On Tuesday, October 19, 2010 while en route to leading traditional Ayahuasca ceremonies in Oregon, indigenous Colombian healer Juan Agreda Chindoy was detained in the Houston International Airport. He was formally arrested by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) for possession of his traditional medicine Ayahuasca. He is now being charged as a federal criminal and is facing up to 20 years in federal prison. Taita Juan is certified by his community and by the Colombian ministry of health as a traditional healer. He is one of the few remaining indigenous spiritual leaders in the world that holds the ancestral medicinal knowledge of an ecosystem that is rapidly disappearing. Taita Juan is a father, a husband and a godfather to more than 20 children. With more than 3000 supporters from several countries in the world, his life and work have touched many.
