This article is part of the series of controversies raised by the Ayahuasca Healing Retreats. Ayahuasca Healing Retreats founder Trinity de Guzman shows a misunderstanding of the law when he tells an interview: [Ayahuasca is] an uncontrolled substance. But DMT, which can be extracted from the plants, is a controlled Schedule 1 drug by the DEA. Ayahuasca itself is not a scheduled drug, but it’s legal in a religious and spiritual setting. So, simply stated, ayahuasca is legal if your intentions are sincerely religious. And it’s legal under a church. You have to be a member of a church which has that legal protection. On the contrary, ayahuasca IS illegal in the United States; it is covered by the scheduling of DMT. The US Supreme Court, in the UDV decision, clarified that, in the US, ayahuasca (if it contains DMT) is included in the laws prohibiting DMT: The 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances… signed by the United States and implemented by the Controlled Substances Act, calls on signatories to prohibit the use of hallucinogens, including DMT. …The Convention provides that “a preparation is subject to the same measures of control as the psychotropic substance which it contains,” and defines “preparation” as “any solution or mixture, in whatever physical state, containing one or more psychotropic substances.” Hoasca is a “solution or mixture” containing DMT; the fact that it is made by the simple process of brewing plants in water, as opposed to some more advanced method, does not change that. To the extent the commentary suggests plants themselves are not covered by the Convention, that is of no moment — the UDV seeks to import and use a tea brewed from plants, not the plants themselves, and the tea plainly qualifies as a “preparation” under the Convention.