Ernesto Londoño is a national correspondent with The New York Times, where he covers the U.S. midwest. He’s also the author of a new book named “Trippy: The Peril and Promise of Medicinal Psychedelics.”
Ernesto is originally from Bogotá, Colombia, but he moved to the United States for college in 1999. Later, Ernesto ended up working for major publications like The Dallas Morning News and The Washington Post, where he covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eventually, he would join The New York Times.
“Trippy” opens around the time Ernesto moved to Rio de Janeiro in 2017, when he had just become the Brazil Bureau Chief for The New York Times. Everything appeared to be going well. Arguably, some would say, Ernesto was at the peak of his career. But that was the perception from the outside. In reality, he was struggling with depression.
“At the time, my depression was something that I kept to myself,” he told Latino USA. “I didn’t even feel entitled to reach out for help.”
This wasn’t the first time Ernesto had dealt with mental health issues, but he said that this particular moment, and his journalistic curiosity, led him to attend his first ayahuasca retreat in the Brazilian rainforest.
“I think this is something that people often gravitate to when they’re pretty desperate and they’re hoping this mysterious drink from the jungle will induce something of a hardware reset for the mind,” he told Latino USA.
This experience unlocked a series of doors to his own healing. The journey also sparked questions about the science and oftentimes called “dark sides” to the use of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes, such as overpromising the healing aspects of these drugs, sexual abuse, whitewashing Indigenous practices and more. Ernesto explores these issues in his book.
In this episode of Latino USA, Ernesto talks about his first experience at an ayahuasca retreat, explores what he’s come to learn about himself, and looks at some of the issues and questions about the medicinal psychedelic industry.
Featured image by Jenn Ackerman.
This episode was produced by Reynaldo Leaños Jr. and Max Martinez Villalobos and edited by Hayley Sanchez. It was mixed by Andy Bosnak with engineering support from J.J. Querubin.
