 25. 

Boomer Anderson: Wow. Uh, there, there's so much there. But a, a, as you're telling the, the story in this history, uh, I'm, I'm seeing a lot of the seeds of, of Una there.

Boomer Anderson: Um, at what point did you decide like, Hey, we need to start chacruna and. You know, uh, because I, I wanna kind of take this conversation into Jauna. Mm-hmm. What led you to, to starting that? Because, uh, you know, obviously maps had existed. Uh, and just would love to give some context around timing and sort of what made you say, okay, this is absolutely needed in this space right [00:14:00] now.

Bia Labate: Again, uh, you know, perhaps I have to do some workshop about storytelling to make my narrative more like impressive. Uh, but yeah, it's just, uh, you know, my style and like kind of straightforward and 

Boomer Anderson: no, uh, I love the straightforward conversation. The conversations I have with you have always been straightforward and I really appreciate that.

Boomer Anderson: So, um, you know, just. Uh, like what was the, the seed moment that said, okay, we're starting this now. 

Bia Labate: Again, it was a little bit of a continuation of everything. It was, uh, in many ways it's like, you know, I, I had all this, I was some sort of octopus with multiple hands and branches doing a lot of things, uh, a lot of connections.

Bia Labate: So had been. Publishing books, you know, compulsively, uh, hyperactive in the book publishing business. I have a 

Boomer Anderson: few of them stacked to the side of me over here. So, [00:15:00] 

Bia Labate: yeah, it's been, uh, I, I've, I've published so far, 28 books, three special journal editions. Two translations and I'm currently working on three books.

Bia Labate: Um, so, uh, just working on books and conferences, that has been kind of my main focus and doing research giving lectures, uh, I was already doing all of that. Always, but the differences. Before I had a job and I was in the university and I did these things, some of them on the side or as activism. I always was a blogger.

Bia Labate: I started a blog in 2004. I had my activist side and academia always felt like a little bit constraining. I felt repressed. I felt I couldn't like be myself, you know, crack enough jokes, talk about my personal experiences. Uh, just fly and just have fun. Felt always a little bit in a cage. And then when I moved to the [00:16:00] US.

Bia Labate: I was, uh, looking for jobs and trying to figure out what would be next for me. Uh, and yeah, I guess you could say that there was an aha moment when I decided I wasn't gonna get a job, which is a kind of risky moment. Very risky. Fortunately, I have the support of Clancy. Uh, but I just decided that I didn't wanna try to be an academic professor full time.

Bia Labate: I've never lost my link to academia and I've had different appointments as like a adjunct faculty through different things. Um, C-I-I-S-I taught six years. I was. Uh, visiting Scholar in a, I am one visiting scholar now, uh, in the GTU in Berkeley Graduate Theological Union. Uh, but I kind of decided I was going to invest in, in having my full autonomy, so very much cherished.

Bia Labate: Um. Just [00:17:00] doing, you know, establishing my agenda of research and activism in my own terms. That's, that's what inspired the creation of Chana is to, to be able to fully, um, develop my vision. And then, uh, as I, I, I moved here and witnessed the psychedelic renaissance in the United States, felt progressively shocked and bothered.

Bia Labate: But the lack of inclusion of indigenous voices, of people, of color, of women, of, uh, queer, of immigrants, um, of all the so-called minorities or global majorities, if you will. Uh, and just as. Hegemony of biomedicine and reductionism of science as the only way and, uh, uh, you know, equal to universe, universal truth.

Bia Labate: And then the, [00:18:00] the problem of, of funding and disproportionate amounts. Of money that exists, you know, the differences north and south, and then the waste of money that exists in the United States. Like, you go to a conference and you see like one, you know, extraordinary party. It's the, it's the salary of the whole family in Brazil for a whole year.

Bia Labate: Mm-hmm. And then the way that the. Donors and elite funders operate, uh, just like replicating the same colonial logics felt really, really troubling to me and, and this paradoxes that are inherent to philanthropy. And that kind of inspired me a lot to, to create our philanthropic program and to rewrite the way this philanthropy is done.

Bia Labate: Putting service at the [00:19:00] center, putting really, um, the people that you want to, to support at the center. And so a lot has been a reaction, uh, to seeing, you know, uh, like the way we were treated by donors. We don't want to be that kind of donor. We want to, uh, you know, the, we call it our indigenous reciprocity program.

Bia Labate: Decolonize philanthropy because it's not the job of the people on the ground to show to you that they're what they do matter and that they are relevant, or that what they do is important and uh, like it's your job to. Support them and they are the experts and they are the people with the hands dirty on the ground and they know what the solutions are.

Bia Labate: It's not like the white savior mentality that you go to a third world country trying to create solutions for them and tell them what to do or [00:20:00] make people like create. Decks and duction and competition among themselves to get a few pennies from people with more money. Uh, but rather, um, it's on you to do this homework to see who you're gonna support and if you vouch for them or not.

Bia Labate: Um, so we created our program. I'd say, you know, chacruna was born as a blog. Chacruna was born as a blog to publish academic research in more accessible matters. Mm-hmm. Uh, so shorter articles, sexy fleshy titles, uh, and, you know, less bibliographic references, less footnotes, less quotations, more like straightforward, uh, more, less jargon.

Bia Labate: Less hermetic, more appealing to a larger audience, yet still by experts, still with academic rigor, still by people that are really involved, [00:21:00] uh, in, in research. So we started as a blog publishing. We had a blog in Spanish, uh, drug political Cultura that we were already doing that. With articles, uh, from another conference I organized in Mexico back in the day.

Bia Labate: And then we created this blog in English and it started as a blog, and that was like late 2016. And around mid 2017, uh, I had arrived here for psychedelic science. Like in February, let's say July, a few months later, I decided, well, I'm going to invest in this. And I'm gonna try to do this para academic work.

Bia Labate: Chana is a lot like, like a school, like a university, like the cultural extension of a university, like the sorts of departments within the university that tends to the community. So get the experts to talk to the general [00:22:00] public in a more accessible way. A kind of mix between academia. Media and community.

Bia Labate: And so from there on we created, you know, um, we created the extension because it was called una, then it became UNA Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. And then we created our programs, uh, throughout the years. 

Boomer Anderson: Yeah. Uh, I wanna go through a few of those programs with you and, and you mentioned something already and I, I, I wanna just go a little bit deeper on it, on the idea of indigenous reciprocity.

Boomer Anderson: And I realize that, you know, as a, a white male, I'm probably part of the issue here. Uh, but I, I, I wanna highlight just sort of some of the things that you've said. Uh, you know, the current. I, I guess when people maybe listening to this, think of ayahuasca ceremonies, [00:23:00] they might fly down to the jungle, pay some service, an extraordinary amount of money, um, to go sit ceremony somewhere.

Boomer Anderson: Um, can we highlight just some of the issues with that? Because I, I, I had the pleasure of attending the Jauna conference this year, right? And meeting some of, um, the elders that you brought in. And there's a lot of emphasis on, you know, either how little these people receive out of those ceremonies or how it's not really giving back to the community.

Boomer Anderson: Uh, and you've been very vocal on this, right? Like, how do we give back to the community? Um, would love to go a little bit deeper on how Una does that and make sure that, you know, these communities get the, the, the credit and really the highlights that they deserve. 

Bia Labate: Yeah, I'm really happy that you went to our conference.

Bia Labate: Uh, it's a real strong effort to put together. Uh, the Jauna [00:24:00] conferences are produced by us. We do not outsource it. Uh, it's like a whole team of people working for one year. It's really crazy and hard to believe. We do it every year. Um, but it's highly fulfilling as you, you saw. It's, uh, has a lot of magic and a lot of, uh, intention and purpose around the conference.

Bia Labate: It's very unique. So the indigenous reciprocity is a program of grants of the Chana Institute. We started with 20 and then we reduced to 17. I think 14 or 15, and now we're currently at 12. We have in different countries, um, in Latin America, we just have one here in the us. Um, and the criteria to join our program is that it has been, it is groups that are in indigenous led or mainly indigenous led.

Bia Labate: It can be a partnership, but you can like see that there's like strong indigenous. [00:25:00] Component to it. Um, and there are small that are not, you know, already beneficiary of a lot of philanthropic do dollars from the global north. Um, and that are collective. So it's not just a family or an individual doing their own thing, but a group of people and that has a track record of actions and a clear established, you know.

Bia Labate: Accomplishment. Some of them have been small, like don't even have a bank account or bylaws or, uh, some kind of institutional support. Uh, and they have to have a minimal structure. Like if, you know, if there's somebody in the middle of nowhere without a. Cell phone or email, it's going to be hard. So it's kind of that size and that element.

Bia Labate: And then we give grants. We, we normally disperse it like four times a year, and it's kind of a seed money, a small amount, [00:26:00] three, 4,000. Uh, but it helps. And the ideology around it is that they don't have to like convince us, you know, and we ask a report that is not. Overwhelm me, uh, basically like two paragraphs, uh, and do not micromanage and support different causes.

Bia Labate: It's not just the psychedelic fetish, like I, I only care for you because I like your psychedelic, but we have different projects, you know, lands, uh, land, uh, demarcation, uh, support, food, sovety, education, music, language. Different, uh, topics, women, uh, we have a woman's, uh, cooperative and we have like.

Bia Labate: WhatsApp group with each one of them, and we communicate organically and you know, they share their accomplishments. We shared, we shared on Instagram. We also have [00:27:00] land a hand on things like creating websites, creating logos, doing a promotional video. We try to land our expertise. We are, this program is led by.

Bia Labate: Garcia he is, and he is a historian and sociologist, extremely intelligent and very. Humble and grounded. Really nice guy. And we have two interns that support him. And we have a whole team of people. We have our own website, uh, and we have our Instagram account. And so a lot of the work is also just raising awareness around this topics, uh, raising awareness that, uh, you know, there are traditions and populations that have been using this before.

Bia Labate: Uh, the psychedelic, so-called psychedelic renaissance or, you know, the, the counterculture or the hippie movement or, uh, the, the white [00:28:00] scientists in the Ivy League universities and. In many ways, these traditions go independent of what, what exists here. I mean, of course, uh, there is a dialogue and stuff, but they're like, their legitimacy, their worth is not because science shows that it's worth, it has a legitimacy in its own terms.

Bia Labate: And so we kind of helping rewrite the narrative that the psychedelic field tells itself. Centering these voices at the forefront, uh, because these voices have been normally not, not have a seat on the table. And so we have been promoting intercultural dialogues, um, between scientists and indigenous people and between different areas of knowledge.

Bia Labate: A lot of what we do is. Like, we're in the market of knowledge, so to speak. We, we go to a lot of conferences. We give a lot of lectures. We also [00:29:00] publish books, uh, and we, we have our online social media stuff that is also a form of spreading knowledge and, you know, different forms like with courses, workshops, and we just, there's a, such a hunger, it's really touching.

Bia Labate: Yeah, especially like young people, we get a lot of invitations all the time to go teach in classes. It's wonderful, really, uh, the only challenge is to keep everything, uh, sustainable because it's hard to prove to the powers to be that education matters. Education is something that everybody says, oh, education.

Bia Labate: Education. It's like a cliche. Everybody agrees they're never gonna meet somebody that say, I don't care for education. I think we shouldn't have education. Like that's the kind of thing that is completely common sense, but it's hard to put, to put the money where your mouth is [00:30:00] when it comes to education, uh, because it's just like a lot of donors.

Bia Labate: They want something more flashy. And they want something like, they want something that they can say, I did that. Yeah. And so it's hard to say I helped a conference, I helped a workshop, I helped a course, I helped a publication, I helped a book. Uh, it's not so tangible. I had this discussions with donors, you know?

Bia Labate: Like how much does an idea cost? Because you're working on a level that is not something that you can just put your fingers on it. You know, a lot of nonprofits are like issues on mental health or children or animals. They're also valid and important, but it's, you know, it's not what we do. As I said, we're kind of, uh, para academic organization that.

Bia Labate: Isn't dialogue with communities and researchers. [00:31:00] Uh, so we're kind of very unique and it's been hard to, um, keep it going, but it's, it's continues to grow and to survive and to thrive step by step. 

Boomer Anderson: Uh, where in, in that dialogue you mentioned sort of the, the white scientist in the Ivy League, but also, you know, corporations come to mind too, especially recently when people are starting to get into this field for more, um, like capitalist Ben, if you will.

Boomer Anderson: Where do you think we are in that conversation of even corporations acknowledging. Indigenous reciprocity. Um, and what, what, what, um, what work really needs to be done, because it sounds like you, you know, there's people out there that are patenting everything or trying to patent everything, but they're not acknowledging a lot of where this history comes [00:32:00] from.

Boomer Anderson: Uh, where are we in those conversations? Do you find the corporations even open to them? 

Bia Labate: I mean, I think all, always a matter of optics, right? Because, uh, is the half the glass half full or half empty? I think we've come a long way. If I, if I think of my early years, you know, the first conference I organized in 1997 in Brazil, it was called the ritual use of Ayahuasca, which became my first book.

Bia Labate: The Ritual Use of Ayahuasca we're celebrating. 25 years of the publication of this book. The conference was 1997. That book is 2000, the year 2000. So 25 years ago. It's an entire entirely different scenario. Also, like indigenous people have become much more eminent, uh, and are taking their own voice and doing their own conferences and doing, you know, their own advocacy.

Bia Labate: [00:33:00] Back in the day to bring indigenous people to psychedelic conferences, it was really hard, uh, to even prove, uh, that that was necessary. So now, you know, it's kind of obvious and I don't think any conference wants to create. Uh, you know, a conference that doesn't have any indigenous people. There's indigenous people in the opening and closing, and there's different spaces for indigenous people.

Bia Labate: So it's come a long way. Uh, in, in, in, in many regards, it has entered and there is an awareness that didn't exist. There's also a new generation of indigenous leaders themselves and speakers. Going to these conferences that didn't use to exist as well. Uh, so I think there's been a lot of progress, and yet at the same time it continues to be like minimized and belittled and kind of, you know, considered sort of q to [00:34:00] like decoration sort of, and not taking it extremely serious, like considering the science, indigenous knowledges as equipped as.

Bia Labate: As legitimate as science, like to take that knowledge seriously and to, to, to think that, um, you know, they are on equal levels. Like all, uh, you know, you talk about like indigenous medicine is ethnomedicine, but we don't talk about western medicine is ethnomedicine. Like if we were only putting this different forms of knowledge, you know, with the same epistemological value.

Bia Labate: Uh, so I think there is a lot to go. And then there's also the problem of tokenization. Uh, a lot of corporations that pretend to care and don't care and uh, you know, might even have an indigenous person employed, but actually the decisions are not indigenous lad, uh, and [00:35:00] are led by, you know, a group of donors, white, wealthy donors, uh, and.

Bia Labate: There's the problem of, um, yeah, this, I, I like, uh, I published this special journal edition with my friend Dr. Monica Williams, who has influenced me a lot and I like, I like a lot. And one of the funny things that I like that she says is like, when you see institutions trying to look for diversity, they try to diversify everybody that is like employee, but.

Bia Labate: It's very hard to diversify the leadership. Like the leadership doesn't, you know, stand down and say, I'm gonna put some, some person of color here to change the balance. Uh, so you still see a lot of minority, uh, less strength and less numbers and less decision making power in research teams [00:36:00] leading, uh, nonprofit organizations leading.

Bia Labate: Corporations, uh, leading big grant research projects, being research participants is still very uneven. I think George Floyd raised, you know, the whole during COVID in the United States and what happened around George Floyd really. The racial issues at the forefront. But this doesn't mean that, you know, there's equal levels of child mortality, uh, life expectancy, uh, wealth, you know, between different races in the United States.

Bia Labate: It's still highly, highly. I mean, we're still living under all the systems of oppression, you know? Mm-hmm. Uh, legacies of colonization, legacies of patriarchy, of systemic racism, of oppression, of capitalism, [00:37:00] and, uh. Of course we talk a lot about race, but you know, we still have a huge like class problem.

Bia Labate: Mm-hmm. And I think this is a way that normally white people understand better the topic of diversity. If you talk about either women or poor Americans, maybe uh, get some white people less, you know, rattled up than if you talk about race or gender. That is very sensitive as well. Um. So there's still like the levels of inequality are really high.

Bia Labate: Uh, and just recently I met a veteran and we had a like three hour lunch and he was very touched by Una and I said, but why? We don't really work with veterans. Like, that's not our thing. Although we have had a lot of programming around veterans. And he said to me. I feel you are the only organization that really cares for people like me is a [00:38:00] black disabled veteran that left lived with PTSD, um, and poor.

Bia Labate: Yeah. And says that, you know, still a lot of the organizations in this space, I'm not saying we are that, um, sharing a story that touched me, that honored. Yeah. I have a lot of respect for a lot of organizations including vet ones. Um. But yeah, still I feel a lot of organizations, you know, are kind of mainstream.

Boomer Anderson: Yeah. 

Bia Labate: Uh, and are not putting these minorities at the forefront. So Chaus has helped. We talked a little bit about indigenous reciprocity and the other program that that we have, we call psychedelic Justice. Which is really inserting discussions on race and gender in the field of psychedelics and elevating these voices, black, indigenous women, people of color, queer people.

Bia Labate: We have done all [00:39:00] this work around the topic of queer and psychedelics with two conferences and one book. We have helped also. Uh, bring to the forefront queer voices since our conferences and publications, again, we're not the only ones, but we did play a pioneering role and today there's like, every conference, every gathering has a space for queer folks and queer panels.

Bia Labate: There's, uh, explosion of queer people on podcasts, on webinars, talking about how psychedelics helped to heal them and, you know, the challenges of mental health. Poor self-esteem, internalized homophobia, distorted body image, uh, lack of connection to the family, to community self-hate, and how psychedelics have been helping and what are the specific needs, but also gifts and possibilities that queer people might bring us healers as well.

Bia Labate: So there's a whole discussion around that. [00:40:00] All of that for us, you know, is under the banner of what we call psychedelic justice. Elevating those minorities, bringing discussions on, uh, gender and race and promoting critical thinking. Yeah. And we've been kind of ahead of the curve trying to, you know, pin what's there, what needs to emerge in the culture and what's kind of not said and not spoken.

Bia Labate: So been talking, I gave my first lecture about sexual abuse in 2010. Um. This became a huge topic later on. We're talking, you know, making conferences in Mexico about the issue of conservation of peyote much before it was this big issue with, uh, decriminalization of nature, this movement, and the fights with the Native American church because parts of the psychedelic movement were refusing.

Bia Labate: To follow their request to leave peyote out of regulation and leave it for the Native Americans to deal with. [00:41:00] And so Rinna has been promoting those critical conversations, uh, and critical thinking. And also, uh, was I think one of the first to talk about. The topic of corporations itself. Like we had this conference, cultural and political perspectives on psychedelic science in 2018 in CIIS.

Bia Labate: And there was a panel talking about the commodification, the corpor core purification, um, of psychedelics. And that became a huge topic at the time. We only had maps and it was kind of the beginning of discussions around a tie and compass. And there was a lot of critique about mainstreaming psychedelics.

Bia Labate: That's still a topic, uh, this mainstreaming. And so that's, you know, definitely we have been talking about this commodification on multiple levels. The commodification of ayahuasca retreats. Yeah, the commodification of psychedelic [00:42:00] conferences. The ification of psychedelic therapies. Um, sorry, I kind of go No, no, no.

Bia Labate: I, I, I 

Boomer Anderson: wanna one, let's, let's carry on that thought of commodification. Um. You, you published a book on, uh, uh, una published a book on rfra. Right. And, um, would love to kind of get your concerns with the spread of psychedelic churches, right? Or, or do you have concerns, or do you think that's broadly a good thing?

Boomer Anderson: Um, what are the positives and negatives of more and more of these churches coming into existence? 

Bia Labate: I mean, again, extremely complex questions, million dollar questions. Um, we try to, in a way to be very objective in Jauna, you know, like we can have our cool cappuccino, $10 cappuccino watching the Bay here in San Francisco talking about existential issues.[00:43:00] 

Bia Labate: Uh, but there is at this moment like. Gallons and gallons being, uh, cooked, brewed of ayahuasca to be exported all over the world. And so we try to have a pragmatic approach, a harm reduction approach, a raising awareness approach, a public education approach, and we try to make a contribution to make this expansion, uh, more.

Bia Labate: Um, balanced. And so the psychedelic churches, I mean, it's really like, I can say, well, you know, I don't think, or I think like, it doesn't matter what I think people are gonna do, what they're gonna do. So I'm gonna try to influence what's happening, uh, which is exactly the principle of harm reduction. It's saying, you know.

Bia Labate: Sh Should people be doing like overdosing or should teenagers have sex? No, maybe not. Uh, but you know, they're doing it. So let's use condoms. So let's use clean [00:44:00] syringes. So let's, like, let's try to figure out how we, we can manage this expansion to be less harmful and more empowered, more self-aware. So the whole, the whole issue around, uh, these churches.

Bia Labate: Is both to raise awareness of people about their religious rights, but with religious rights come obligations. So you have obligations to follow as well. We try to raise a awareness around topics such as the conservation of plant medicines, the tokenization of indigenous knowledge and indigenous chairmans.

Bia Labate: Uh, the need to have, well, the topic of best practices and preparation, integration, proper screening prop, proper training, but much beyond that. A lot of other things that, uh, can be done, you know, if you're creating a group. Do you have, are you registered as a nonprofit? Do you have a leadership? Do you have [00:45:00] mechanisms to report critical feedback?

Bia Labate: Do you have a leadership that is open to listening? Do you have mechanisms to keep accountability in check? Do you have, uh, you know, uh, systems where people can resolve conflicts? Are you paying taxes? Are you paying fair wages to people? Uh, do you keep, do you keep track record of your sacrament? Uh, do you properly screen?

Bia Labate: So we have, uh, this is related to the third program. So we talked about indigenous reciprocity and psychedelic justice and talking about the program we call protection of Sacred Plants and Cultural Traditions. Uh, and one of these programs, uh, a big part of this has been, uh. To help psychedelic churches self-organize and empower the community, empower the people in the ground to.

Bia Labate: Both organize [00:46:00] and keep each other accountable because the idea is that you have a law that is like created by experts or government or authorities, and then you put that down top, down on people is less effective than you have community organizations on the ground organizing bottom up. So values, ethos, sensitivities that people share in a group setting because they learn, they are socialized.

Bia Labate: There's an ate, there's a ethos. There is a style, a way of doing things that people value as. Um, the proper way of doing things. And so that knowledge, the traditions, the informal, the social, the cultural means of controls, uh, are, you know, there's an expertise, there's a knowledge, there's a tradition, there's a container, those kinds of things that need to be better organized and shared and spread.

Bia Labate: And so [00:47:00] helping people, uh, develop those things and create mechanisms for themselves. And then, uh, you know, potentially. Create containers that are safer because it will be safer for you to attend a community like that than perhaps an itinerant chairman that, uh, is doing sexual abuse in this town. And he gets caught.

Bia Labate: He just goes to the next town and nobody knows him and he's just going around to different places. So having a group and having systems, uh, of peer review between, uh, the members of that community. And then there's also all the legal dimensions of it, like. Do you have a religious doctrine? Do you have some kind of belief, uh, in, you know, uh, explanations about the origin of life and, uh, humanity and so forth, like this foundational issues that are characteristic of religions or we have also helped people create and [00:48:00] systematize the those, um, that.

Bia Labate: Thoughts, you know, uh, as you, it's a kind of paradox because religious freedom is perhaps one of the most enshrined values on the American constitution. Mm-hmm. And it's something that a lot of people can relate to, yet there's not a real definition of religion. Uh, and religion is, has been defined, uh, by, by courts on different cases.

Bia Labate: So by looking at what different ca court cases rules, you can kind of have a base of what a religion would be. And so this kind of checklist, um, also looking at the rules of the IRS itself, this kind of checklist you can. You can sort of go through it and we have helped what we call the creation of legal harm reduction.

Bia Labate: So what are the mechanisms you can put in place to protect your religious rights in case you were, [00:49:00] for example, caught or busted by authorities? You can say, you can claim you were exercising religious practice. If you are following. The standards of a religion. So this, all of these kinds of things, um, that I was mentioning before.

Bia Labate: Who is transporting? Uh, is this kept in a safe place? Is there track record of quantities? Uh, and as again, it's a double sword because it's not just your rights, it's your obligations. Mm-hmm. 

Boomer Anderson: Wow. Well, BIA this has been a fascinating conversation. Uh, we've covered a lot, uh, of what UNA is involved in. But, uh, you know, before we wrap up, uh, just wanna give the floor, is there any other sort of, uh, initiatives that.

Boomer Anderson: You're pushing forward, uh, lately or maybe pushing forward very soon that you wanted to highlight that, that [00:50:00] Una or yourself are involved in? 

Bia Labate: Yeah. Thank you so much for giving so much time and attention to Una and to me. Um, I invite everybody to come to our conference, psychedelic culture, which will be 17 to 19, 2026 here in the Bay Area in San Francisco, in the Bravo.

Bia Labate: Theater in the mission and next year we're also going to continue our certificate on ceremony, ethics and reciprocity, uh, which we have done this year as a pilot project. And it's going really well. People are taking a lot out of it. And we plan to continue. We're planning to launch a program, uh, a training for religious professionals, which is, we have gotten a grant for that.

Bia Labate: And we're developing a partnership with the Christian. Um. Psychedelic society called li. And so we're going to, to launch this program, uh, next year. Um, it's, it's going to be a [00:51:00] kind of 1 0 1 for religious professionals and we we're working on a few books, as I said. Um, we have one on indigenous practices and we have one on psychedelic assisted therapies from a humanities perspective.

Bia Labate: We're also going to be launching a few. Relaunching a few books in Portuguese, um, uh, on the celebration of the 25 years of my inaugural book, uh, the ritual use of Ayahuasca, and we continued to do our work with the indigenous reciprocity, always trying to fundraise for that initiative. Um, we have a few ideas on how we would like to.

Bia Labate: Um, continue that program, but we really need more funding to, they can happen. We just launched, uh, a new website. I think we have more, but I forget. It's, it's grown a lot. You have so, so much 

Boomer Anderson: going on, BIA. This is, uh, I feel like we can have a separate podcast on like how you keep it all [00:52:00] together. 'cause there's a lot going on with Jauna and yourself For sure.

Bia Labate: Well, it's a, it's a mighty organization. We have a big team. Uh, in Latin America, I forgot to say we have Chiron, Latin America as well, which we do events in Portuguese and, and, and Spanish. So in Mexico and Brazil, a big part of our team is in Mexico and a big part is in Brazil. And another part is in. The US and we have some in Europe as well.

Bia Labate: Uh, and so we have a website in Spanish and Portuguese, and that's also kind of a way for us to give back, um, to, you know, to where we come from and also, uh, to the traditions that originate a lot of this practices. And so we're very grassroots. We have also an internship program. Uh, we have currently more than 10 interns and it's been, frankly, a love fest.

Bia Labate: We get along super well with the interns. They [00:53:00] come with a lot of energy, with a lot of love. And we have a membership program, uh, that we have about 500 members that we also have like a Discord channel and a group of, um, some meetings for members. We have our fiscal sponsorship program where we have helped, um.

Bia Labate: Incubate and launch organizations. We, we incubated and launched the Sacred Plant Alliance that now has its own 5 0 1 C3 status. We have, I think, two or three active, um, different, um, uh, organizations. So there is room for people to participate. We're trying to create some, some kind of volunteer program that we, we would like to launch.

Bia Labate: Um, so we have room for a lot of different ways to participate and we have, uh, you know, four websites, the indigenous, reciprocity, Latin America, Chik in English and psychedelic culture. And we [00:54:00] also have a social media for each one of them. Uh, so it's a universe. Um, we unite a lot of people that are guided by a passion.

Bia Labate: Because sec, for a lot of us, sacred plants have really influenced and changed our lives for the better. And so it's an honor to serve, uh, this cause It has been so deeply touching and influential and I keep like getting re enchanted all over again. I was just recently doing a diet in the Amazon for two weeks.

Bia Labate: I just felt so much gratitude and I was isolated thinking a lot, you know, about life and just, um, felt so lucky to be able to have this life and to do what I do and it's kind of a school and it's spreading and has a lot of young people. [00:55:00] And people also joined Chacruna State for a few years and then they go somewhere else and continue to develop.

Bia Labate: And we continue to have this kind of illumini relationship to a lot of people that are now leaders in this space and become colleagues and continue to to be in relationship with us. We have partnerships with over 70 organizations. It's a lot of years for me, and it's been a real intense journey. To conclude, you asked about the ification of the field.

Bia Labate: I feel that the, you know, the fact that MDMA was rejected by the FDA was really painful for a lot of people, especially veterans who were looking a lot forward. Yeah. And you know, a lot of people that are suffering a lot. Um, and it was a kind of moment of crossroads for me with, uh. What do I really think about all of [00:56:00] this?

Bia Labate: Um, and I think the field diminished and shrunk and it's incredibly painful to see the lack of funding. 

Boomer Anderson: Yeah. 

Bia Labate: But I would also say that a lot of opportunists jumped out. There were also a few rats that jumped the ship, uh, and it does feel a little cleaner. Yeah. Uh, that, you know, people, a lot of things that didn't, that weren't really in alignment collapsed.

Bia Labate: Of course, I'm not gonna be like celebrating, you know, collapse of people because we have to like, focus on our own contribution. But I think we have a good moment now, uh, a little bit more of sobriety to play with words. Uh, we have a chance to move forward in a more balanced way. And we have a chance to include different voices and also just, uh, keep, you know, not [00:57:00] not extend the pendulum to the other side, not go to the messianism and to, to the guru kind and to the savior mentality or to that kind of cheesy spirituality.

Bia Labate: That's the new beginning of everything. And I am the Messiahs and now it's a new era. And now everything like, just, uh, you know, more balance all around. And more dialogue. Really, we all need each other and I think it's like we really have to like talk to different people and be able to create bridges and dialogues.

Bia Labate: So I'm very confident in the years to come. I hope that I get in my lifetime to see more of this flourishing of this field that I help co-create and build. And I hope that Chana achieves a level of. Sustainability. It's my dream. It's my American immigrant dream as well. Uh, and yeah. Thank you so much, [00:58:00] 

Boomer Anderson: BIA.

Boomer Anderson: This has been an absolute pleasure. Uh, thank you for, for coming on the podcast today and sharing all of this wealth of knowledge that you've helped build. We'll, of course link to everything in our show notes and, um, thank you again for taking the time today. 

Bia Labate: Thank you. Big hug everybody. Have a great day.

Boomer Anderson: Have a wonderful day everyone.