To some, this is a sacred ceremony, consuming a plant medicine from the Amazon, it's called ayahuasca, it's illegal in Canada, but could this ancient brew be embraced here one day by modern medicine? You can see bad things. You can see good things. But that's what the medicine gives you. It gives you what you really need. Years ago, you would have been hard pressed to find an ayahuasca ceremony being held outside of the Amazon, but now more and more people believe in the power and the promise of the plant.

And that's brought us here to the suburbs of New York City. And tonight, we're getting rare access to one of those ceremonies. You're right. Hey, how are you doing, Mark? Nice to meet you. Too. I'm here for a night of discovery with a healer named Yourn Liniments for his apprentice, Dell Henderson, and a potent brew of jungle medicine, ayahuasca. It's going to be a wild night.

This is the Ayahuasca. Yeah, the ayahuasca was already premade and everything in Peru.

But what we do, ayahuasca is made by combining Amazonian roots and leaves, which, when boiled together, produce a naturally occurring psychedelic called DMT.

What's considered natural in the jungle seems a little unusual in a Long Island kitchen, as the brew is blessed with ceremonial tobacco. Ayahuasca has a sludgy consistency and smells resin, and I'm told it tastes like the jungle. Come on, Doc, and some believe it can change your life just as Bjorn cleanses you, gets rid of or all the bad stuff.

You know, he grew up in Long Island, ran with a rough crowd. A bullet in his spine, sparked a spiralling dependence on heroin to help heal his chronic pain.

You were addicted to it just like a never ending circle going in and out of jail, back and forth. And then it was kind of strange when I went to jail and met some guy in there and said he told me about ayahuasca and said he was a shaman. And he says, if I would do ayahuasca, I wouldn't be addicted to heroin no more. I said, how is that possible?

When Bjorn was released in 2007, he ordered some ayahuasca online and dove in. He landed in a sea of self discovery, riding the waves of powerful hallucinations.

I just was torn out into the universe, put back together, and I just felt the love with a tear coming out of my eye.

And I was reset and I just felt all this love in there like you're cured, you know, and you believe it's the ayahuasca that is that is healed you of your of your drug addiction. Yes.

But you've got to want it. You can't, you know, just think it's a magic pill and it's going to work and this and that. You've got to you know, you've got to also work with the biggest part. It gives you a spiritual awakening.

That's a pretty bold claim. But it's testimonials like yours that for so many are building the aura and the appeal of ayahuasca.

It's believed ayahuasca has been used for centuries by indigenous people in the Amazon, where it's referred to as the medicine. The hallucinations are seen as a gateway to spiritual growth and healing. Ceremonies in North America are a relatively new thing, will the experience be the same? Well, that's what these people are here to find out just in about, is struggling with addiction issues. It was drugs at one point, like cocaine and things of that sort, and now it's shifted towards food.

Have you tried more conventional treatments, therapy, things that sort. It just felt uncomfortable to me. Maria Marine's curiosity about Ayahuasca led her to be born. I need to know inside of me, I need to see what it is, if there's more to it. In this cramped suburban sun room, the most unlikely of healing settings, some leaning against a hot tub, the ayahuasca begins to take effect.

That means purging, violent vomiting, a prelude to the visions or hallucinations that for some can trigger a transformation. It's not just me that's watching this intently. So, too, are scientists.

Have you ever tried to guess what was your experience like? I would say my biggest experience was how it helped me get off tobacco. Really?

Brian Rush is an internationally recognized scientist in Toronto specializing in addiction and mental health.

Like I saw myself dead. He was very clear from tobacco because my body was covered in black tar and I never had a cigarette since. That was about eight years ago. This is a painting from a very well-known artist. Is this a reference to an ayahuasca experience? Yes. The visions that people are having, this is this is the foundation of those visions, very vivid.

So the visions are triggered by the DMT. Other naturally occurring chemicals in the mix stimulate neurotransmitters in the brain. Those can affect everything from mood to anxiety levels and self-awareness. Rush says new research has just been published about the potential of ayahuasca to help with depression.

So. So the best kind of research are a world of research, a double blind clinical trial. So the person doesn't know where they're getting the investigator doesn't know what they're getting. And it's a randomized controlled trial. The first one was published on Ayahuasca and showed the benefits for depression. The world of research took notice. This is hard to argue against. And that could be why Iooss, his popularity is soaring, Raasch estimates thousands of Canadians may have tried it, some seeing it as a natural alternative to prescription drugs or therapy.

People like you replied, I was really, really skeptical and cynical about it.

He's an IT guy in Toronto. Ayahuasca was not on his radar, but the skeptic was struggling with a secret.

Since 13, 14, I had this crippling depression. I was good at hiding it. And then I started working with a psychologist and antidepressants.

It was numbing things like you wanted off his meds and that led him to an ayahuasca retreat in Peru. He remembers powerful visions of his skin being torn off, how disconnected he was for him.

It was a rebirth.

So this is a little piece of ayahuasca wine cut in half urías off anti-depressants he has been for seven years.

He's happy now, but goes back to the jungle annually to continue working on himself.

I can tell you right away there is very little fun about it. It's the hardest work that I've done in my life. And every time I go to the ceremony, I. I dread it in a way. And if there was a way not to do it, I'm still yielded the same results. I would totally go for it.

Urie now wants to share the power of the plant, he works with an organization that takes military vets with PTSD on jungle retreats. But the use of ayahuasca is not without risks, 32 year old Jennifer Logan from Saskatchewan died in Peru in 2015 after a violent reaction to a tobacco purge during a ceremony. There are also real concerns in the Amazon and in North America about tea being spiked with other hallucinogens, as well as sexual assault and theft while people are under the influence.

Are there concerns that these ceremonies that are going on in North America may actually do more harm than have any real benefit to them? I think even people who are kind of part of the research world around ayahuasca are part of this culture acknowledge some of the risk. So is there a really sufficient screening around safety? And then is there really sufficient follow up? So the legal risks, the potential health risks have pushed ayahuasca underground in cities across North America.

Is there always a lingering concern that because ayahuasca is illegal, that you've got to keep a low profile, low key and be careful about who you bring into your circle? Of course, yeah.

And Toronto, I know quite a few people who have trained in the Amazon and then came back. And I know quite a few practitioners who have relocated to Vancouver and lived there now. But the ceremony is in North America. People who organized them, they have a lot of logistics to worry about. It's it's still. It's still a crime. But back in Long Island, Bjorn is convinced the benefits of ayahuasca outweigh the risks, and that's why he's let us and our camera into his ceremony.