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BaldCuban
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In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling
#4823872 - 10/19/05 04:38 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002504616_peyote19.html
In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling
By Sylvia Moreno
The Washington Post
SYLVIA MORENO / THE WASHINGTON POST
Salvador Johnson is one of four licensed peyote distributors left in the United States. He has harvested the plant for 47 years.
MIRANDO CITY, Texas ? In the heart of Rio Grande brush country, Salvador Johnson works a patch of land just east of the Mexican border that is sacred to Native Americans.
Spade in hand, eyes scanning the earth as he pushes through the spiny brush, Johnson searches the ground carefully. "This is good terrain for peyote," he says. "There's a low hill ? the rain starts on top and goes down to water this ? and there's a lot of brown ground."
He stops, points the tip of his shovel at a 3-inch spot of green that barely crests the soil under a clump of blackbrush and announces: "This is what you look for. You look for something that is not ordinary on the terrain. I saw that green."
One of the last remaining "peyoteros," Johnson, 58, has been harvesting the small round plant in and around this tiny community for 47 years ? long before the hallucinogenic Lophophora williamsii cactus was classified as a narcotic and outlawed by federal and state governments. Then as now, it is for use by Native Americans as the main sacrament in their religious ceremonies.
Johnson is part of a nearly extinct trade of licensed peyote harvesters and distributors, at a time when the supply of the cactus and access to it is dwindling. The plant grows wild only in portions of four southern Texas counties and in the northern Mexico desert just across the Rio Grande.
But some Texas ranch owners have stopped leasing land to peyoteros and now offer their property to deer hunters or oil and gas companies for considerably higher profits. Others have plowed under peyote, and still others have never opened their land.
On the ranchland that is worked by peyoteros, conservationists are concerned about the overharvesting of immature plants as the Native American population and demand for the cactus grows.
"Will there be peyote for my children and my children's children?" asked Adam Nez, 35, a Navajo who had driven 26 hours with his father-in-law from their reservation in Page, Ariz., to stock up on peyote at Johnson's home.
That question and possible solutions to the problem ? such as trying to legalize the importation of peyote from Mexico, and creating legal cultivation centers in the United States ? are being studied by members of the Native American Church, Indian rights advocates and conservationists.
There are an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 members of the church in the United States. Although 90 percent of the peyote in North America grows in Mexico, the number of ceremonial users there ? mostly Huichol Indians ? is a small fraction of the number in the United States and Canada.
"In effect, you have a whole continent grazing on little pieces of south Texas," said Martin Terry, a botany professor at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas, who specializes in the study of peyote.
The church was incorporated in 1918 in Oklahoma to protect the religious use of peyote by indigenous Americans. Its charter was eventually expanded to other states, and in 1965, a federal regulation was approved to protect the ceremonial use of peyote by Indians. In 1978, Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.
But subsequent conflicts between federal policy and state drug laws precipitated the passage of a federal law in 1994 to guarantee the legal use, possession and transportation of peyote "by an Indian for bona fide traditional ceremonial purposes in connection with the practice of a traditional Indian religion."
The law extends protection against prosecution for the possession and use of peyote only to members of federally recognized tribes.
"Over the last 40 years, there have been lots of equal-protection defenses to criminal prosecution thrown up, with people saying 'my use of this controlled substance is religiously derived,' " said Steve Moore, a senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund.
Though not considered addictive, peyote is included in the Drug Enforcement Agency's list of Schedule I controlled substances along with heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana and methaqualone.
Although the DEA acknowledges the importance of the hallucinogenic cactus to the religious rites of Native American peyote users, the agency says the drug has a high potential for abuse and has no accepted medicinal purpose in the United States.
The Texas Department of Public Safety has licensed peyote distributors since the mid-1970s, when the number in the state peaked at 27. It dwindled to four last year. State records show that only three distributors have harvested and sold peyote so far this year.
For the past five years, an average of almost 1.9 million peyote buttons have been sold annually, according to state records.
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Ekstaza
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: BaldCuban]
#4825863 - 10/19/05 04:06 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Why the hell aren't they cultivating peyote on large peyote farms. By grafting seedlings to pereskiopsis, they could grow millions of peyote a year and there would easily be plenty of peyote for all.
-------------------- YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH ANY GIVEN DRUG ISN'T THE DEFINITIVE MEASURE OF THE DRUGS EFFECTS.
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BaldCuban
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: Ekstaza]
#4828436 - 10/20/05 04:26 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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True dat
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mushroomexplorer
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: BaldCuban]
#12861779 - 07/07/10 12:41 PM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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It is a shame that peyote is being over harvested in the wild but luckly there are many cultivaters around the world.
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ShroomDoom
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: Ekstaza]
#12862468 - 07/07/10 03:18 PM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ekstaza said: Why the hell aren't they cultivating peyote on large peyote farms. By grafting seedlings to pereskiopsis, they could grow millions of peyote a year and there would easily be plenty of peyote for all.
Although posession is legal for natives cultivation is still a federal crime I believe. Also consider that this is the way people have been getting medicine for hundreds of years. Nobody grew it they travelled far to harvest it and give thanks to the earth wherever it grew.
Private land where the natural habitat is conserved is what needs to be acquired by church members. There is a little of bit of land like this near Mirando city limits where a family owns acre upon acre of peyote habitat. No peyoteros will be harvesting there, just the family.
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Ekstaza
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: ShroomDoom]
#12862649 - 07/07/10 03:47 PM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Wow, somebody is really digging up the past with this thread.
I'm pretty sure that anyone allowed to buy, possess, and consume peyote legally would be allowed to cultivate it as well.
Cultural traditions should evolve to meet the demands of a changing world or risk being lost in the past. Instead of ravaging the quickly dwindling natural supply, cultivation should be the goal of anyone who cherishes the use of this endangered plant. The excuse of "that's how it's always been done" is tired and boring. You might as well go back to hunting and gathering just like our ancient ancestors if that's the rule you follow.
-------------------- YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH ANY GIVEN DRUG ISN'T THE DEFINITIVE MEASURE OF THE DRUGS EFFECTS.
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ShroomDoom
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: Ekstaza]
#12862879 - 07/07/10 04:43 PM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ekstaza said: The excuse of "that's how it's always been done" is tired and boring. You might as well go back to hunting and gathering just like our ancient ancestors if that's the rule you follow.
That's a little insensitive of you. Especially in light of how hard native people are struggling to keep their traditions amidst the fast pace of changes. You can't call a person's dedication to a particular way of life an excuse, It's simply culture. Peyote relatives have sacrificed a lot to keep the traditions legal for both natives and non natives. To these people tradition is everything because holding it is how they honor their ancestors' struggle to keep these ways of praying.
Many members of the NAC do cultivate their own but not in numbers to supply the harvest needed for every single ceremony of the year. I have talked to many natives who view cultivated peyote as weaker than wild harvested. A lot of people are simply not in a position to keep a healthy garden for whatever reason. It's not our place to judge them as making excuses or being tired and lazy. The medicine has many friends in many places and the forces that have kept it strong will continue to do so long after you and I are gone. The Huichole laugh when someone tells them about peyote dissappearing.
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Ekstaza
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: ShroomDoom]
#12866945 - 07/08/10 11:55 AM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Hey, if the Huichole have knowledge of everlasting supplies of natural grown Peyote, that's wonderful. They can knock themselves out. However, I don't want to hear anyone complaining about dwindling supplies and shrinking habitat if they aren't actively trying to ensure the continued existence of this plant which they hold so dear. Traditions which no longer hold beneficial value are useless in my opinion.
You're right about me not having much respect for their religious beliefs. I'll stand with them to fight for their right to believe what they please, but I can't respect ideas based on illogical claims made by ancient people who didn't have the education to understand their world properly. That goes for all religions. I support the right to believe whatever you want, but don't be surprised when I laugh at your ridiculous ideas.
Also, I never said anyone was tired or lazy. I said the "excuse" is "tired and boring". We live in an ever changing world. If a culture isn't capable of adapting to it, they most surely will fade away. That's why I said "The excuse of "that's how it's always been done" is tired and boring". Sometimes we must change our ways to survive.
-------------------- YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH ANY GIVEN DRUG ISN'T THE DEFINITIVE MEASURE OF THE DRUGS EFFECTS.
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ShroomDoom
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: Ekstaza]
#12867093 - 07/08/10 12:34 PM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ekstaza said: I don't want to hear anyone complaining about dwindling supplies and shrinking habitat if they aren't actively trying to ensure the continued existence of this plant which they hold so dear. Traditions which no longer hold beneficial value are useless in my opinion.
From what I have been told, the population as a whole is suffering much less than the portion of the population that exists in Texas. People are complaining because we are using one portion of the peyote growth span to feed the NAC of the entire nation. Thats kind of ridiculous. We should be allowed to import from mexico, and grow them en masse without the DEA interfering(see the huge 1000+ button garden they confiscated from James Mooney in Utah).
I feel like the vast majority of the folks who have been eating this medicine all their life are doing their indivual part in trying to protect it. What we really need is donation money to purchase the ancestral habitat land in order to preserve it as is. If you really care so much you can do what I did, and donate to the Rio Grande Native American Church of the Tlaxacalteca. http://www.venados.net/ Also if you shop at their store it funds sustainable solar electricity projects for the Huichole.
The tradition of gathering medicine for one's family still holds value IMO. The Huichole know that the peyote grows hundreds of miles from them, but they don't cultivate it in large numbers or move to the high desert. They still make the pilgrimage for their medicine beause the act itself is what makes them whole as a people. Its how they reaffirm their connection to their ancestors and the journey itself is what takes the utmost cultural significance. For many natives in the US a trip to the gardens is making a spiritual pilgrimage.
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I can't respect ideas based on illogical claims made by ancient people who didn't have the education to understand their world properly.
I think it's downright pompous to declare that they don't understand their world properly. What do you know about peyote habitat anyways? You ever been to mirando? Have you been to san luis potosi? I think it's you who doesn't understand their world. They seem to have a pretty good grasp seeing as they have been doing this sustainably for at least the last couple thousand years.
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We live in an ever changing world. If a culture isn't capable of adapting to it, they most surely will fade away. That's why I said "The excuse of "that's how it's always been done" is tired and boring". Sometimes we must change our ways to survive.
I can totally agree with this part of your post. The huichole are the best example of this "adaptation" strategy. When the conquistadors came they fled their home for the protection of the remote high sierra and the deepest desert regions. Not to change their traditions, but to preserve them as they were. Maybe it was born out of some illogical sense of religious or spiritual purpose but it sure as hell did preserve their way of life to an extent that they are one of the few tribes with their history and traditions still intact.
Edited by ShroomDoom (07/08/10 04:00 PM)
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2859558484
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: Ekstaza]
#12867541 - 07/08/10 02:05 PM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ekstaza said: Why the hell aren't they cultivating peyote on large peyote farms. By grafting seedlings to pereskiopsis, they could grow millions of peyote a year and there would easily be plenty of peyote for all.
it is pretty widely reported that grafted or soil grown peyote are real weak compared to the real deal.
Haters
Peyoteros just need to switch from harvesting in south texas exclusively. But we of course cant have any cross border legal trade of peyote from the large tracts that still thrive in most of northern and parts of central mexico.
that said, surely it could be grown outdoors in south texas in a farm type situation to some level of success. with current methods it needs to be in its native habitat during growth to be a legitimate source of the much prized alkaloids. Grafting wouldnt work.
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Ekstaza
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: ShroomDoom]
#12871056 - 07/09/10 03:20 AM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
ShroomDoom said:
Quote:
Ekstaza said:I can't respect ideas based on illogical claims made by ancient people who didn't have the education to understand their world properly.
I think it's downright pompous to declare that they don't understand their world properly. What do you know about peyote habitat anyways? You ever been to mirando? Have you been to san luis potosi? I think it's you who doesn't understand their world. They seem to have a pretty good grasp seeing as they have been doing this sustainably for at least the last couple thousand years.
I never said I new jack shit about peyote habitat. What I said is that ancient people didn't know jack shit about the natural world. Science has explained alot since they've been gone. I'm grateful for their contributions. We wouldn't be here without them but we have learned a thing or two since they've been gone. We've made a few discoveries that prove some of their ideas to be wrong. Guess what, people will continue to learn a thing or two after we are gone to. It is my hope that they take that knowledge and use it to adapt to the world as it is when they are alive. I see no reason for them to live as I live just because I came before and that's how I lived.
In the past, we held elders in such high esteem because they held knowledge gained from many years of living on this earth. That knowledge was passed down verbally but it was best kept by the ones who had first hand knowledge. While it is still good to honor our elders who worked to make sure we had a place in this world, their knowledge cannot exceed that which we gain through scientific endeavor and collaboratively document on vast computerized databases. Therefore it's OK to say, "well, they got this part wrong", and make the necessary changes to move forward.
-------------------- YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH ANY GIVEN DRUG ISN'T THE DEFINITIVE MEASURE OF THE DRUGS EFFECTS.
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Ekstaza
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: 2859558484]
#12871068 - 07/09/10 03:25 AM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
wowitch17 said:
Quote:
Ekstaza said: Why the hell aren't they cultivating peyote on large peyote farms. By grafting seedlings to pereskiopsis, they could grow millions of peyote a year and there would easily be plenty of peyote for all.
it is pretty widely reported that grafted or soil grown peyote are real weak compared to the real deal.
Haters
Peyoteros just need to switch from harvesting in south texas exclusively. But we of course cant have any cross border legal trade of peyote from the large tracts that still thrive in most of northern and parts of central mexico.
that said, surely it could be grown outdoors in south texas in a farm type situation to some level of success. with current methods it needs to be in its native habitat during growth to be a legitimate source of the much prized alkaloids. Grafting wouldnt work.
Yeah, I've figured that out since I made that post five years ago. Hehehe
-------------------- YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH ANY GIVEN DRUG ISN'T THE DEFINITIVE MEASURE OF THE DRUGS EFFECTS.
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ShroomDoom
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: Ekstaza]
#12871808 - 07/09/10 10:15 AM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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What I said is that ancient people didn't know jack shit about the natural world..... their knowledge cannot exceed that which we gain through scientific endeavor and collaboratively document on vast computerized databases
A computer cannot teach you how to pray like your ancestors did and show you the meaning of the songs they sang. No scientific effort can become an enculturating force acting as the single unifying principle of an entire people. Science has given us all the medication and antibiotics in the world and still the only thing that kills MRSA is found in a cactus which those "people who didn't know jack shit" called medicine.
Thankfully the greatest minds that chose to look at the bodies of indigenous knowledge and bring us things like modern aneasthesia, rubber, plant based antimicrobials, and other life saving medications did not share your arrogant viewpoint. They found scientific breakthroughs amidst all the tradition and superstition that others would have just disregarded due to their superior bloated western paradigmn guzzling minds.
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Ekstaza
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: ShroomDoom]
#12872361 - 07/09/10 12:18 PM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Yes, ancient peoples did stumble onto a few things through centuries of trial and error. Great for them. How about the exponential rate of growth, of scientific knowledge, we have made in the past few centuries as compared to the several hundred thousands of years they have been making guesses?
If you asked one of those ancients why their medicine worked they would give you the standard "it's magic" answer. They had no clue why it works. They just lucked up and found something that had an effect and used it for everything. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
You know what, this is pointless. You believe in hocus pocus and I don't. That's it. End of story.
-------------------- YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH ANY GIVEN DRUG ISN'T THE DEFINITIVE MEASURE OF THE DRUGS EFFECTS.
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ShroomDoom
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: Ekstaza]
#12872567 - 07/09/10 12:52 PM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Yes, ancient peoples did stumble onto a few things through centuries of trial and error.
Oh man i lol'ed at that one. Are you really as naiive to think everything indigenous people discovered came from trial and error? Those assumptions were long shattered by people like Schultes who were educated with the same assasine predictions and later discovered in the field that they would be statistically impossible. Think about it for a moment. A society with every single ounce of it's energy dedicated towards survival really has time to sit there and risk life and limb by eating and applying every herb at random just to see what worked and what killed them? bullshit. And it has nothing to do with spirits or magic either suprisingly. Its simple ecology, observation.
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If you asked one of those ancients why their medicine worked they would give you the standard "it's magic" answer.
Cute. I can't say for sure but it aint luck.
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They had no clue why it works. They just lucked up
now whos all hocus pocus?
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2859558484
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: ShroomDoom]
#12873012 - 07/09/10 02:24 PM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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dudes a hater
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Ekstaza
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: ShroomDoom]
#12881374 - 07/11/10 07:17 AM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Sorry ShroomDoom, You can LOL all you want but if you're trying to convince me that the ancient shamans believed anything except that some magical force was working through their mystical plants, you are wasting your time. It's not an insult to them. They had no way of knowing. What's important today is that we now know how these things work . We shouldn't be perpetuating the lie. We should embrace the truth and look to the future.
Also for the other guy, It's not hating to point out that the old ways of doing things aren't the best way to go about things. Or maybe you think I'm a hater because I believe that religion is bullshit. Sorry, no wait, I'm not sorry for being rational and using my brain to think logically.
Oh well, I hope you all have a great weekend.
-------------------- YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH ANY GIVEN DRUG ISN'T THE DEFINITIVE MEASURE OF THE DRUGS EFFECTS.
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piracetam
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: Ekstaza]
#12881575 - 07/11/10 09:12 AM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ekstaza said: Yes, ancient peoples did stumble onto a few things through centuries of trial and error
so did scientists. science is founded on trial and error.
-------------------- "Experiments are the only means of attaining knowledge at our disposal. The rest is just poetry, imagination." ~Max Planck
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2859558484
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: Ekstaza]
#12884244 - 07/11/10 08:23 PM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ekstaza said: Sorry ShroomDoom, Hate Hate Hater vibes I'm a hater haters gon hate
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Ekstaza
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Re: In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling [Re: 2859558484]
#12885707 - 07/12/10 03:14 AM (13 years, 8 months ago) |
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I'm sorry, does my lack of belief threaten your head in the sand approach to life.
OK, there are invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters, and we all live in never never land where the fairy dust makes us able to fly.
Feel Better?
I don't hate you, by the way, I pity you.
-------------------- YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH ANY GIVEN DRUG ISN'T THE DEFINITIVE MEASURE OF THE DRUGS EFFECTS.
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