Amazonian Group Savors Victory Over U.S. Plant Patent
11/7/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Amazonian Group Savors U.S. Plant Patent Victory
Source: Environmental News Network
http://www.enn.com
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: November 7, 1999
The largest organization of Amazonian indigenous peoples Saturday
celebrated its victory over a U.S. businessman who patented a
hallucinogenic vine that the Indians use in religious ceremonies.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday rejected a 1986
plant patent granted Loren Miller, owner of the California-based
International Plant Medicine Corp., for what Miller said was a novel
strain of the local ayahuasca plant.
But a leading expert on the family to which ayahuasca belongs -
William Anderson, director of the University of Michigan Herbarium -
said the features described in the patent on what Miller called "Da
Vine" were typical of the species.
"Our shamans and elders were very worried about this patent. Now they
will celebrate," said Antonio Jacanamijoy, general coordinator of the
Organization of Amazon Basin Indigenous People (COICA).
COICA, which represents 1 1/2 million people in Peru, Ecuador,
Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana, had
fought the patent since a Canadian environmental group discovered it
in 1995.
The disputed vine grows freely in the jungle and is used by more than
400 indigenous townships in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Brazil as
medicine and in religious ceremonies to make a hallucinogenic drink
also called ayahuasca. "Yage" is an alternative name for both vine
and drink. "Ayahuasca" means "vine of the dead" or "vine of the
souls" in the native Quechua language. According to local lore, the
plant gives shamans the power to cure the sick, summon spirits and
predict the future.
Those who have tried ayahuasca say it produces the sensation of
separation of body and soul and induces visions that can be
terrifying for the unsuspecting.
David Downes, a lawyer for the Center for International Environmental
Law,which helped fight Miller's patent, has formally requested that
the Patent Office revise its procedures to avoid similar disputes
over indigenous plants.
The agency "must consider the question of whether it is ethical or
not that the solicitors of the patent demand particular rights over a
plant or knowledge that is sacred to a cultural or ethnic group,"
Downes said.