I remember doing research on Ayahuasca for my degree thesis. What's "cool" about it is that it was traditionally consumed by indigenous indians of south america in religious ceremonies. It was part of their culture and the ceremonies had a spiritual, not recreational purpose; yet the war on drugs had it banned in most countries. Natives still have several court battles going on to this day, with the claim that its a cultural heritage element and they have the right to maintain it. For western people it rhymes well with the "hippie" trend of back to nature-spiritualism-drugs and chillin'. In my opinion, anyone should be able to smoke or drink whatever they want; however let's not forget that indigenous cultures had no knowledge of modern chemistry and human physiology back then and genuinely attributed these effects to spiritual causes. Purposedly ignoring this knowledge today is just too pretentious.