TOBACCO AS MEDICINE

New Revised Edition

“Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.” — Osho

◊🕊 Throughout the world, Earth-based spiritualities express themselves in countless forms. One ancient and potent tradition is the ceremonial use of Tobacco as medicine — a practice rooted in healing — prayer or meditative contemplation with the smoke and by touch — and the offering of this plant to the Earth, as well as working with it as a medium for communion with the divine. In its pure organic form, free from chemical disfigurement, Tobacco is revered across many Indigenous cultures as one of the most radically sacred plants on Earth.


◊🌿 As a North American, I find it deeply moving to witness the parallel traditions of Tobacco healing in both North and South America. Despite being separated by geography, these traditions share striking similarities : Tobacco is smoked in a meditative act which might be called prayer, in which spiritual awareness is heightened and it is believed that positive, beneficial healing spirits are called forth or communicated with by Tobacco for the benefit of the practitioners. It is also offered to the Earth in sacred acts of reciprocity — a bundle laid on the ground to decompose as a gesture of respect, often accompanied by prayers for healing or guidance, which tends to cause a potent spiritual blessing from the Mother Earth to the practitioners in return.

◊🤲 Another tradition involves the gifting of Tobacco to others with no expectation in return — a gesture of pure generosity and spiritual offering, carrying blessings intended for the receiver. Yet, all these powerful practices remain largely invisible in the modern “institution-matrix” of internet discourse.


◊💻 Search online, and you’ll mostly find dismissive and pathologizing perspectives. Medical professionals — often blind to the profound logic of the sacred — speak only of health risks, making no distinction between the commercialized, chemical-laden cigarettes and heirloom, 100% organic Tobacco. While smoking any plant can irritate the lungs, the difference between this and inhaling thousands of synthetic additives is night and day. And importantly, these traditions are not limited to smoking.

◊🌊 In South America, Tobacco is sometimes prepared as a tea — a deeply visionary and healing medicine with no negative effects when used correctly. This act of drinking Tobacco water made from commercial Tobacco would be toxic, even deadly. And personally, I would never attempt this practice using North American organic Tobacco either.

◊💧It’s worth noting that the traditional Amazonian strain of Tobacco, known as Mapacho (Nicotiana rustica), is not the same plant as the North American Tobacco most people are familiar with (Nicotiana tabacum). These are distinct species with entirely different chemical profiles, energetic signatures, and ceremonial uses (even when organic and free of additives). Mapacho is revered for its spiritual potency, containing a much higher concentration of natural nicotine in a less addictive and more medicinal form, while North American strains—especially those cultivated for commercial use—have been genetically manipulated and hybridized over generations, resulting in a plant that is far more addictive, less stable in spirit, and far removed from its sacred roots.

◊🌊 From a traditional medicine perspective, this makes Mapacho not only a purer option, but a fundamentally different ally altogether — one whose spiritual presence is undistorted and whose use in ceremony remains intact across centuries of indigenous wisdom. This reinforces the importance of discernment when seeking to engage with sacred plants, especially in a post-industrial world where even nature has been subjected to genetic disfigurement.

◊⚠️ This post is not a guide or endorsement to engage in these practices without the proper ceremonial context. These medicines require direct guidance from experienced traditional practitioners. But for those already practicing North American Tobacco spirituality, I strongly encourage seeking access to Mapacho — to witness firsthand the energetic and physical differences, and to realize that the internet has failed to communicate this truth.


◊🧬 Another shared thread between North and South American traditions is Tobacco’s relationship with psychedelic healing ceremonies. In Peru, plant medicines like Ayahuasca, San Pedro, Peyote, and Psilocybin are not only legal — they are foundational to the culture. Long before colonial invasion, these medicines flourished in the rich pharmacopeia of the rainforest, setting deepest foundations for what would become the future human culture in Peru from the early beginnings. Tobacco is usually the one universal anchor in these ceremonies, providing protection, grounding, initiation and guidance, acting as a master spiritual communicator and mediator with the plant spirits and supporting the practitioner’s spiritual clarity and safety.

◊🌱 With traditionaly contained Ayahuasca ceremonies and respectful dietas of very specifically restricted foods and social contact including careful abstinence (the practice of Vegetalismo), these plants convey transformational, healing teachings. One of the first and most universally received messages is this : these medicine teachers are immensely powerful. However you define “spirit,” what becomes clear is that these plants can catalyze real-world healing, insight, and transformation far beyond the limited definitions of Western science.


◊💎 In contrast, the North American medical and political sectors have spent decades demonizing these medicines as poisonous through threat-based manipulation and propaganda, when they are infact the ultimate medicine — launching a war not just on drugs, but on the plant teachers themselves. Big Pharma and reductionist science have stripped healing plants of their holistic essence, turning these ancient and beloved master plant teachers into biologically limited substances, holding these ancestors hostage for profit. True power, the kind that uplifts and heals, is always the greatest threat to authoritarian systems.


◊💊 Reductionism — the dissection of plants into isolated compounds — can be useful in some medical contexts, but often it results in deep violence to the spirit of the plant. The best-known metaphor is the extraction of the poppy flower into pharmaceutical opioids. What once was a poster child for beauty and sentimentality becomes an alarmingly dangerous and addictive narcotic through misuse, extraction, and disrespect.


◊🔥 A glaring example: the pharmaceutical industry once attempted to reduce Ayahuasca into a pill form called Da Vine. This desecration ignored every ceremonial, spiritual, and ecological aspect of the medicine. To the eyes of any well adapted medicine practitioner, this offence would immediately be perceived as the ultimate violation. It was eventually discontinued — and I believe the spirit of the plant itself played a role in halting this abuse. Plant teachers are not passive ingredients; they are active protectors of their holistic, ecological, genetic and spiritual wisdom and power.

◊🔑 Ironically, these cautionary tales reveal why we may be grateful, in a way, for the very illegality that protects sacred plant medicine from commercialization. Were psychedelics fully legalized today, they would likely be hijacked by pharmaceutical and institutional powers, stripped of their ceremonial roots, and sold back to us in distorted forms. The ultimate vision, I believe, is not just legalization, but a full reorientation of power — one in which pharmaceutical abuse is outlawed, and traditional healing ways are restored with protection, reverence, and autonomy.


◊🌐 Already, there are small victories. The Santo Daime religion has achieved legal status for Ayahuasca in some countries — but this is only possible because it is defined as a religion, which offers legal protections. The Shipibo-Conibo traditions, however, are not religious institutions. They are Earth-centered cultures with no doctrine, no hierarchy, and no dogma — only the mandate to protect their ancestral ways. These deserve equal protection and respect.

◊🌎 I remain deeply optimistic. As North Americans deepen their relationship with plant medicine, we have the opportunity to give back — to create a globally reflective, reciprocal relationship with South America, in humble gratitude for the Peruvian influence which has nourished this part of the world so much by willingly sharing their beloved ancient traditions with us as their guests. This is a future I envision with reverence and care — a world where these powerful medicines can live in freedom and where our role may be fully realized, as students of the plants, to serve with protection, gratitude, and co-creation.

Love, Ba
🕊