Key takeaways: Ayahuasca and Cannabis
- Ayahuasca brings things to the surface; cannabis numbs. Their workings are the opposite.
- At Harmonica we ask you to stop at least 7 days before the ceremony. Ideally, you stop 2 weeks before drinking Ayahuasca, especially if you are a regular, daily smoker, and with Peruvian brews it can be 4-6 weeks.
- Smoking the day before is not a medical emergency, yet it can muffle the effects of the medicine.
- A combination of psychiatric conditions, cannabis, and Ayahuasca can be dangerous.
- Ayahuasca can help some people lose the craving for weed, but it is not a promise.
Cannabis and Ayahuasca: Two Pulls in Opposite Directions
Weed and ayahuasca pull in opposite directions: cannabis numbs, ayahuasca brings things to the surface, and so at Harmonica we ask guests to ideally stop smoking weed 7 days before the ceremony. For heavy smokers, stopping earlier is better. And if you don't manage to stop, even smoking the day before is generally not a medical emergency, yet it can muffle the effects of the medicine. That reassurance does not apply to anyone with a personal or family history of psychosis, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. And one guest who came back a year after his first retreat told me his body had simply stopped craving weed after the retreat.
One of the most consumed plants (after coffee and tobacco) is cannabis, also known as weed or marijuana. It helps people relax, deal with the stress of life, and express creativity. So it’s a common topic that comes up around Ayahuasca preparation, how long they need to abstain from cannabis, what the potential risks are, what to do when they cannot stop smoking, and in general, the relationship between these two plants.
I have extensive experience with both, having been a daily smoker for 6 years and also being on the path of Ayahuasca, building a Harmonica Retreat for 4+ years now. This article comes from that lived experience.
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How Long Should You Stop Smoking Weed Before Ayahuasca?
At Harmonica, we ask you to ideally stop smoking weed 7 days before your ayahuasca ceremony. And if you are a heavy smoker and can stop earlier, even better: if you smoke every day, two weeks is the ideal. The brew matters here, and also how much you smoke, because both can stretch that timeline.
If you keep smoking until the ceremony, your body and spirit may not receive the ayahuasca in its full expression. Still, I tell people, “Do your best and forget the rest.” From my point of view, if someone is otherwise suitable to participate, it is better to receive the medicine without having managed to stop than not to drink at all.
Before my first encounter with ayahuasca, I had already stopped smoking weed. I was very unhappy and knew I needed to change how I was living. Smoking had also started to make me feel worse than before, and that negative feedback loop made it easier for me to stop.
What if you smoked the day before?
Most likely the ayahuasca feels muffled, as if a layer of cotton sits between you and the medicine. It is not a medical emergency, unless you have a personal or family history of psychosis, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. In that case, read who should not drink ayahuasca and speak with the retreat team before making any plan.
One participant came to a weekend retreat with two ceremonies. She felt very little in the first ceremony and worried that she should have stopped smoking, and also that coming might not have been worth it. In the second ceremony, she connected very strongly, and our team needed to help her at one moment. The muffled first night also showed her one more way her cannabis use was creating self-sabotage in her life.
Important Considerations
How potent is the Ayahuasca you are drinking?
With Peruvian Ayahuasca, you probably need to stop 4-6 weeks before the ceremony. Colombian Ayahuasca is generally considered more potent, so 1-2 weeks is generally enough to connect well with the medicine.
How regularly do you smoke?
The more you smoke, the sooner you should stop (or be okay with feeling the effects less, and it’s recommended to do a purge before Ayahuasca).
Are you okay with feeling the effects less?
Be aware of your self-sabotage. Maybe you are saying, “Oh, if I cannot stop smoking, I shouldn’t drink.” And this might also be a way of procrastination, of not wanting to face the underlying fear. Here it goes back to: we do the best we can, and we receive what we are supposed to receive in the moment we participate in a ceremony.
How Cannabis and Ayahuasca Work: The Opposite Ways
The way Ayahuasca works is that it shines a light. It brings the unconscious to the conscious. On the contrary, cannabis tends to bury emotions, it numbs us down, especially when used a lot. So their mechanisms are contrary. It is good to give space between these plants so each one can develop without the interference of the other.
The Shamanic View of Cannabis: A Power Plant
Cannabis allows us to amplify our intention, whether it is to relax, to connect, or to be creative, it can help us dive deeper into our intention.
The elders say that cannabis is also a “Diva,” a plant that will start playing with your attention. And if you do not approach the plant with a firmness in your intention, it will start to take “control” over you.
There are very, very few people that I know who actually use cannabis consciously.
The Shamanic View of Ayahuasca: A Master Plant
Ayahuasca is considered by the elders as a master plant. In a way, it knows us better than we know ourselves. It will give us what we need, in the intensity that we need it, when we connect with it.
Sometimes we believe we need an answer for topic A in our life, but Ayahuasca might show us a different route, things that we have maybe even overlooked for years. Or it helps us resolve the topic we came with, in ways that we didn’t expect.
It is a true master plant that also requires a lot of dedication and discipline when working with it.
Ayahuasca vs Weed: How the Two Compare
Ayahuasca and weed sit on opposite ends of the same shelf, so the comparison is less about which one is stronger and more about what each one is doing to you. People type "ayahuasca vs weed" as if they are two flavors of the same plant medicine, and in a way I understand the confusion, because both get sold under that same word. But one is opening a door, and the other is quietly closing it.
| Ayahuasca | Cannabis (weed) | |
|---|---|---|
| How you take it | Brewed and drunk as a tea in a ceremony | Smoked, vaped, or eaten, mostly on your own |
| What it does inside | Brings buried material up to the surface | Numbs and softens what is already there |
| How long it holds you | Around four to six hours, in one sitting | One to three hours, often repeated through the day |
| Where it belongs | A guided container with a facilitator | Everyday life, no container needed |
| The role it plays | A master plant you sit with a handful of times | A coping mechanism many people reach for daily |
Both do carry something psychoactive, and Ayahuasca’s punch comes mostly from DMT, which is why people keep asking how Ayahuasca compares with DMT on its own. But the real split is simple: weed helps you not feel, and Ayahuasca asks you to feel everything. So if you are choosing between them, you are really choosing between numbing the conversation and having it. And that is a very different question for the daily smoker than it is for the person who touches neither.
Understanding the Risks: This Is Important
This section is crucial, and I want to be very clear about it because safety comes first.
The Risk of Psychosis
The combination of Ayahuasca, cannabis, and certain psychiatric conditions, especially schizophrenia or a family history of schizophrenia, can be dangerous.
Here’s what you need to understand: cannabis alone, when combined with a predisposition to schizophrenia, already carries significant risk. It can trigger psychotic episodes in vulnerable individuals. When you add Ayahuasca into the mix, you’re combining two powerful psychoactive substances, and this can dramatically increase the risk of triggering a psychotic break.
In this blog we dive deeper into the topic of “Can Ayahuasca cause Psychosis”.
Who Should Not Participate
If you have:
- A personal history of schizophrenia or psychosis
- A family history of schizophrenia (parents, siblings)
- A diagnosis of bipolar disorder or other serious psychiatric conditions
- Been told by a mental health professional that you’re at risk for psychosis
You need to have a serious conversation with both a mental health professional and the facilitators before considering Ayahuasca. In many cases, it may simply not be safe for you to participate, especially if you’re also a regular cannabis user with serious psychiatric conditions.
You can find more detailed information about this topic in our blog: Who should not drink Ayahuasca
Weed, Other Substances and Medication Before Ayahuasca
Weed is rarely the only thing you need to stop. During the week before a ceremony, we also ask you to leave out alcohol, hard drugs and other psychedelic substances. Each affects brain chemistry differently, and ayahuasca is a very strong medicine, so you do not want to mix too many energies before drinking it.
Edibles, vapes, THC oils and joints are all cannabis, so at Harmonica the same 7-day ask applies regardless of whether you smoke, vape or eat it.
Antidepressants and other prescription medication are a separate and stricter conversation. Plan every medication change with your doctor instead of choosing a stopping date by yourself; the 7-day cannabis ask does not carry across to a prescription. Our guide to antidepressants and ayahuasca explains this separate interaction.
On the free 30-minute call, tell the facilitators honestly what you take and how much you smoke, and if your preparation has not been perfect, say that plainly as well.
Find out if Ayahuasca is right for you
- Will you be safe physically and emotionally?
- How will you be supported in the ceremony?
- How do the facilitators handle difficult situations?
- How will you be able to process the experience?
- You want change, but will your life be unrecognizable after Ayahuasca?
Personal Observations From Years of Experience
- I have seen regular cannabis smokers who couldn’t stop smoking still have powerful ceremonies.
- I have seen people who are regular cannabis smokers have lesser effects from the Ayahuasca.
- Other factors need to be taken into consideration: is the person using other drugs, are they on other medications, their emotional state and willingness to heal.
- Purging the body is especially beneficial when one is a regular smoker and approaching Ayahuasca. More about Ayahuasca and Purgatives here.
- If people don’t stop their unhealthy weed habit after Ayahuasca, the long-term benefits of the Ayahuasca are minimized. Smoking often stops or slows down the person from taking healthy actions they should be taking to improve their lives. In this blog you can find more about the long term effects of Ayahuasca.
- I understand the difficulty of stopping smoking. My approach is: do the best you can. Start slowing down with the quantity that you are smoking. Start sitting with the uncomfortable emotions that start to come up. That in and of itself is difficult. The more you can do it, the better. More about it on our blog Ayahuasca Integration
- Think about the reasons you want to drink Ayahuasca, your Ayahuasca Intention. This can help serve as a “why”, a reason to cut down on the amount of weed you smoke.
- Don’t be too hard on yourself. We are all doing the best we can.
Can You Smoke Weed after the Ayahuasca Ceremony?
Wait as long as you can before you smoke weed again after a ceremony, because the days right after are where a lot of the real change actually lands. I like to say the ceremony is only half of the conversation. The other half is the homework, and that homework happens in the ordinary days that follow, when the insights settle and you decide what to do with them.
And by reaching for the joint on the second day, you often numb exactly the material Ayahuasca just brought up. It can be that you feel raw and you want some relief, and that is understandable, so give yourself a level of grace. It can also be that the smoking is the same coping mechanism the medicine was trying to show you. So again, don’t use the softness as an excuse to skip the integration. If you can stay off cannabis for a week or two afterward, and pair that with rest, journaling, and the gentle food of the Ayahuasca diet, you protect the opening instead of closing it too fast.
Can Ayahuasca Help You Quit Weed?
Ayahuasca can help some people quit weed, yes, but it is not a promise and it is not a cure. What you do after the ceremony mostly decides if the change lasts. The responsibility stays with you.
In a 2022 study in Frontiers in Pharmacology, Perkins and colleagues followed 53 people drinking ayahuasca for the first time at facilitated ceremonies. Participants completed questionnaires before and one month after, when they reported significant reductions in alcohol and cannabis use. The study had no control group, and the authors say randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm the results. And also, one month is not a lifetime.
The most positive example I can give is one guest who returned to a retreat two months ago, a year after his first retreat. He said that after the first retreat, he could stop smoking very easily. It was like his body was not craving it anymore. I see this, in a way, as “graduating from one’s own pain, one’s own dependencies,” and then the weed simply is no longer attractive. Many people wish for the shift to happen like this. In specific situations it really happens like that, but it is not something you can demand from the ceremony.
For a serious daily smoker, weed can take over much more attention than the joint itself. The mind starts arranging the day around the first joint, whether there is enough for the next few days, and how to find more while travelling. And then the excuse comes in, like: “It’s not that bad. Everybody does it.” Weed may help you cope, but that coping mechanism can also stop you from looking clearly at where your life is and what needs to change. In my experience, heavy use takes away life force and concentration you need for those changes.
“You probably already realise that weed is hindering you in many aspects of your life, even though you might not be ready to admit it. Ayahuasca can help to heal what you are trying to numb with the weed to begin with.”
Oliver GlozikFounder of Harmonica RetreatThe ceremony may show you the pattern and give you an insight, but it cannot sit in the driver’s seat and make your daily decisions for you. Give the days after some structure, and do not rely on some vague promise to yourself. Follow an integration plan, and read why nothing changes after ayahuasca for some people if you notice yourself returning to the same routine.
Recap and Conclusion: What to Remember About Weed and Ayahuasca
The relationship between cannabis and Ayahuasca is complex, and there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. What I’ve learned through my own journey and working with others is this: these plants work in fundamentally different ways, and respecting that difference is important.
Cannabis can be a beautiful medicine when used consciously and with intention. But for many of us, myself included, it became a habit, a way to avoid feeling what we needed to feel. Ayahuasca does the opposite work. It asks us to feel everything, to face what we’ve been running from.
If you’re a regular smoker considering Ayahuasca, the medicine is already working on you. The fact that you’re reading this, asking these questions, means something inside you is ready for change. The challenge of stopping or reducing your cannabis use before ceremony is actually part of the healing process. It’s teaching you that you can sit with discomfort, that you can feel your feelings without numbing them.
Do your best. That’s all any of us can do. If you can stop two weeks before, great. If you can only manage a few days, that’s okay too. What matters most is your intention, your honesty with yourself and the facilitators, and your willingness to receive whatever healing comes your way.
But please, and I cannot stress this enough, if you have a history of psychiatric conditions, especially schizophrenia or psychosis, or if you have close family members who do, take the risk section seriously. Talk to professionals. Some journeys aren’t meant to be taken, and there’s wisdom in knowing your limits.
Trust the process. Trust yourself. And remember: the medicine gives us what we need, not always what we want, and that’s exactly as it should be.
Frequently Asked Questions: Weed and Ayahuasca
How long before Ayahuasca should I stop smoking weed?
Ideally two weeks, especially if you are a regular, daily smoker. The longer, the better. Yet, if you are a daily smoker, the difficulty arises that it is not that easy to stop. In the end, the sooner the better, but at the very least, don’t smoke on the day of the Ayahuasca ceremony and start to decrease the amount you are smoking. Try your best to abstain for 3 – 7 days. At Harmonica, 7 days is the baseline we ask of everyone, and two weeks is the ideal for daily smokers.
What if I cannot stop smoking weed before drinking Ayahuasca?
This is more common than one realizes. We work with the approach: do your best. You might not feel the full effects of the Ayahuasca (though you still might), but it will still help. You have to at least not smoke on the day of the ceremony. Ideally, you don’t smoke 3 – 14 days before your encounter with Ayahuasca. Other traditions usually have more strict approaches.
Can I be unable to participate in an Ayahuasca ceremony because of my cannabis habit?
It depends on who you ask and each situation has to be looked at individually. There are multiple aspects that need to be taken into consideration: if you have certain psychiatric conditions, your emotional stability, your willingness to heal, your past experiences with “psychedelics” etc.
How does regular cannabis consumption affect Ayahuasca ceremonies?
What we have observed is that the effects of the Ayahuasca are usually numbed. It usually doesn’t fully activate if people cannot stop smoking 3-7 days before the ceremony, yet there are still benefits the person receives from the ceremony.
What can I do to feel the Ayahuasca more if I am a regular smoker and cannot quit?
Kambo or other purgatives can help clean the body and make you more receptive to the medicine
Does ayahuasca get you high?
Ayahuasca does not produce a recreational high like cannabis; instead most people experience an intense, introspective journey with visions and emotional release. Combining it with weed can blunt or distort this process, which is why facilitators usually advise stopping cannabis beforehand.
What drug is ayahuasca similar to?
Ayahuasca contains DMT, so its effects are sometimes compared to other DMT or psychedelic experiences, though it builds slowly and lasts several hours. Unlike cannabis, it is not used recreationally and typically involves purging and deep emotional work.
Is ayahuasca a near death experience?
Ayahuasca is not a near death experience, though some people describe ego dissolution that feels like a symbolic death or rebirth. See our guide to ayahuasca ego death for more on this.
Can you smoke ayahuasca?
No, you drink Ayahuasca. It is a brewed tea, cooked down from the vine and the leaf, and you take it by mouth in a ceremony. People mix this up because DMT, one of the things Ayahuasca contains, can be smoked on its own in other settings, but that is a different substance and a very different experience. In a ceremony you sip the brew, and then you sit with it.
Can ayahuasca help you quit weed?
Ayahuasca can help some people quit weed, but there is no promise. A 2022 study by Perkins and colleagues found that first-time drinkers reported less cannabis use one month later, although the study had no control group. One returning guest told me his body simply stopped craving it after the retreat. Still, the actions you take during the following weeks decide most of it.
References
The points about cannabis, the psychosis risk, and how each substance acts on the mind draw on public health research rather than on opinion. You can check the primary sources below.
- National Institute on Drug Abuse: Cannabis (Marijuana)
- National Institute on Drug Abuse: Psychedelic and Dissociative Drugs
- Perkins D, Pagni BA, Sarris J, Barbosa PCR, Chenhall R. Changes in mental health, wellbeing and personality following ayahuasca consumption: results of a naturalistic longitudinal study. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2022
