Words about peyote

[trucha]

It's worth reading carefully as there is a lot packed into it.

 

https://chacruna.net/national-congress-american-indians-resolution-protect-peyote/

[Black Rainbow]

"the NCAI opposes efforts by states and local governments to legalize, decriminalize, or otherwise authorize any and all uses of Peyote and its byproducts by non-American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/ANs) Peoples as it endangers AI/AN religious, cultural, and ceremonial practices"

I guess they don't like our gardens very much

[Cubism]

7 hours ago, Wile E. Peyote said:

"the NCAI opposes efforts by states and local governments to legalize, decriminalize, or otherwise authorize any and all uses of Peyote and its byproducts by non-American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/ANs) Peoples as it endangers AI/AN religious, cultural, and ceremonial practices"

 

I guess they don't like our gardens very much

 

That's a bit confusing? Perhaps they mean well minded people trying to reintroduce privately grown plants to the wild to boost populations? I don't know really. Obviously reintroduction could be a bad idea but private gardeners having them in their collection seems a bit extreme? Poachers aside of course.

 

Or is it a more religious thing of respect for the plant, their ceremonies and their religion? As it is sacred to them and their rituals and should only be used for that by them rather than growers having them in collections? If they're anti people just getting high for fun I can fully understand that. It's a pretty broad picture to paint though if you consider lots of people on here and how for them it's a journey, not like tripping balls at a doof or something? I dunno, I'm quite confused.

 

Also, how do the Alaskans get it? Through their southern brothers/sisters? Must be impossible for it to grow up there right? Unless it is grown in a greenhouse or something? Which just takes you back full circle doesn't it?

 

I don't know.....I know almost nothing about American Indians and absolutely zero about Alaskan Indians.

 

Interesting article in any case.

[trucha]

The objection is to anyone other than them growing peyote; yet most of the NAC is opposed to cultivation itself.  Similarly the comment about mescaline extraction only be allowed for ceremonial purposes omits the fact that no one extracts mescaline for the NAC to use in ceremony as they have always rejected mescaline as a sacrament.

 

Much of what this says is actually untrue and their interpretation of the federal peyote law is not accurate.

 

The amendment to RFRA granted the right to peyote to all people who qualify for federal aid by virtue of their group being recognized as "Indians". Which excludes any indigenous people who did not successfully enter into treaty negotiations. It was said to be protecting traditional culture yet very few of the modern peyote using groups used peyote a century ago and some began to use it only after the 1996 law went into place giving them the right. This is now a traditional practice for all of them but the suggestion that it has always been a traditional sacrament across North America north of Mexico is gaslighting.

 

They also are increasingly objecting to San Pedro use which might be why there is a strange inclusion about peyote being used traditionally in South America. 

This is likely to be part of the opposition to Decriminalize Nature and its ongoing push to decriminalize psychedelics. A national policy like this might help prevent them repeating their efforts to oppose decrim in every city council meeting or state legislative action as has been the case. The current venue for this is a state referendum in Colorado. Peyote has been excluded from decrim in most places already due to this and San Pedro was also excluded in Santa Cruz after objections were raised about its use being culturally inappropriate.

 

ALL peyote consumed by the NAC comes from the wild. A good bit of it is smuggled in from Mexico and has been for years. The NAC now estimates its membership at 600,000 so those 1 million or so buttons reported to be harvested and sold in Texas each year have not been going far.

 

[fyzygy]

"widescale personal and corporate cultivation of the Peyote plant threatens the historical and cultural biological integrity of the plant by potentially exposing the population to hybridization, genetic modification, and sterilization" -- the what now?

I doubt that ill-defined notions of cultural or biological purity are all that helpful in terms of conservation strategy (whether we're talking about endangered plants or traditional cultural practices). I would have thought that plants, like cultures, and indeed religions, maintain their "integrity" by adapting to changing environmental circumstances, historical contingencies. I'm sure there are far more pressing material threats to peyote's existence than cultivation and propagation of peyote. Is the land itself not sacred? Why peyote rights, but not land rights for Native Americans? Clearing out some ranchers and property developers would surely deliver a maximal boon to wild peyote populations.

 

Determined poachers will be even more determined, not deterred, by criminalisation. The bounty on peyote buttons will only increase. Outside of the USA, or even within it, how would a ban on peyote cultivation be enforced? 

[Strontium Dawg]

It's not outside the realm of possibility that within a lifetime, the only hikuri in existence will be the cultivated ones in peoples' collections.

Which is pretty sad.

[fyzygy]

https://www.lucid.news/decrim-movement-split-over-peyote-possession-limits-and-tactics/?mc_cid=14708fa2b8&mc_eid=cbbc326c01

It seems the psychedelic community is increasingly divided on the issue of peyote decriminalisation ... at least in the United States. 

 

[fyzygy]

Cultivation as a conservation tool for LW and other cactus:

https://cactusconservation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Ermakova_2022_Cultivation-as-a-conservation-tool-for-cacti.pdf

 

 

[kadakuda]

Thanks for your work Trucha.