Peyote
The peyote is a small, spineless cactus which contains psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline. Peyote is a Spanish word derived from the Nahuatl peyōtl, meaning "caterpillar cocoon", from a root peyōni, "to glisten".
It is native to southern North America, primarily found in desert scrub and limestone-rich areas of northern Mexico and south Texas, particularly in the Chihuahuan Desert at elevations of 100–1500 meters. It flowers from March to May, and sometimes as late as September. Its flowers are pink or white, with thigmotactic anthers. It is a small, spineless cactus that grows in clusters, produces edible fruits, and contains psychoactive alkaloids—primarily mescaline—at concentrations of about 0.4% when fresh and up to 6% when dried.
Peyote is a slow-growing cactus that can be cultivated more rapidly through techniques such as grafting. While wild populations in regions like south Texas have declined due to harvesting, cultivation and the use of alternatives like San Pedro are being explored as potential conservation approaches.
It has been used for over 5,000 years by Indigenous peoples of the Americas for ceremonial, spiritual, and folk medicine purposes. Its effects last up to 12 hours. The Native American Church considers ingestion of peyote a sacrament and uses it in all-night healing ceremonies to connect with the spiritual world. Native American Church members often personify peyote as a divine spirit akin to Jesus. In Wixarika culture, peyote is considered the soul of their religion and a visionary sacrament that connects them to their principal deities—corn, deer, peyote, and the eagle. Peyote and its psychoactive component mescaline are generally controlled substances worldwide, but many laws—including in Canada and the United States—exempt its use in authentic Native American religious ceremonies, with U.S. federal law and some states allowing such ceremonial use regardless of race.
Description
The various species of the genus Lophophora grow low to the ground and they often form groups with numerous, crowded shoots. The blue-green, yellow-green or sometimes reddish-green shoots are mostly flattened spheres with sunken shoot tips. They can reach heights of and diameters of. There are often significant, vertical ribs consisting of low and rounded or hump-like bumps. From the cusp areoles arises a tuft of soft, yellowish or whitish woolly hairs. Spines are absent. Flowers are pink or white to slightly yellowish, sometimes reddish. They open during the day, are from long, and reach a diameter from.The cactus produces flowers sporadically; these are followed by small edible pink fruit. The club-shaped to elongated, fleshy fruits are bare and more or less rosy colored. At maturity, they are brownish-white and dry. The fruits do not burst open on their own and they are between long. They contain black, pear-shaped seeds that are 1 to 1.5 mm long and 1 mm wide. The seeds require hot and humid conditions to germinate. Peyote contains a large spectrum of phenethylamine alkaloids. The principal one is mescaline for which the content of Lophophora williamsii is about 0.4% fresh and 3–6% dried.
Taxonomy
French botanist Charles Antoine Lemaire described the species as Echinocactus williamsii in 1845. It was placed in the new genus Lophophora in 1894 by American botanist John Merle Coulter.Distribution and habitat
L. williamsii is native to southern North America, mainly distributed in Mexico. In the United States, it grows in Southern Texas. In Mexico, it grows in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas in the north to San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas. It is primarily found at elevations of and exceptionally up to in the Chihuahuan desert, but is also present in the milder climate of Tamaulipas. Its habitat is primarily in desert scrub, particularly thorn scrub in Tamaulipas. It is common on or near limestone hills.Constituents
Peyote contains a variety of alkaloids including mescaline, pellotine, anhalonidine, and hordenine, among others. In terms of total alkaloid content, mescaline makes up 30%, pellotine 17%, anhalonidine 14%, and hordenine 8%. Other major alkaloids include anhalamine, anhalidine, anhalinine, anhalonine, lophophorine, O-methylanhalonidine. Peyophorine is a minor constituent, while isoanhalamine, isoanhalidine, isoanhalonidine, and isopellotine are trace constituents. Tyramine and N-methyltyramine are also present in peyote. More than 50different alkaloids have been isolated from peyote, but many of them in only minor or trace amounts.Cultivation
Peyote is extremely slow growing. Cultivated specimens grow considerably faster, sometimes taking less than three years to go from seedling to mature flowering adult. More rapid growth can be achieved by grafting peyote onto mature San Pedro root stock. The top of the above-ground part of the cactus, the crown, consists of disc-shaped buttons. These are cut above the roots and sometimes dried. When done properly, the top of the root forms a callus and the root does not rot. When poor harvesting techniques are used, however, the entire plant dies. Currently in South Texas, peyote grows naturally but has been over-harvested, to the point that the state has listed it as an endangered species. Cultivation is an important conservation tool for this particular species. Promoting San Pedro as a Peyote substitute may act as an intervention to reduce Peyote consumption.Uses
Psychoactivity and folk medicine
When used for its psychoactive properties, common doses for pure mescaline range from roughly 200 to 400 mg. This translates to a dose of roughly 10 to 20 g of dried peyote buttons of average potency; however, potency varies considerably between samples, making it difficult to measure doses accurately without first extracting the mescaline. The concentration of mescaline is typically highest at the sides of the peyote button. The effects last about 10 to 12 hours. Peyote is reported to trigger rich visual or auditory effects and spiritual or philosophical insights.In addition to psychoactive use, some Native American tribes use the plant in folk medicine. They employ peyote for varied ailments. Although uncommon, use of peyote and mescaline has been associated with poisoning. Peyote contains the alkaloid hordenine.
History
In 2005, researchers used radiocarbon dating and alkaloid analysis to study two specimens of peyote buttons found in archaeological digs from a site called Shumla Cave No. 5 on the Rio Grande in Texas. The results dated the specimens to between 3780 and 3660 BCE. Alkaloid extraction yielded approximately 2% of the alkaloids including mescaline in both samples. This indicates that native North Americans were likely to have used peyote since at least 5500 years ago.Specimens from a burial cave in west central Coahuila, Mexico have been similarly analyzed and dated to 810 to 1070 CE.
From earliest recorded time, peyote has been used by indigenous peoples, such as the Huichol of northern Mexico and by various Native American tribes, native to or relocated to the Southern Plains states of present-day Oklahoma and Texas. Its usage was also recorded among various Southwestern Athabaskan-language tribal groups. The Tonkawa, the Mescalero, and Lipan Apache were the source or first practitioners of peyote religion in the regions north of present-day Mexico. They were also the principal group to introduce peyote to newly arrived migrants, such as the Comanche and Kiowa from the Northern Plains. The religious, ceremonial, and healing uses of peyote may date back over 2000 years.
Under the auspices of what came to be known as the Native American Church, in the 19th century, American Indians in more widespread regions to the north began to use peyote in religious practices, as part of a revival of native spirituality. Its members refer to peyote as "the sacred medicine", and use it to combat spiritual, physical, and other social ills. Concerned about the drug's psychoactive effects, between the 1880s and 1930s, U.S. authorities attempted to ban Native American religious rituals involving peyote, including the Ghost Dance. Today the Native American Church is one among several religious organizations to use peyote as part of its religious practice. Some users claim the drug connects them to God.
Traditional Navajo belief or ceremonial practice did not mention the use of peyote before its introduction by the neighboring Utes. The Navajo Nation now has the most members of the Native American Church.
Since 1846, the official Mexican Pharmacopoeia recommended the use of peyote extract in "microdose" as a tonic for the heart.
John Raleigh Briggs was the first to draw scientific attention of the Western scientific world to peyote. Louis Lewin described Anhalonium lewinii in 1888. British sexologist Havelock Ellis self experimented with it on Good Friday 1896, publishing details in 1898. Arthur Heffter conducted self experiments on its effects in 1897. Similarly, Norwegian ethnographer Carl Sofus Lumholtz studied and wrote about the use of peyote among the Indians of Mexico. Lumholtz also reported that, lacking other intoxicants, Texas Rangers captured by Union forces during the American Civil War soaked peyote buttons in water and became "intoxicated with the liquid".
Adverse reactions
A study published in 2007 found no evidence of long-term cognitive problems related to peyote use in Native American Church ceremonies, but researchers stressed their results may not apply to those who use peyote in other contexts. A four-year large-scale study of Navajo who regularly ingested peyote found only one case where peyote was associated with a psychotic break in an otherwise healthy person; other psychotic episodes were attributed to peyote use in conjunction with pre-existing substance abuse or mental health problems. Later research found that those with pre-existing mental health issues are more likely to have adverse reactions to peyote. Peyote use does not appear to be associated with hallucinogen persisting perception disorder after religious use. Peyote also does not seem to be associated with physical dependence, but some users may experience psychological dependence.Peyote can have strong emetic effects, and one death has been attributed to esophageal bleeding caused by vomiting after peyote ingestion in a Native American patient with a history of alcohol abuse. Peyote is also known to cause potentially serious variations in heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and pupillary dilation.
Research into the Huichol natives of central-western Mexico, who have taken peyote regularly for an estimated 1,500 years or more, found no evidence of chromosome damage in either men or women.
According to a statement made by Gertrude Bonnin in 1916, a member of the Sioux tribe, the use of Peyote had been the direct cause of death among 25 Utes in last two years.