Peyote

Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) is a small, dome-shaped cactus whose native region extends from the southwestern United States through central Mexico. Its effects as a psychoactive agent have been employed for as much as 10,000 years as a method to stimulate psychic growth and help reveal what many partakers believe to be a spiritual reality.

Its popularity continues today as a religious rite amongst indigenous peoples of both its native regions and beyond, as well as a widely distributed hallucinogen for ardent truth-seekers and recreational "trippers" alike.

It's value as a sacred mechanism to aid in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment has long been questioned by those who see it as either nothing more than a cheap device to experience what is merely a superficial "head trip", or a harmful and powerful tool to reveal a reality best explored through more mature and less instantaneous methods.

Plant

Peyote is a hardy plant; its natural growing range extends from the Rio Grande and western regions of Texas southward into Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert and Tamaulipan Thorn Forest. Peyote prefers a warm, temperate desert with fertile but sandy soil, though is known to withstand much harsher conditions.

a flowering peyote plant

The top of the cactus that grows above ground is referred to as the crown, which flowers sporadically and produces small pink fruit, which are sweet-tasting and even delectable when eaten. The seeds, or "mescal buttons", are small and black, requiring hot and humid conditions to germinate.

Peyote contains a large spectrum (at least 28) of phenethylamine alkaloids, the principal of which is mescaline. All Lophophora species are extremely slow growing, often taking up to thirty years to reach flowering age in the wild (about the size of a golf ball, not including its root). This is one of the reasons why this tranquil plant is becoming rare in its natural habitat, as it is unable to immediately replenish itself when taken from the wild for human purposes.

Cultivation

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peyote in its natural state

Procuring peyote "buttons" or seeds can be difficult, and growing peyote for ritual use is a slow-motion process. Still, afficionados cultivate peyote in almost every part of the world. It can thrive in greenhouses, grow rooms, shade, or full sun. Belonging to the family Cactaceae, it is a "low maintenance crop," requiring minimal watering, pest control, trimming and other types of attention that most fruitage typically demand.

Human cultivated specimens grow considerably faster than do wild, usually taking from six to ten years to mature from seedling to adult. Since even the domestic process is quite tedious, most growers prefer to plant or graft the disc-shaped buttons which sprout from the crown of already-growing peyote. When done properly, the top of the root will callous over, and new buttons will eventually grow. When poor harvesting techniques are used, however, the root is damaged and the entire plant dies.

The same buttons used for the grafting process in peyote cultivation are what partakers use for human ingestion as a medicinal, transcendental, and recreational agent. These buttons are generally chewed, or boiled in water to produce a psychoactive tea. The resulting infusion is extremely bitter and, in most cases, the user experiences some degree of nausea before the onset of the psychedelic effects.

Medicinal Effects

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peyote, botanical drawing

The plant's resilient tenacity makes it a potent medicine. Researchers have attributed antibiotic and other medicinal qualities to the plant; religious users appreciate the natural mescaline, a powerful psychotropic alkaloid, which is the plant's main neuroactive ingredient.

The effective dose for mescaline is about 300 to 500 mg (equivalent to roughly 5 grams of dried peyote) and the effects last about 10 to 12 hours. When done correctly under the right conditions, peyote is reported to trigger states of deep introspection and insight that have been described as being of a metaphysical or spiritual nature. At times, these can be accompanied by rich visual or auditory effects (see synesthesia). Unless one is embarking on the experience in a ceremonial context conducted by an experienced Peyotero, it is recommended that the user be accompanied at all times by a "trip sitter", someone who is not him or herself intoxicated, to best secure a safe experience.

It should be noted that our understanding of the psychological and spiritual damage suffered from peyote use is extremely limited as our knowledge of the spiritual reality and ourselves as spiritual beings is still imperfect. Therefore, safety can never truly be assured to those who use peyote, even if the utmost care is taken.

Historical Uses

Huichol and Aztec Indians engaged in ceremonial peyote ingestion for centuries before European explorers arrived in what is now called Mexico. In the late 1800's, peyote use spread north into United States, as part of a revival of native spirituality when American Plains Indians brought their peyote rituals to the Great Basin and southern Canada. Peyote "churches", combining Christianity and peyotism, began to be known in the early 1900's as the Native American Church, which was officially formed in 1954. Members of the NAC refer to peyote as "the medicine" and have used it to combat alcoholism and other social ills. Between the 1880s and 1930s, U.S. authorities attempted to ban Native American religious rituals involving peyote.

Precise membership criteria and organizational information regarding the Native American Church today is confusing and difficult to determine, but some sources estimate that as many as 300,000 people in the US, Canada, and Mexico consider themselves members.

The Native American Church is just one among several religious organizations that still use peyote as part of their religious practice. Another example are the [[Huichol Indians], whose estimated 20,000 members live in Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental in the states of Nyarit and Zacatecas. The Huichols still practice traditional peyote pilgrimages to their sacred land of Wirikuta, a peyote-growing region near San Luis Potosi, where they gather cactus for use in ceremonies designed to ensure rain, food and spiritual health.

A particular surge of interest in the use of peyote was spawned in the 1970s and can be credited to the accounts of its effects in the early works of writer Carlos Castaneda. Don Juan Matus, the pseudonym for Castaneda's instructor in the use of peyote, used the name Mescalito to refer to an entity that purportedly can be sensed by those using peyote to gain insight in how to live one's life. Though no movement is specifically tied to Castenada's influence regarding peyote use, it is certain that much of the hippy counterculture's connection to the plant was inspired and reinforced by his writings.

Later works of Castaneda asserted that the use of such psychotropic substances was not necessary to achieve heightened awareness and de-emphasized the use of peyote as a general means to achieve this end. He stated that they could "inalterably damage the luminous ball of energy emanations from the body, as well as the physical body." In Journey to Ixtlan, he wrote:

My perception of the world through the effects of those psychotropics had been so bizarre and impressive that I was forced to assume that such states were the only avenue to communicating and learning what Don Juan was attempting to teach me. That assumption was erroneous.

The Controversy

Ever since the arrival of the first Europeans in the New World, peyote has provoked controversy, suppression, and persecution, condemned by the Spanish conquerors, as one example, for its "satanic trickery". Today, the opposing sides of this issue continue in their debate as to whether peyote should be protected as a harmless religious rite, or banned as a dangerous drug which harms us in both apparent examples and in ways we have not yet come to realize.

Regardless of whether it is within the rights of indigenous groups to legally ingest this plant, it is feared that securing its benefits for them only encourages its popularity amongst groups and individuals who are using the drug in more casual and reckless ways. Since cultivators around the world will always be able to produce mescaline on their own accord, illegally in secret, it will be a matter, then, of one's own responsibility to determine if the use of peyote will have a positive or negative effect on their life, and furthermore what kind of effect would their individual contribution to its widespread acceptance have on society. Therefore, definite research and objective examination is still needed to aid these interested individuals in their understanding of the role of peyote in existence, including its potential to harm or benefit those who ingest it.

As peyote comes straight from the earth, its proponents often argue that mescaline is the safer, more natural alternative to LSD, a popular synthesized psychedelic drug which produces a very similar, but more intense, trip. The counter-argument to this notion is that a good thing may in fact come from the earth, but that does not mean humans will not misuse it, or even know how not to misuse it.

Legality

USA

United States federal law (and many state laws) protect the harvest, possession and consumption (but not cultivation) of peyote as part of "bonafide religious ceremonies". The federal regulation is 42 USC §1996a, called the "Traditional Indian religious use of the peyote sacrament," which exempts only Native American use, while most state laws exempt any general "bonafide religious activity". American jurisdictions enacted these specific statutory exemptions in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), which held that laws prohibiting the use of peyote that do not specifically exempt religious use nevertheless do not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Although many American jurisdictions specifically allow religious use of peyote, religious or therapeutic use not under the aegis of the Native American Church has often been targeted by local law enforcement agencies. Non-natives attempting to establish spiritual centers based on the consumption of peyote as a sacrament or as medicine, such as the Peyote Foundation in Arizona , have been prosecuted.

Canada

Under the Canadian Controlled Drugs and Substances Act mescaline is defined as an illegal Schedule 2 drug, but peyote is specifically exempt. The Native Americans in Canada are able to take peyote if they have a full status card.

Although peyote does not grow naturally in Canada, native tribes in Alberta and Saskatchewan had been importing peyote buttons from Arizona and other arid locales in the American Southwest, and using them in peyote ceremonies, for at least a few hundred years. Some believe peyote has been imported into Canada for thousands of years. Federal officials were sympathetic to the peyotists' plea not to ban their sacred plant, and so decided to only ban the extracted active ingredient, mescaline.

International

Article 32 of the Convention on Psychotropic Substances allows nations to exempt certain traditional uses of peyote from prohibition:

A State on whose territory there are plants growing wild which contain psychotropic substances from among those in Schedule I and which are traditionally used by certain small, clearly determined groups in magical or religious rites, may, at the time of signature, ratification or accession, make reservations concerning these plants, in respect of the provisions of article 7, except for the provisions relating to international trade.

Peyote in Pop Culture

• An image of the plant (and its possible usage) can be seen in the gonzo fist symbol attributed to Hunter S. Thompson. As well, in the film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, based on the same-titled book written by Thompson, there appears an early scene where the two main characters are under the influence of mescaline.

• Some of artist Ken Featherston's work is inspired by the plant, including his 1974 mural, "Peyote Dreams".

• Peyote is referenced in several of American author Tom Robbin's books including his second novel, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues".