GREEN BAY, Wis. — It was a touchdown celebration most fans never would have even considered possible. But in Packers fashion, the Packers did just that.
During the game against the Chicago Bears on Sunday, quarterback Aaron Rodgers threw a touchdown pass to Allen Lazard.
That's when Lazard did his best to pretend to pour ayahuasca from the football into the pretend glasses held by Rodgers and their fellow players.
As the other players pretended to pass out, Rodgers stayed on his feet and began to shake, as if the psychedelic began kicking in.
It was a touchdown, the Packers beat their rival 27-10 and the theme of ayahuasca continues to follow Rodgers into 2022.
Best celebration of season. Thank you Twitter for pointing out it’s Ayahuasca pic.twitter.com/KPna2bMLoM
— Andrew Perloff (@andrewperloff) September 19, 2022
What is ayahuasca and why do we keep talking about it and Aaron Rodgers? It all started when Rodgers admitted that the plant-based psychedelic played an important (and positive) role in his most recent MVP seasons.
On the Aubrey Marcus Podcast last month, Rodgers talked about his first time taking a psychedelic drug, calling it a "major ego death."
Rodgers was back in the media spotlight on Monday when he made his regular stop on The Pat McAfee Show. Rodgers said that their in-good-faith touchdown antics were not quite accurate to the real drug.
"I will say, I don't want to send the wrong message. That's not what happens. You're not standing up, drinking ayahuasca, and then have this Jesus revival, slain in the spirit thing that happens to you. It's just not like that," Rodgers said.
The quarterback continued that he and Lazard came up with the touchdown celebration beforehand.
"That was a celebration Allen and I talked about a couple years ago. That was just really him and I. (Robert Tonyan) and I had our own thing. Bobby and Allen had their own thing. On Friday, he kind of spread that to the rest of the guys, so I was aware they were doing something. I just wanted to get over there and get involved," according to Rodgers.
Rodgers pushed back on calling ayahuasca a "drug."
"It has properties in it that have hallucinogenic abilities, but it's not a drug," he said.
Rodgers continued: "It’s a very important point to make. This is how words are created in society to create a certain bias against certain things. I do think it's important to go on this ridiculous tangent how words are used to create bias. Those biases create fears and those fears prevent people from doing their own research or having their own idea and truth in a situation."
The Alcohol and Drug Foundation describes ayahuasca as a liquid-based psychedelic that can cause a human to hallucinate. Its active chemical is dimethyltryptamine or DMT, which is a Schedule I controlled substance in the U.S.
To try ayahuasca legally, many travel to places where the plant is native, like Peru. Ayahuasca has been used for hundreds of years there for therapeutic and religious reasons. In fact, Rodgers said it was in Peru where he tried ayahuasca for the first time.
