On 16 September 2018, The Mail on Sunday published an article in which they implied a link between retreats that I was responsible for managing in Marbella, Spain, and the death of a teenager in Colombia. They also attempted to imply that the retreats being run were a cash grab and that the retreats were some kind of manipulation for financial gain. You can find this article here. 

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The purpose of this post is to respond to this article, as there are a number of points in the article where the facts published are incomplete, as well as where incorrect implications are made. I wish to address some of these points. 

 

It should be noted that prior to publishing this response, I have contacted the Independent Press Complaints Commission (funded by the press itself) who informed that because there are no outright factual inaccuracies (as opposed to omissions that are deemed immaterial), the article cannot be challenged. I also obtained legal advice, with a view to bringing a lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday for slander as a result of technical factual inaccuracies, but was advised that this would require bringing in expert advisors with a likely cost of upwards of £300,000, making it impossible for me to proceed in this way.

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Firstly, it's important to note that the passing of Henry Miller in Colombia, although very upsetting, was completely unrelated to the retreats taking place in Marbella, or with the company that I was working in conjunction with. Neither I nor anyone I was professionally associated with has ever met or spoken with Henry Miller. Mr Miller travelled to Colombia to drink ayahuasca with a shaman there (completely unrelated to our organisation) and died due to a combination of an extra plant, scopolamine, being added into the ayahuasca brew, as well as mixing the brew with the anti-nausea medication hyoscine. The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death. (Source)

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The ayahuasca brew is an exceptionally safe substance, with only 9 deaths attributed to it in total (out of an estimated 600,000+ sessions taking place globally each year), and in all of these cases, ayahuasca is not recorded as the cause of death. In each case, there were other factors at play such as additional plants added to the brew, a mixture between ayahuasca and other medication, or even tobacco poisoning. The retreats we offered in Marbella were an opportunity to experience ayahuasca in a safe, controlled setting, under medical supervision and/or advice and trained, experienced, facilitators. A medical doctor was directly contactable throughout everything we offered in order to ensure medical safety. In addition, ayahuasca being offered was lab-tested in order to ensure that no additional substances were present in the brew. In the two years I worked in Marbella, there was only one person who experienced any kind of injury or needed to attend hospital - and that was myself, when I broke my finger during a group dynamic exercise.

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The claim that the retreats were being run as a way to "cash in" is ludicrous. To be completely transparent, I earned less than a quarter of my earnings in my prior post as an accounting consultant. The reason that I chose to work with ayahuasca was due to the extremely positive effect that it had on my own life. As a result of working with ayahuasca, I vastly improved my diet, professional success, day-to-day habits, interpersonal relationships and overall life satisfaction. If money was the aim, there would have been much easier ways to earn it than by working with ayahuasca.

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The results I experienced in my own life as a result of working with this substance are mirrored by the vast majority of the hundreds of participants who attended retreats with us. I have been told on at least 15 occasions by attendees that the retreats we offered were responsible for saving their life. The publication of such a tabloid-style "shock" article as this one in the Mail on Sunday, which is clearly designed to elicit an emotional reaction in readers in order to sell more newspapers, can damage the reputation of ayahuasca and possibly prevent many people from obtaining a treatment that they might need, and could even save their life.

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I ended my time working in Marbella in 2019, due to a difference in direction of the organisation and myself. I'd like to make it clear though that I'm very proud of the work I was a part of at that time. At no point were any laws broken, and a huge number of people, including myself, experienced vast improvements in their quality of life as a result of attending retreats with us. My hope is that one day in the not too distant future these treatments can be destigmatised so that they can be accessed more widely by everyone who needs them in a safe, legal, loving, and professional way.

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Arron Kilburn

​arron.kilburn@gmail.comLocation - Leeds, United Kingdom