A Canadian killed a Briton after the two men took a hallucinogenic plant brew known as ayahuasca together at a spiritual retreat in the Peruvian Amazon, authorities said Thursday.
Witnesses told police the Canadian man, 29-year-old Joshua Andrew Freeman Stevens, killed the British man, Unais Gomes, 26, in self-defense after Gomes attacked him with a knife during an ayahuasca ceremony near the jungle city of Iquitos on Wednesday night, said Normando Marques, a police chief in the region.
Ayahuasca is a combination of an Amazonian vine and dimethyltryptamine (DMT) — containing plants that give users psychedelic experiences when combined. It is not normally associated with violence.