The Peyote Way

The Peyote Way: The Legal and Medical
Implications of an Ancient Native Tradition




Peyote, small cacti with fuzzy round tufts instead of spines, has been used as medicine and as a divine sacrament by Native Americans for many years. In a Texas cave there was a dried cache of peyote that has been dated at approximately 7000 years old (Mercado, 2001). This ancient herb has recently been the center of a lot of legal and medical debates. The debate about its attributes, though, has been going on since the seventeenth century, when Spaniards referred to it as a way for the Native Americans “to contact evil spirits through ‘diabolical fantasies’” (Hoffman & Scultes, 1992). Through the centuries, the implications that peyote and its use have on mainstream has been unbalanced with good and bad results. The future of this substance highly depends on how much research is granted into its sacramental and medical effectiveness.

To understand the U.S. legal confusion over peyote, one must look at how this intertribal religious ritual came about in this country and how much of the foundation of native belief systems stem from this cactus. In the late 1800s, Quannah Parker, the Quahadi Comanches tribal chief, spread the Christian peyote movement intertribally among the Plains Indians, and it persists now within the Native American Church, which has approximately 250,000 members nationwide (“Quannah Parker,” 1996) (Mercado, 2001). In the movie, “The Peyote Road” (1992), it was said that peyote promoted family stability and sobriety, and represented, much like the wine in Christian religious sectors, communion with God, calling it “the heart of Christ.” The colorful visions induced by peyote are said to bring about a higher level of understanding and a strong heart and mind. Communal ten to twelve-hour prayer ceremonies with sacramental peyote takes place when someone within the church needs answers to prayer.

In 1894, the Bureau of Indian Affairs banned religious rituals of Native Americans, disregarding the First Amendment rights they had as U.S. Citizens (Cousineau et al, 1992). In 1965, the Drug Control Act added peyote, or lophophora williamsii, as a Schedule 1 hallucinogen, making it “illegal to buy, sell, or possess without a Drug Enforcement Agency license”, although there was an exemption made for “nondrug use in bona fide religious ceremonies of the Native American Church” (Erowid, 2004). This exemption clause, however, did not end the debate over the legality of peyote. The Supreme Court decision (1990) in The Employment Division v. Smith to not uphold the rights of two Native Americans to unemployment compensation due to the fact they were fired for the sacramental use of peyote in religious ceremonies, it sparked a widespread conglomeration of Christian agencies, such as the U.S. Catholic Conference, the National Council of Churches, and the National Association of Evangelicals to team up with the American Civil Liberties Union to stand up for religious freedom. This coalition, which also involved the Concerned Women for America and Jewish organizations cited a bicentennial document, the Williamsburg Charter:

“ ‘…Religious liberty in a democracy is a right that may not be
submitted to vote and depends on the outcome of no election. A
society is only as just and free as it is respectful of this right,
especially towards the beliefs of its smallest minorities and least
popular communities’”(Gaffney, 1994).

These odd bedfellows rallied around the Native American people who believed in the spiritual power of peyote. In a strange coincidence of odds, the argument over peyote use won support for a people who had all but been abandoned by American society. It is hopeful that this widespread support for Native American religious freedom will continue, but the differing state governments still hold jurisdiction over the legality of peyote use. Since peyote is still a controlled substance, there must be exemptions made to those who use it in bona fide religious ceremonies. In Utah and Oregon, for instance, all people, regardless of race or tribal affiliation may use peyote in religious ceremonies pertaining to the Native American Church (Erowid, 2004). As of yet, Indiana still has no exemptions to protect the ceremonial use of peyote, and it isn’t the only state that doesn’t offer these exemptions. Most of the peyote used in the U.S. is mailed via the U.S. Postal System because peyote only naturally grows in Southern Texas and northern Mexico.

With all of the legal framework surrounding the sacramental use of peyote, let’s now look at the history and future of the medicinal use of this cactus. For centuries, it has been reported that Native Americans have used peyote to treat tuberculosis, pneumonia, influenza, intestinal problems, arthritis, venereal disease, as well as using it as a topical medicine for burns, slowly healing sores, wounds, stings and bites from poisonous animals (Cottingham). It wasn’t until the late 1800s that mainstream society embraced its medicinal uses, and offered peyote as a treatment for intestinal problems, nervous headaches, insomnia, convulsions, hysteria, “and as a cerebral stimulant in cases of hypochondria and melancholia.” There is promising modern research done by James McCleary at California State University, in which peyote extract has been proven to kill “in-vitro cultures of eighteen penicillin-resistant strains of bacteria staphylococcus aureus” and has also been effective in inhibiting these strains in laboratory mice (Cottingham). Michael Cottingham, a clinical herbalist, has effectively used peyote extract to raise T-cell counts in AIDS patients who do not take regularly prescribed medications, such as AZT. With a natural whole food diet, immune-booster herbs, such as echinacea, and 50 to 100 drops of the peyote extract four times a day, two of the cases he presented had an increase of three times the T-cell rate than when they started with the regiment (Cottingham).

In the past, there has been much apprehension about the medical implications of peyote on the Native American people by mainstream society. Some would say that it is a gateway drug to other potentially harmful substances, but that has not been proven as truth. There has also been contradictory information that the sacred peyote has directly been traced to the death of users, but there are no statistics or numbers to reveal the truth in that claim either, for those numbers would have to have been recorded over the seven millenia that peyote use has been practiced.

The one thing that must be remembered in American society, though, is that alcohol and tobacco abuse has led to far many more deaths than some of the illegal drugs have caused. There is a specific irony about this though, when it comes to peyote, because John Halpern, who is the associate director of substance abuse research at Harvard University and McLean Hospital, is studying the likelihood that it may stifle alcoholism in Native American people (Flam, 2003). Many illegal drugs, such as unprescribed morphine, cocaine, and others, first started being used for legalized medicinal purposes before government saw the ramifications of their widespread use. Some illegal drugs are used to dull the symptoms of cancer and other terminal diseases. Marijuana has been legalized, in some states, to be used in the treatment of glaucoma. It would be interesting to see if the opposite happens to peyote, which was first thought to be diabolical and made illegal before much medical research was granted to it.

In conclusion, there has been a broader base of support recently for peyote use in religious ceremonies and in medical research. The military, as well as many states, has allowed its use in such ceremonies by those who ascribe to the religion of the Native American Church. U.S. courts have seen the backlash of the fight for individual religious freedoms, even in the face of the use of a declared illegal substance. Universities and herbalists are looking into the medical attributes of this cactus, and much more research must be done to figure out all the beneficial ways this ancient native tradition can affect mainstream society. As it must be said, if we are dealing with a divine power here, the full scope of its benefits to society have not yet been tapped.








Works Cited


Cottingham, Michael. The Medicine. PAJ volume 1, number 1. Retrieved August 3, 2004 from http://www.maps.org/paj/01110med.shtml.

Cousineau et al.(1992). “The Peyote Road.” Videorecording. Kirfaru Productions. San Francisco, CA.

Erowid. (2000 Nov. 6). Peyote Legal Status. Erowid Peyote Vault. Modified Aug. 3, 2004. Retrieved August 3, 2004 from http://www.erowid.org/peyote_law.shtml.

Flam, Faye. (2003, Dec. 4). Peyote may have medicinal benefits. In The Oklahoma Daily. Retrieved August 10, 2004 from http://www.oudaily.com.

Hoffman, Albert and Schultes, Richard Evans.(1992). Plants of the Gods-Their Sacred, Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers. Healing Hearts Press. Vermont. Retrieved on August 3, 2004 from http://peyote.org/.

Gaffney Jr., Edward. (1994, Jan. 28). Pass the Peyote [Electronic version]. In Commonweal. Vol. 121, Issue 2: p. 5-7. Retrieved [June 29, 2004] from Academic Search Premier EBSCO database (AN:9403174482).

Mercado, Leo. (2001, June 7). Peyote FAQ v1.0. Erowid Mescaline Vault. Retrieved August 3, 2004 from http://www.erowid.org/peyote/peyote_faq.shtml.

“Quannah Parker/Peyote.” (1996). Retrieved on August 3, 2004 from http://www.stainblue.com/quanahparker.html.