Italian Santo Daime juridical case

resume and comment

By Beatriz Labate

In News

May 17, 2006

Message sent by the italian daimsta Walter Menozzi (*) on May 16th 2006

“August 2004 – While coming back from Brazil I’ve been stopped with 27 liters of Santo Daime at Perugia
Airport. The Santo Daime was sequestrated and a juridical case was opened. After that the chemical analyses
showed a DMT presence in the beverage.
The case was given to the anti-Mafia team in Perugia of the Guardia di Finanza (GdF), a special police branch
specialized in crimes about commerce and economical matters (including drug traffic).
29th of September, 2004 – the GdF team arrived at Casa Regina della Pace, the Santo Daime community in
Assisi, and frisked some daimista’s houses finding and sequestering some other few liters of Daime. In the
following months other perquisitions were realized in Rome, Trieste, Ovada (Alessandria), Milan. In Rome and
Ovada the GdF found some other samples of Daime (very little quantity).
February 2005 – a Brazilian girl, fardada on Santo Daime, arrived in Milan to stay for a long period. She
wrote us an email saying that she was carrying 2 liters of Daime from Brazil. Few days later the GdF arrived at
her home, took the Daime and arrested her. We contacted her lawyer in order to send him all the documents for
the juridical recognition, but he didn’t know us and remain suspicious. While the girl was in prison, the judge
in Milan made her know that if she confessed she was guilty, she would be condemned to 1 year and a half with
“condizionale” (this means out of prison) and she could exit immediately and go back to Brazil (probably
without the permission to re-enter in Italy). Facing this option (confess to be guilty in order to exit immediately
from the prison) she accepted and exited after having passed 3-4 weeks in San Vittore prison in Milan.
15th of March, 2005 – I was preparing my trip to Mozambique to leave the next day (I had to start a 10
months mission for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs). I was in Reggio Emilia, my natal city, when the
GdF of Perugia arrived to arrest me with the motivation: “escape danger”. The next day other 21 daimistas
were arrested in Assisi, Ovada, Trieste, and Turin, including the Brazilian girl that had just been released from
prison (she exited in the morning and the police arrived in the evening of the same day to re-arrest her…).
The crimes contested were pretty heavy: criminal association, international drug traffic, etc. A huge quantity of
recorded phone calls and emails were produced by the GdF for the judge, but there was nothing inside
demonstrating any illicit traffic or gain.
Among the huge quantity of documents presented by the GdF to the judge in Reggio Emilia (where I was
arrested) there were also some chemical analysis of the Daime showing a DMT presence of 15% (two months
later we received all the documents produced by the GdF, including 3 different chemical analysis dated
February 2005 – so before the arrest – showing for all the samples of Santo Daime taken to the Cefluris
members a presence of max 0.064% of DMT, while the samples taken to the psychologist in Rome present the
15% of DMT, probably an error but however these analysis were the only ones showed by the GdF to the Judge
in Reggio Emilia).
After about 7-10 days in prison, the judge gave the domestic arrests to all the arrested people.
4th of April, 2005 – we had the first hearing at the local Court of Perugia following our case re-examination
request to the judge. We presented a complete set of documents regarding religious, juridical (international),
scientific aspects, about our activities and the destination of the contributions we were sending each year to
IDA, including an official letter of WWF Brazil appositively written for the Italian consulate in Manaus
(Amazonas). However the main argument of the Defense at this point was about the fact that the Santo Daime
is not included in the list of the under-control substances for the Italian law, as confirmed by the ONU’s INCB
letter.
The Court rejected our Defense arguments declaring that “the Santo Daime, being a mixture of two plants and
not only one, is not a natural product but has to be considered like a laboratory preparation appositely
containing DMT”. Following this hearing, 9 of the 22 arrested people (the ones that had personal property of
the Daime sequestrated) had to remain at the domestic arrests, while however the other 13 were left free
because there was no evidence of their involvement in the case.Following this rejection, our Defense made an
appeal at the Supreme Court of Cassazione in Rome.
24th of June, 2005 – my lawyer called me to inform that the Supreme Court accepted to hear our arguments
with a hearing in Rome for the 6th of October 2005.
7th of October, 2005 – we received the result of the hearing of the previous day: victory – the Supreme Court
accepted our appeal and our arguments, declaring that the public persecutor didn’t demonstrate anything
enough to arrest us, and so that the arrest and the rejection of local court were both annulled.
The Supreme Court re-sent the case to a new Court in Perugia to re-analyze it again.
Then we had to wait the written motivation of the Supreme Court to understand for which reason we got this
very good result.
15th of December, 2005 – my lawyer called me to inform that the same day he had received the written
motivation of the Supreme Court. The main points of the declaration concerned how it neeeded to be
interpreted by the Italian law on drugs regarding the specific case of a substance made from natural plants not
under-control but that contains an alkaloid under-control:
1. the Supreme Court declared that the public persecutor didn’t show how Ayahuasca/Santo Daime was
prepared;
2. if the substance was a laboratory product containing DMT, it needed to be forbidden;
3. if the substance was a preparation that came from a “simple derivative process” of natural plants not under-
control, it depended on wheter the preparation effects were product of the effects of the consumption
of both the two original plants or not. This can be measured by the alkaloids quantity in the substance in
relationship with the presence in both the original plants, in particular;
4. if the substance presents a clear “surplus” of alkaloids respect to the original plants and effects are very
potentiated respect to the ones induced by the consumption of both the original plants, in this case also the
preparation needs to be under-control;
5. if the preparation presents a quantity of alkaloids (and also the effects) comparable to the consumption of the
original plants, in this case the preparation is not under-control.
After having given the guide lines to interpret the drug law, the Supreme Court concluded that the public
persecutor had not showed anything enough to arrest us, so annulled the arrests and re-sent the case to local
Court of Perugia to re-analyze it.
13th of January, 2006 – Hearing at the new Court in Perugia. We presented a new scientific report signed by
an Italian chemist where he concluded saying that the Santo Daime was a “decoction” (as defined in the ONU’s
INCB letter) of two plants, so it is clearly a “simple derivative process” of natural plants and presented a
quantity of alkaloids comparable to the original plants (however in this document there are no numerical data
about the presence of alkaloids in the natural plants).
The new Court of Perugia decided to conform itself to the Supreme Court opinion confirming the annulations
of the arrests. The Court declared that we were arrested without any juridical reason. Furthermore the Court
declared that in its opinion the Santo Daime seems to be not under-control. This opinion was very positive for
us. After this declarations the public persecutor was obliged (although he didn’t agree) to ask for the case
dismissal.
4th of April, 2006 – After just a bit more than an year since the arrests of the Italian daimistas, and exactly the
same day (one year later) of the first rejection in Perugia, the new Judge of the Court of Perugia concluded this
chapter accepting the case dismissal request with the motivation that the public persecutor didn’t demonstrate
anything enough to consider the Santo Daime forbidden for the Italian law, so there is no evidence of any crime
for the arrested daimistas. This is the crowning achievement of the important victory we had in the Supreme
Court of Cassazione in Rome, in October.
(Please find soon the juridical documents of the Italian case in the “Ayahuasca – Santo Daime online Library”
at http://www.santodaime.it/?page_id=923)
Present situation
Now we have to see how the authorities will react when we will ask for the restitution of our Sacrament. We
still don’t know exactly if this important victory has already determined the juridical recognition of the Santo
Daime freedom in Italy, but it has for sure made us much closer to this final objective.
In our help for the future we have also the scientific data of dr. Callaway’s article published in the Journal of
Psychoactive Drugs, vol. 37, n° 2 (June 2005): in this study he analyzes 37 plants of Rainha finding in the dry
leaves a quantity of DMT until the 1.7% (average 0.75%), so between 10 and 20 times higher than the DMT
concentration (0.064%) found in our Daime.
The next steps of our work for the juridical recognition of the freedom of the Santo Daime ritual use in Italy
are:
1. to ask for the restitution of the Santo Daime sequestrated;
2. to produce a multidisciplinary document realized by a toxicologist of Sapienza University in Rome together
with one of our lawyers in order to compare the Daime chemical analysis with the scientific results presented in
dr. Callaway’s article at the light of the declaration of the Supreme Court;
3. to conclude the request presented in 2003 to register the CEFLURIS into the Italian “Religions official
register” (that contains up tonow more ore less 20 religious organizations);
4. to create a Santo Daime Italian Association.
Faith and visualizing the juridical recognition of Santo Daime freedom as something already existing that
nothing can avoid to be recognized, these are very good weapon to get the victory.

Viva a Liberdade do Santo Daime!

Walter Menozzi”

—-

(*) Walter Menozzi was born in Reggio Emilia in 1975. In 1998 he was acquainted with Santo Daime at Céu
do Mar, in Rio de Janeiro. In 2000/01, he spend six months in the Cefluris Santo Daime communities in the
Amazon forest (Céu do Mapiá e Céu do Juruá), to which he travels regularly. From 2001 to 2005 he lived in
Assisi collaborating in the administration and organization of the Casa Regina della Pace (CEFLURIS – Italy).
He is living in Reggio Emilia and continues to work within the Doctrine of Santo Daime in Italy and in Europe.
He has just finished a book about Santo Daime and the process of the drink’s legalization in Europe, called
“Ayahuasca,” which will likely be published in Italy by the end of 2006 (translated to English by Matthew
Meyer).

Walter Menozzi nasceu na Reggio Emilia, em 1975. Em 1998, conheceu o Santo Daime no Céu do Mar, no de
Rio de Janeiro. Em 2000/01, passou um período de seismeses na comunidade do Cefluris – Santo Daime na
floresta Amazônica (Céu do Mapiá e Céu do Juruá), para onde costuma viajar regularmente. De 2001 a 2005
morou em Assis colaborando na administração e organização da Casa Regina della Pace (CEFLURIS – Itália).
Atualmente mora na Reggio Emilia e continua trabalhando na Doutrina do Santo Daime na Itália e na Europa.
Acaba de escrever um livro chamado “Ayahuasca” sobre o Santo Daime e o processo de legalização da bebida
na Europa, que será publicado, provavelmente, até o final do ano na Itália.
 To get in touch with Walter: leonbianco75@yahoo.it
Click here to know CEFLURIS´site in Italy.

General situation
In Italy, ayahuasca use has some presence, with a Santo Daime church founded in the early nineties,
a recently emerging UDV group, and a few shamanic, therapeutic, and New Age circles around the
country. As is the case with the majority of the European countries, the legal status of ayahuasca in
Italy is a controversial subject. There is no law or decree stating that ayahuasca is forbidden;
however, the presence of DMT, scheduled in national legislation, makes the matter open to
divergent interpretations.

Some Italian Santo Daime members were involved in an important legal case that marked a
watershed in the Italian legal landscape. The case, which lasted from 2004 to 2006, ended up with a
plain acquittal, and, due to the fact that some judgments were issued by the Italian Supreme Court,
those sentences are now being taken as “orientation” by the judges called to evaluate similar
matters. However, sentences imposed by the Supreme Court are not meant to represent “factual
law”; they only serve as precedents, and judges will likely use them as a guide. Due to this, there is
currently a relaxed feeling about offering ayahuasca ceremonies. However, people continue to have
their ayahuasca seized and new cases are being initiated, showing that the situation is far from being
entirely safe and certain.

International law
The Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971) subjects several psychoactive ingredients
contained in plant species to international control. DMT (N,N-dimetyltryptamine, a tryptamine
alkaloid contained in Psychotria viridis and other plants generally used in the preparation of
ayahuasca) is a Schedule 1 controlled substance in the Convention. However, according to the
International Narcotic Control Board (INCB) Report for 2010 (par. 284), “no plants are currently
controlled under that Convention …. Preparations (e.g. decoctions for oral use) made from plants
containing those active ingredients are also not under international control.”

Italy has ratified several international conventions regarding psychotropic substances, with the
agreement to elaborate national laws in accordance with the general principles expressed there.
Those conventions are: a) the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, implemented through
law L. n. 412, June 5, 1974; b) the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971 implemented by
law L. n. 385, May 25, 1981; c) the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances
Convention implemented through law L. 329.
At the European level, on May 6, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights rejected the
application to review a case from the Netherlands in which a Santo Daime member (who had 120
liters of ayahuasca seized from her house then sued to get it back) stating that Dutch prohibitions on
the possession of ayahuasca were not in violation of the right to religious freedom enshrined in
article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
National drug legislation
Italy is signatory of the Convention on Psychotropic Substances (1971). Inspired by this
Convention, it demurred from defining an operative concept of “psychotropic drug,” choosing
instead a system based on schedules. Those schedules are updated constantly, following the general
criteria enunciated by articles 13 and 14 of the law D.P.R. 9 n. 309, October 1990. Through this law,
it was also established that the schedules must be compiled by the Ministry of Health, the Ministry
of Justice, and several other Advisory Bodies.

The Schedule 1 designation was intended to contain the most dangerous and, therefore, the most
punishable drugs. According to this law, DMT is classified as Schedule 1, but no plant traditionally
used to prepare ayahuasca, such as Psychotria viridis or Banisteriopsis caapi are scheduled. This
principle has also been reaffirmed by the Ministry of Health in a document published on December
30, 2010.

In article 14, comma 1.7.a, of the before mentioned Decree n. 309, 1990, it is written that Schedule
1 must include “any other plant which active principles [that] can induce hallucinations or serious
sensorial distortions, and any substance obtained through extraction or chemical synthesis that can
induce the same typology of effects, in damage to the central nervous system.” Depending on the
interpretation, this statement makes it possible to include ayahuasca in Schedule 1: It is left to the
general international orientation and to the local competent authorities to decide if and when to
make this step.

Cases
There have been a few lawsuits brought against ayahuasca drinkers in Italy since 2004. The
situation seemed to have reached a stable point after the pronunciations of the Supreme Court, but
recent cases signal a turn that concern around ayahuasca seems to have been reignited.

Santo Daime Church (2004–2006)

The principle and most famous of legal cases in Italy happened in March 2005, involving
representatives of the Italian Santo Daime Church. In 2004, 27 liters of Daime/ayahuasca sent from
Brazil were confiscated in the Perugia airport. After finding DMT in the material apprehended, the
legal case began, with the main accusation being international drug trafficking. As a first step, the
lawyer of the Santo Daime church pled to the Supreme Court of Rome that the confiscated brew
was not scheduled under Italian law, and that the accusations should therefore be considered invalid.

The Supreme Court of Rome answered that in order for it to be established if the brew was an
illegal or not, the prosecutor needed to answer some detailed scientific questions. On October 6,
2015, the Supreme Court stated that the prosecutor couldn’t adequately respond to these issues. This
led to the filing of the case by the Tribunal of Perugia on April 4, 2006, and to the release of all
those involved on January 13, 2006.

A Ramification of the Santo Daime Church Trial (2009)

One year later, another prosecutor managed to reopen the case in another tribunal, with only one
among the original 21 of the previous people charged involved. The new case took place in Reggio
Emilia, and had as a central focus answering the questions of the Supreme Court of Rome. In this
case, the toxicologist nominated by the prosecutor also failed to demonstrate the evidence of the
illegality of ayahuasca, and the Tribunal of Reggio Emilia followed the defense statements. It is
important to underline that the justification of the rejection of the prosecutor’s toxicologist’s thesis
was that “he didn’t present enough scientific documentation in support of it,” as stated on April 27
2009. As a result, the charges were dropped.

Santo Daime: Another Administrative Case (2009)

In the same year, other members of the Santo Daime Church were involved in an administrative
legal case about ayahuasca; but, thanks to the previous attainment (the Supreme Court’s
statements), they were all acquitted. On December 30, 2010, the Ministry of Health stated that in
spite of the fact that DMT is a controlled substance, harmine, harmaline, Psychotria viridis,
and Banisteriopsis caapi would not be listed in the Schedule 1 of the D.P.R. 309/1990.

An Arrest Due to German Customs (2012)

On November 19, 2012, the Italian police seized two packages containing ayahuasca, after being
informed by the German customs. The defense sent the results of the Supreme Court to the Crown
Prosecution Service and the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to open the case.

A New Arrest for Receiving Ayahuasca Through Mail (2016)

In October 2016, a 30-year-old man was arrested for receiving a package containing 4.5 kg of
ayahuasca from Peru. He was released after three weeks and he is now waiting for the next judicial
hearing. The ayahuasca confiscated has been analyzed, and the legal report of the prosecution stated
that it couldn’t be considered a decoction because it contains traces of “hydrocarbon organic
solvent, that allows a significant enrichment of substances in the final preparation, compared with
an extraction with boiling water.” Therefore, it should be considered as “chemical preparation
containing a narcotic substance.”

The report also analyzed the amount of DMT (360mg) and calculated that is 1.3 times the
maximum amount allowed for personal use (270mg), according to article 1 of the Decree
11.05.2006 of the Ministry of Health. The next judicial hearing will take place in May 2018.

Santo Daime: A New Arrest at Airport Customs (2016)

In December 2016, another member of the Italian Santo Daime church was arrested by the customs
police of Bologna airport for possessing 15 liters of Daime/ayahuasca. The young man is still
waiting to see if the process will be formally opened or filed by the Crown Prosecution Service.
Another Arrest at Airport Customs (2017)

On November 20, 2017, a Lithuanian man was arrested for having been found in possession of 2
liters of ayahuasca while transiting through Bari airport to reach his country. There is no more
information available about this case.

Updated: March 2018

Relevant documents

 Fax INCB 2001 Netherlands

 INCB letter ICEERS

 Hoasca 1971 Convention Legal Brief

 INCB Annual Report 2010

 INCB Annual Report 2012

 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

 TNI/ICEERS Ayahuasca Policy Report

 ICEERS Technical Report on Ayahuasca

 Plantaforma Ayahuasca Report Spain (Spanish)

 Declaration of Principles of the Religious Groups who consume the Tea Hoasca