'Shaman' Peter Aziz jailed over psychedelic drug drink

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Vader

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-14762782
Peter Aziz, 51, from Buckfast in Devon, supplied a concoction made from the illegal jungle plant ayahuasca.

The plant contains the psychedelic drug dimethyltryptamine (DMT).

Aziz, who had claimed the drink could help fight serious health problems such as cancer, was found guilty at Bristol Crown Court...
Aziz was filmed secretly at a disused hotel in Weston-super-Mare in 2007. He took £100 each from 20 people who then drank the herbal mixture.
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Looks like he was shopped by a GP concerned about the "curing cancer" claims.

Speaking after the trial, Det Ch Insp Phillip Jones from Avon and Somerset Police said DMT was a "dangerous drug" and was "a Class A drug for a reason".
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I would like to ask this clown if he can point to the actual scientific or medical research that showed that DMT was so dangerous it needed to be classified and banned.
 
Charging cancer patients £100 a pop to drink a brew that costs pennies and won't cure them is pretty immoral, I don't have too much sympathy for the guy.
When's the best time to have your ayahuasca?
When Peter Aziz.
I'll get my coat.
 
I'm not defending his outrageous medical claims but if, say, Ayahuasca sessions were legal then conducting such sessions requires some skill, knowledge, a venue, logistics, etc.

Being a "sitter" is a skill. People go to these sessions because they have some sort of issue they would like to resolve. Chances are this "issue" will come straight to the surface and need to be dealt with as soon as they start to trip. At least it would on the psychedelics I know about.
 
Interesting letter in the Guardian about this incident....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/05/psychedelic-therapy-war-on-drugs

Peter Aziz was jailed for providing consenting adults with a physiologically harmless substance which they took under close supervision for healing purposes ('Healer' jailed for providing drug potion, 3 September). I am an NHS doctor campaigning to see a re-emergence of psychedelic therapy in the UK. Drugs such as LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms), MDMA (ecstasy) and DMT (ayahuasca, as prescribed by Peter Aziz) can all be used safely with adequate preparation and under clinical conditions to improve people's lives and treat unremitting mental disorders. There is a growing wealth of scientific evidence and increasing medical support for this form of therapy. How sad therefore that another innocent bystander has been caught in the crossfire of the war on drugs.

Dr Ben Sessa

Consultant psychiatrist and psychedelic therapy researcher

• In August you reported that "an ayahuasca detox deep in the English countryside left Stephanie Theobald pain-free and mentally rebooted" (Shamanism in Sussex, Travel, 13 August); in September that a "British 'shaman' caught administering a potion containing a class-A hallucinogenic to 17 followers at a candlelit 'healing' ceremony" has been jailed for 15 months. It is a shame that just as the western world is opening its eyes to the therapeutic potential of ayahuasca and other so-called "hallucinogenics", the courts, and the Guardian, resort to the same worn-out "drugs" discourse.

Dr Andy Letcher

Oxford
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He took £100 each from 20 people who then drank the herbal mixture.
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He didnt deserve to go to jail but maybe get fined for ripping people off?
 
Drugs such as LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms), MDMA (ecstasy) and DMT (ayahuasca, as prescribed by Peter Aziz) can all be used safely with adequate preparation and under clinical conditions
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Preparing raw plant matter as a medicine and administering it in a disused hotel with no medical or psychological qualification does not constitute adequate preparation or clinical conditions.
How sad therefore that another innocent bystander has been caught in the crossfire of the war on drugs.
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He is not an innocent bystander, he is a profiteering charlatan preying, like a vulture, on the sick and the needy.
 
I'd have full sympathies for the guy, if it wasn't for the cancer curing claims. You just do not pull stunts like that!

Those people paying £100 a pop were probably pretty desperate. :/
 
The Daily Mail article is absurd, the headline claims he "spiked" the drink with DMT, implying they didin't know what they were consuming which I very much doubt.

Then the last line:
"Speaking after sentencing, Detective Chief Inspector Phillip Jones, of Avon and Somerset police, said DMT – which is also called N-dimethyltriptamene and comes from the ayahuasca vine – was dangerous, adding: 'It's in the same category as heroin and cocaine.'"

Yes....DMT is just like heroin.

Fuck the media.

Though I agree that this guy seems like a scumbag, shit like this only happens because psychedelics are illegal. Their use in treating the fears associated with cancer is entirely legitimate, but they should be used properly in a medical setting. The people at MAPS are working hard to get such treatments approved through scientific studies.
 
^Remember when they had that big dmt bust in the UK in the daily fail article it said "this could be an epidemic worse than crystal meth" 8) GO FUCK YOUR SELF GO FUCK YOUR SELF AND DIE :X
 
I think we are being a bit harsh on Peter Aziz here. Which is, of course, exactly what the Doctor Charles Shepherd, who shopped him, and the Daily Mail want us to do.

It would be outrageous for someone to proclaim that they could cure cancer but, since Charles Shepherd was the one pretending to have cancer, it is quite likely Peter was set up to appear as if that was what he was doing. It is not a completely alien idea that illnesses such as cancer can be partly induced or even cured by the state of mind of the patient. The "placebo effect" is an example of where a patient's expectations of a cure have a measurable effect on the symptoms. I spoke to a hypnotherapist the other day who told me of cases where hyphotherapy cured cancer. Of course, these cases can't be publicised too much because of the extremely hostile atmosphere to claims made by alternative therapies. Basically, only big pharma are allowed to take any credit for "curing" anyone. To some extent the alternative therapy practitioners deserve some bad rap for the claims they have made in the past but, as ever, the baby gets thrown out with the bath water.

Peter spent time training in the Amazon to become a Shaman. To me this indicates that he is probably quite serious about what he is doing. A "charlatan" would be more like someone that read a few things on the internet then ordered a few leaves and boiled them. He probably has quite a lot of experience of sitting Ayawaska trips and that experience is what you pay your £100 for. Along with the cost of arranging the venue etc. The article says that he wasn't exactly rolling in money from running these sessions.
 
edgarshade said:
It would be outrageous for someone to proclaim that they could cure cancer but, since Charles Shepherd was the one pretending to have cancer, it is quite likely Peter was set up to appear as if that was what he was doing. It is not a completely alien idea that illnesses such as cancer can be partly induced or even cured by the state of mind of the patient. The "placebo effect" is an example of where a patient's expectations of a cure have a measurable effect on the symptoms.
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When explaining that he could "cure" his 'patients' I assumed he would have meant 'cured' in a spiritual sense. As you say, improving the state of mind of cancer sufferers would have undoubtedly improved the quality of their life.

Regarding the quotes above: I don't think the £100 is a rip-off at all. When I have seen private doctors instead of NHS GPs (long story), the cost is £200-250 per session. If the implication that he was exploiting them, then I think this is unfair as the costs involved, like most controlled drugs, have been unnaturally inflated due to the drug's illegality.
 
'Shaman' jailed for hallucinogenic drug potion at 'healing' ceremony

A British "shaman" caught administering a potion containing a class-A hallucinogenic drug to 17 followers at a candlelit "healing" ceremony has been jailed for 15 months.

Peter Aziz, of Buckfastleigh, Devon, who claims to have spent years in the jungles of Peru learning the art of making the drink ayahuasca, provided the brew, which contained N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), during a week-long retreat in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.

He told the followers at the Dorville hotel in December 2007 that it would cure serious illnesses including cancer.

Aziz, 51, was found guilty of producing and supplying a class-A drug by a jury at Bristol crown court.
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More here

I don't think this man should be punished for making ayahuasca but I don't think it is right that he is telling people it will cure their cancer or that he can heal broken bones in a matter of hours. The guy is either insane (quite possible) or a fraudster.
 
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