Ayahuasca is illegal in the United States because it contains DMT, a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act. That federal law applies in all fifty states. No state has legalised ayahuasca, and there is no permit available to members of the public.
Colorado has decriminalised it, but that is not the same as making it legal. The state’s Natural Medicine Health Act, also known as Proposition 122, specifically names DMT and removes criminal penalties for personal possession and non-commercial sharing among adults over 21. It does not allow people to sell ceremonies, nor does it change federal law.
Our retreats take place in Colombia, so this is not a legal battle we are directly involved in. Still, every week we speak with Americans who have been given inaccurate information about the laws in their own country—often by someone trying to sell them a ceremony.
For the religious-freedom route, see the church exemption.
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The Federal Position
DMT is a Schedule I controlled substance and ayahuasca contains it. Schedule I is the category for substances the federal government treats as having no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Possession, manufacture and importation are all federal offences.
Two things follow and both get misunderstood. First, the plants sit in different places. Banisteriopsis caapi, the vine, contains no DMT and is not federally scheduled, though Louisiana restricts it by name at state level. The chacruna leaf does contain DMT. So people read "the vine is legal" and conclude the tea is. It is not.
Second, and this is the bigger one: a state cannot make a federal offence legal. Cannabis is legal under Colorado law and remains illegal federally. What changed there was federal enforcement policy rather than the statute. Nothing equivalent has happened for ayahuasca anywhere.
What Decriminalisation Changed
Colorado is the one state that decriminalised DMT by name, and a handful of cities have deprioritised enforcement. Colorado’s Natural Medicine Health Act (Proposition 122), passed by ballot in 2022, removed criminal penalties for personal possession, growing and non-commercial sharing by adults over 21. Its regulated healing-centre programme is built around psilocybin and does not currently cover ayahuasca.
The city measures are narrower and they are not all the same. Oakland, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Berkeley, Washington DC and Ann Arbor passed measures covering entheogenic plants broadly, which nominally reaches ayahuasca. Denver’s 2019 initiative is psilocybin-mushroom-specific and does not cover it at all, which matters because Denver is the one people cite.
In practice that reaches one situation. If you are an individual holding a personal quantity in one of those cities, local police are unlikely to build a case. It does not legalise anything, it does not bind federal authorities, it gives nobody the right to run ceremonies for payment, and it is worth nothing at an airport. Retreats use that gap in their marketing, so read the claim carefully.
The Religious Exemption
Two church bodies hold recognised federal protection for ceremonial ayahuasca, and both won it in court under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. RFRA says the federal government may not substantially burden religious exercise unless it has a compelling interest and uses the least restrictive means.
In Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal (2006), Customs seized a shipment bound for the União do Vegetal. The Supreme Court ruled 8–0, with Justice Alito not participating, that the government had failed to show a compelling interest, affirming a preliminary injunction. A separate case secured comparable protection for an Oregon Santo Daime congregation in 2009, subject to conditions on importation and handling, several of which the Ninth Circuit vacated on appeal in 2012.
The DEA does maintain a petition process under 21 C.F.R. §1307.03 for religious exemptions. The point is not that no route exists, it is that no ayahuasca organisation has been granted one through it. The protections that exist were won by litigation, on the facts of specific established bodies, and they cover those bodies. We go through the test and the warning signs on the ayahuasca church exemption.
State by State
The answer is the same in every state and only the enforcement culture differs. Because federal scheduling controls, no state analysis changes the status of the brew. Here is where the most-searched states sit.
Is ayahuasca legal in Florida?
No. Florida has no state exemption and no decriminalisation measure, and no Florida city is known to have passed a deprioritisation resolution. More on ayahuasca retreats in Florida.
Is ayahuasca legal in California?
No. SB 58, which covered DMT among other plant-based psychedelics, passed the legislature in 2023 and was vetoed by Governor Newsom, who asked for a regulated treatment framework with dosing guidelines first. Several California cities have deprioritised enforcement. See ayahuasca retreats in California.
Is ayahuasca legal in Texas?
No, and possession is a felony. Texas passed HB 1802 in 2021 funding a psilocybin study for veterans with post-traumatic stress, and has funded further psychedelic research since. None of it changed the criminal law. See ayahuasca retreats in Texas.
Is ayahuasca legal in New York?
No. There is no state exemption and no decriminalisation, and study bills introduced in Albany have not passed. New York has an unusually visible ceremony scene, which people mistake for tolerance. See ayahuasca retreats in New York.
Oregon and the psilocybin programmes
Oregon and Colorado both run supervised psilocybin frameworks and neither covers ayahuasca. Colorado’s statute names DMT among substances its regulated programme could add later, which is not the same as covering it now. Reading these programmes as an ayahuasca opening is a mistake people make often.
What This Means for Your Decision
A US ceremony is an unregulated ceremony. That matters more than your own legal exposure, which for a participant is real but usually small.
Think about what illegality removes. There is no licensing body, so nobody has checked the facilitator is trained. There is no medical standard, so nobody has to ask what you take. There is no insurance, so there is no commercial incentive to screen you out. And if the night goes badly, calling an ambulance means explaining a federal offence, which is a hesitation you do not want in the room at three in the morning.
It can be that you find a careful, experienced, deeply serious underground circle in the United States. Those exist. You may equally find somebody who did a two-week course, and from the outside you cannot tell the two apart, because there is no outside standard to check against. That asymmetry is what prohibition costs you.
Where Traditional Use Is Recognised
Traditional ayahuasca use is legally recognised in Peru, Brazil and Colombia. Peru declared it part of the national cultural heritage in 2008, which protects traditional indigenous use rather than creating a licensing regime for commercial retreats. Brazil has permitted religious use since the 1980s. In Colombia, where we work, yagé is not a scheduled substance and traditional practice is constitutionally recognised. Ecuador is often listed alongside these and should not be. It has general constitutional recognition of ancestral medicine and no specific instrument, which leaves it a tolerated grey zone.
That recognition is less about the paperwork and more about what it makes possible. A retreat operating in the open can be insured, staffed properly and held to account. It can have a doctor review your intake without anybody committing a crime. It can call an ambulance without hesitating. And by working in daylight, it has to care about its reputation over years, which is the strongest safety mechanism there is. It is not a guarantee, and there is no ayahuasca licensing regime in Colombia or Peru to point at.
The country picture, including where it is tolerated rather than protected, is on is ayahuasca legal. If you are weighing a trip, that page and how to choose a safe retreat are the two to read. Nobody should tell you the law is the whole question. Legality gets you a container that can be held accountable. It does not do the work. All the strength on your path.
FAQs
Is ayahuasca legal in the United States?
No. Ayahuasca contains DMT, a Schedule I controlled substance under the federal Controlled Substances Act, which applies in all fifty states. No state has legalised it. Colorado has decriminalised personal possession of DMT-containing plants for adults over 21, which is not legalisation. Narrow federal religious protections were won in court by the União do Vegetal and certain Santo Daime congregations.
Is ayahuasca legal in any US state?
No state has legalised it. Colorado is the one state to have decriminalised DMT by name, under its Natural Medicine Health Act (Proposition 122), covering personal possession and non-commercial sharing by adults over 21. Cities including Oakland, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Berkeley, Washington DC and Ann Arbor have deprioritised enforcement against entheogenic plants. Denver’s measure covers psilocybin mushrooms only. None of these bind federal authorities.
Can I start an ayahuasca church legally?
Filing paperwork and calling an organisation a church creates no protection for a controlled substance. The DEA operates a petition process under 21 C.F.R. §1307.03 for religious exemptions and no ayahuasca organisation has been granted one. The União do Vegetal and Santo Daime protections were won through federal litigation by established bodies with real doctrine and history. See how the exemption works.
Is the ayahuasca vine legal in the US?
The vine and the brew sit differently. Banisteriopsis caapi contains no DMT and is not federally scheduled, although Louisiana restricts it by name at state level. The chacruna leaf does contain DMT, so the brewed tea is a Schedule I preparation. “The vine is legal” is true and is often used to imply something false about the brew.
What happens if I bring ayahuasca into the US?
Importing it is a federal offence, importation of a Schedule I controlled substance, and carries considerably more exposure than simple possession. That includes bringing a bottle home from a retreat abroad. Do not do it.
Is it safer to do ayahuasca where it is legal?
Generally yes, for structural reasons rather than legal ones. Where traditional use is recognised, a retreat can be insured, medically staffed and held publicly accountable, and can call an ambulance without anyone risking prosecution. Illegality removes every one of those checks, which is why underground quality varies so widely and why you cannot assess it from outside.
