- Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, is the active ingredient in ayahuasca, which is a plant-based mixture that can also be smoked
- The drug apparently gives users a hallucinatory 'journey' more extreme than that of LSD, ketamine or magic mushrooms
- Adam Winstock, founder of the Global Drugs Survey, claims the drug has 'a larger proportion of new users' compared to these other powerful drugs
- He says this suggests 'its popularity may increase'
A hallucinogenic drug used in shamanic rituals in the Amazon is growing in popularity in the U.S., researchers have found. Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, is the active ingredient in ayahuasca, which is a plant-based mixture that can also be smoked to give users a hallucinatory 'journey' more extreme than that of LSD, ketamine or magic mushrooms. Adam Winstock, founder of the Global Drugs Survey, claims it has 'a larger proportion of new users' compared to other powerful drugs.
This suggests 'its popularity may increase,' Winstock says in the latest issue of the Journal of Psychopharmacology, according to the Huffington Post. The survey's findings are supported by results of another study, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted by the government, which found the number of people who have used DMT at some point has shot up from an estimated 688,000 in 2006 to 1.47 million in 2012. Male high school students were the most likely new users, Winstock found, and he says films are to blame for raising awareness about the drug. 'Mainstream interest since the release of the cult film "Enter the Void" in 2009 and the 2010 documentary "DMT: The Spirit Molecule", followed by a recent article in the influential youth magazine Vice featuring young people who had just smoked DMT will have raised awareness,' Winstock says.
