What's the law on ayahuasca in Spain?

In Spain, around 60,000 people have taken part in ayahuasca ceremonies, according to Spanish legal website Abogacìa Española.

Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic drink made from bark that comes from Amazonian tribes. In recent years, it's gained popularity in Spain and around Europe for its supposed spiritual, social, and medicinal effects.

60,000 people sounds like a lot, but it also likely doesn't include the thousands who will have taken the psychoactive drink in non-ceremonial settings, and is despite the fact that ayahuasca in Spain, like cannabis, exists in a legal limbo.

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What’s the law on ayahuasca in Spain?

As is often the case with Spanish law, the answer is that it depends. There is no clear answer, though recent court rulings may suggest a direction of travel towards de facto decriminalisation one day soon rather than later.

The main thing to understand is the difference between the ayahuasca drink or brew, and dimethyltryptamine (better known as DMT), the psychedelic compound in it.

"In Spain, authorities approach cases individually. Spanish courts typically draw a distinction between DMT in its pure form and ayahuasca as a traditional preparation, which prevents an automatic prohibition but creates legal uncertainty," Abogacìa Española states.

In late-2024 police in Madrid arrested two so-called 'shaman's who were leading spiritual retreats using the drug. Reports in the Spanish press suggest that these sorts of retreats where the Amazonian drink is consumed are growing in popularity and even advertised online.

There have been several arrests in Spain in recent years, mostly of people running retreats rather than personal consumers, who are investigated for 'crimes against public health' as drug offences usually are.

Charges for ayahuasca possession or running spiritual retreats hinge on a series of articles in Spain's Criminal Code - usually 359 to 371 - which set out the rules for defining crimes against public health. The first of these states that "any person who, without being duly authorised, manufactures substances harmful to health or chemical products that may cause damage, or dispatches or supplies them, or trades in them" is guilty of an offence.

However, the question of whether substances such as ayahuasca can be harmful to health - more so than other drugs that can be legally sold and traded - remains legally unresolved. So too does the issue of manufacture.

To determine which substances are considered ‘toxic drugs,’ Spain relies on the list included in the 1971 Vienna Convention, which established the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). This list includes DMT, which is present in very small doses in ayahuasca, but the actual ayahuasca plant itself is not included in the list.

This does little to clarify the legal status of ayahuasca and leaves it highly dependent on the interpretation of both the police and courts.

However, there may soon be some clarification. The Madrid High Court of Justice (TSJ) recently ruled on ayahuasca. In its ruling 316/2025, dated 10 July, the court acquitted a woman accused of a crime against public health after receiving 1.7 litres of the substance at her home in 2022.

The ruling dismisses the appeal filed by the public prosecutor's office against a previous ruling by a lower court, which had already acquitted the defendant. It explicitly stated: "Ayahuasca under that name is not a controlled substance in Spain, even though it contains DMT, an element included in the 1971 Vienna Convention on Psychotropic Substances."

The significance of the ruling lies in the fact that it is the first time that a high court has ruled on ayahuasca in Spain, which gives it greater legal weight, and also that it distinguished between the drink and chemical compound in terms of legality.

The defence lawyer, Francisco Azorín, explained that "to date, more than 30 acquittals have been handed down in cases related to ayahuasca, but all of them came from provincial courts, which are lower courts. This ruling, on the other hand, has been handed down by the Madrid High Court of Justice, which gives it greater legal impact."

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