This chapter will explore globalization, diversity, and issues of social justice by examining the global expansion of ayahuasca religions through a lens of transnationalism, and against the backdrop of international drug control. Politics have often equated cultural groups with particular national boundaries, and, proceeding from this premise, have made legal and cultural exceptions for groups that were seen as specifically situated geographically. A perfect illustration of this is in a provision of Article 32 of the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which permits signatories to make reservations for plants growing wild which contain psychotropic substances, which are traditionally used by certain small, clearly determined groups in magical or religious rites. The provision reflects a view that exemptions for psychoactive drug use are acceptable if they are confined to a specific locality, and to a specific culture group. The ayahuasca religions pose a particular challenge to this line of thinking. The Brazilian-based religions of Santo Daime and the União do Vegetal (UDV) have established a global presence with international adherents, followers who are not constrained by national boundaries, and not identifiable as members of any particular ethnic categories. As these religions expand outside of their traditional regional and cultural contexts, they come to be viewed through the Western framework of the War on Drugs, and become classified as criminal enterprises. The expansion of the ayahuasca traditions will be used as a foundation for examining issues of international human rights law and protections for religious freedom within the current prohibitionist system and global milieu of cultural transnationalism. Since the passage of the 1961 Convention over 50 years ago, the drug conventions have become entrenched components of international law. It is unlikely that a new convention will be convened anytime soon; nevertheless, there are mechanisms available to individual states that could potentially weaken some of the detrimental components of the conventions. Unfortunately, the potential fixes, proposed herein, will not change the narrow understandings of culture nor the biomedical bias upon which the conventions are built. As globalization progresses and populations become increasingly transnational in nature, with ties of ethnicity, language, religion, family, and occupations expanding to encompass multiple countries, the limitations of the worldview enshrined in the drug conventions, including its attempt to confine “bad” cultural practices within particular geographic boundaries, have become increasingly problematic. The conventional wisdom that predicted that modernity would lead to increased secularization, and globalization to cultural homogenization, has proven to be questionable. Further, it no longer seems that globalization will lead to the inevitable triumph of the developed world over the developing one, or that “quaint” and “antiquated” beliefs, values, and practices will be replaced by the supposedly superior ones of industrialized nations. Quite the opposite, in fact, appears to be true. This is particularly exemplified by the ayahuasca religions, which have demonstrated a broad appeal in portions of the Western industrialized world and which continue to attract new international adherents. As nation-states continue to grapple with growing multicultural populations, the myths of “national identity” that once helped legitimize and empower the state as a representative of a particular cultural group are growing weaker. State laws that once encoded “cultural values,” are now more frequently seen as discriminatory and oppressive, as exemplified by the use of secularist laws to curb the expression of unpopular religious groups, restrictions on access to the institution of marriage, and the historical use of controlled substances laws to target minorities. 2 There are also significant questions that need to be asked about the choice to push the world towards one cultural understanding of health and wellness, as well as the restrictions and regulations that accompany a uniform model. Interestingly, this one-model system of medicine, propounded as “modern” and “scientific,” stands in contradiction to other “modern” values, such as individual choice and a free market. More nefarious, however, are the potential impacts that a singular medical model may have in developing parts of the world. Despite the promise of the drug conventions that communities which give up traditional therapeutic uses of psychoactive plants will have access to “real” medicine, many of these communities must choose either to continue their use of traditional medicines in the face of global prohibition and become criminals, or forego these practices and rely upon what little “modern” medicine and medical care is available. It is important not to lose sight of the fact that the world is inherently multicultural, and that we must be steadfast in preventing the ethnocentrism of world powers in codifying their own cultural beliefs and values into international law. If culture is dimensional and not tied to particular localities, and if multicultural communities cannot be represented by a single “national identity,” then traditional notions of social organization will need to be re-examined. Further studies on the expansion of the ayahuasca religions may provide insight into the rapidly changing dynamics of culture and locality, as well as the emergence and rise of unique forms of transnationalism. How these changing dynamics will affect global economic and cultural flows remains to be seen. Nevertheless, these rapidly changing realities, as exemplified by the emergence of transnational religious movements like Santo Daime and UDV, must inform the future of drug regulation, and will ultimately require the international community to re-evaluate the narrow views of culture, locality, and health at the heart of the drug conventions.