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Geographic distribution of Lophophora williamsii (peyote). Note that this is primarily a Mexican species, with over 80% of the land area in its geographic range in Mexican territory. Curiously, in Texas (the only U.S. state where the peyote occurs naturally) the plant is restricted to a narrow strip of land that to a large extent follows the Rio Grande.
Source publication
Lophophora williamsii (peyote) is a cactus whose crowns are commercially harvested for religious use as an ingested psychoactive sacrament by members of the Native American Church. Over the past quarter century peyote has become progressively less available, due in part to improper harvesting techniques and excessive harvesting. Since anatomical as...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... williamsii (Lem. ex Salm-Dyck) J.M. Coult. (Cactaceae), commonly known as peyote, is a small, spineless, globular cactus native to the Tamaulipan Thornscrub and Chihuahuan Desert of northeastern Mexico and areas close to the Rio Grande in South Texas and Trans-Pecos Texas (Figs. 1a, 2). A literature con- sisting of hundreds of published works on peyote goes back to early writings shortly after the Spanish conquest of Mexico (e.g., Hernández 1628). The human use of peyote for medicinal (Schultes 1938) and/or religious purposes (Stewart 1987) dates back to at least 6,000 years ago in the Lower Pecos region of the ...
Context 2
... by poachers who dig up the entire plants in massive quantities for some unidentified market that re- quires specifically L. williamsii and not the other, non-mescaline-containing species of Lophophora that occur in Mexico (Terry 2008a,b,c). No one knows how much peyote is harvested annually by Native Americans who make private agreements with landowners who have peyote growing naturally on their land. ...
Context 3
... but only twofold after adjusting for inflation (Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_cal- culator.htm). If, however, buttons were only one-fifth as large in 2010, the price per gram was actually ten times higher in 2010 than in 1986. Increasing unit prices, like declining harvests (Fig. 6) and declining individual size (Fig. 2), are a common consequence of unsustainably high rates of harvest ( Allen et al. 2005). (Fig. 4), because volume is a function of the cube of the radius (i.e., the cube of half the diameter). Nevertheless, note the relatively small area of overlap in the values of this variable for harvested vs. control plants. This is yet another way ...
Citations
... While restrained harvesting encourages growth through lateral branching, recovery and regrowth take time. A study is currently underway to determine the amount of time a harvested plant requires before it recovers sufficient strength to endure further harvesting (Terry et al. 2011(Terry et al. , 2014. So far, investigators have found that plants harvested at two-year intervals exhibit lower growth and higher mortality rates than unharvested individuals, and that plants require more than six years of regrowth to attain pre-harvest levels of crown biomass (Terry et al. 2014). ...
... Because peyote sales are recorded by the button, and not by weight, it is difficult to compare sales across time. However, one estimate suggests that peyote buttons sold today may be only one-fifth the size of buttons sold thirty years ago (Terry et al. 2011). Others report that peyote buttons, once averaging two to three inches in diameter, are now frequently one to two inches, with buttons as small as United States pennies reported in some NAC ceremonies (Williams 2012). ...
Access to the peyote cactus, a religious sacrament of the Native American Church (NAC), has been regulated by the federal government and the state of Texas since the 1960s. Over the last forty years, the number of licensed distributors has declined, a trend accompanied by rising prices and a diminishing market supply of the psychoactive cactus. Distributors are recognized as the primary NAC peyote source; consequently, their disappearance would be devastating for the 250,000-plus adherents of this distinctive indigenous tradition. Based on interviews with current and former peyote distributors, peyote pickers, landowners, and NAC members, a map of the various commodity chains that make up the peyote supply network is constructed. This research applies Access Mapping and Access Analysis of the supply network to identify the primary factors driving the decline of the regulated peyote trade. Focusing on the distributors' and NAC members' rights-based, structural, and relational access mechanisms, avenues for increasing access are identified, including amendment of distributor licensing fees.
... While restrained harvesting encourages growth through lateral branching, recovery and regrowth take time. A study is currently underway to determine the amount of time a peyote plant requires post-harvest before it recovers sufficient strength to endure another round of harvesting (Terry et al. 2011(Terry et al. , 2014. So far, investigators have found that plants harvested at two-year intervals exhibit lower growth rates and higher mortality rates than unharvested individuals, and that plants require more than six years of regrowth to attain pre-harvest levels of crown biomass (Terry et al. 2014). ...
Peyote, a psychoactive cactus native to parts of Texas and Mexico, has been used in human rituals in North America for several thousand years. During the Spanish Conquest the first law prohibiting peyote’s ceremonial use was introduced. Conflicts between colonial powers and indigenous peoples over the use of peyote have continued into the present; with peyote access and possession strictly regulated in the United States. While exemptions have been established for the religious use of peyote by Native Americans, U.S. laws on peyote remain clouded by misunderstanding and stark divides in notions of sacrament, religious practice, addiction, medicine, and general differences in worldview. Peyotism, the religious use of peyote, emerged among the Plains tribes during the mid to late-1800s and spread rapidly on the reservations where peyote came to be revered as a holy medicine, a symbol of resistance, and also helped to rebuild communities broken by ethnocide. Peyote continues to play an important role within various tribes as a religious sacrament, a medicinal treatment for addiction, spiritual maladies, and historical trauma, and as a source of indigenous confidence and pride. The legal status of peyote is a precarious one, one that is exacerbated by diminishing supplies of the cactus in the United States and by the appropriation and exploitation of Native American religious practices by non-Natives seeking legal protection to both use and profit from peyote. The relationship between people and peyote is complex and multifaceted, and this study attempts to examine the major cultural threads at the heart of this relationship, particularly the sacramental and medical use of peyote by Native Americans, its market exchange, and the various legal controls imposed on peyote, and tie them together in a comprehensive and pertinent manner.
... In the United States, populations of Lophophora williamsii that are large enough to support commercial harvesting occur only in the Tamaulipan Thornscrub ecoregion of South Texas (Terry and Mauseth 2006). Over the past four decades, a marked decline in numbers and average size of the plants has been observed in South Texas, as well as a decline in density and extent of the populations (Anderson 1995;Terry et al. 2011Terry et al. , 2012Kalam et al. 2013). Licensed peyote distributors and their employees (sometimes known as "peyoteros") have harvested and distributed about 1.4 to 2.3 million peyote tops ("buttons") per year for the last quarter of a century in South Texas (Texas Department of Public Safety, unpublished data). ...
We evaluated the pharmacological consequences of tissues other than crown being included with harvested peyote. Mean mescaline concentrations were determined for crown, non-chlorophyllous stem, and root, using mature individuals from the same population in South Texas. Samples of each tissue—crown, non-chlorophyllous stem, and root—were taken from each of 13 individual plants. Samples were dried, triturated, defatted, and extracted with methylene chloride, using an acid-base aqueous wash to recover the alkaloids. The concentration of mescaline in each sample was determined by HPLC. The average mescaline concentration in non-chlorophyllous stem was an order of magnitude lower than that in crown, whereas the mescaline concentration in root was two orders of magnitude lower than that in crown. These results show that non-chlorophyllous stem is a poor source of mescaline, and root is an extremely poor source. These results have important implications for conservation, suggesting that non-traditional harvesting of peyote for religious or medicinal use involving the cutting of non-chlorophyllous tissue are contributing to the death of plants and the subsequent failure to regenerate new crowns. Therefore, this practice should be reevaluated by peyote harvesters and users.
... Cactaceae) , score of 49 L. williamsii, or peyote, is an unusual medicinal plant as it is not legal for most people to harvest or possess it, yet it is a central part of a Native American sacrament. There is considerable concern about the over-harvest of this plant due to its limited range, the tightening of trade across the Mexican border, and the growth of the Native American Church (Terry et al. 2011). Peyote scores high on life history as it is a longlived cactus that produces slowly, but it does vegetatively propagate and tolerate some disturbance. ...
... It also scores high on the effects of harvest because either crowns or whole plants are collected and the harvest season is very long. When the crowns are harvested, regrowth takes at least four years (Terry, personal communication January 2013;Terry et al., 2011). As for abundance and range, it has a moderately high score as populations are not dense, most of the large range is in Mexico and inaccessible to US harvesters, and population declines have been documented. ...
We developed an adaptable, transparent tool that can be used to quantify and compare vulnerability to overharvest for wild collected medicinal plants. Subsequently, we are creating a list of the most threatened medicinal plants in temperate North America. The new tool scores species according to their life history, the effects of harvest, their abundance and range, habitat, and demand. The resulting rankings, based on explicit criteria rather than expert opinion, will make it easier to discuss areas of vulnerability and set conservation priorities. Here we present scores for 40 species assessed using the At-Risk Tool and discuss the traits that led to different scores for six example species: echinacea (Echinacea angustifolia DC. Asteraceae), peyote (Lophophora williamsii (Lem. ex Salm-Dyck) J.M. Coult. Cactaceae), sandalwood (Santalum spp. L. Santalaceae), stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L. Urticaceae), American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L. Araliaceae) and mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum L. Berberidaceae).
... That loss may be temporary, if the harvested plants survive to produce regrowth buttons that are allowed to mature after a few years, or it may be permanent, if mortality occurs in the old plants due to repeated harvesting of regrowth buttons (Terry et al. 2012). (4) The phenomenon of post-harvest regrowth of new crowns arising from areoles of the subterranean stem (Terry & Mauseth 2006) temporarily increases the number of crowns in the population, but severely decreases both the average size and the total combined weights of crowns in the population (Terry et al. 2011). (5) The decreased size of peyote buttons available to the NAC means that an individual in an NAC peyote ceremony must consume more buttons to equal the weight of the smaller number of buttons that would be consumed if mature crowns were available. ...
A phytochemical analytical study was conducted to address the question of whether the mescaline concentration in Lophophora williomsii (peyote) is dependent on the maturity and/or size of the plant. Samples of crown tissue (4 g each) biopsied from mature peyote cacti and whole small regrowth crowns (2-4 g each) were collected from the same population in the Tamaulipan Thomscrub ecoregion of South Texas. For each of the two groups (mature and small regrowth), the individual tissue samples were pooled, desiccated, and ground to powder. The alkaloids were extracted with methanol at 25°C, followed by evaporation of the methanol to dryness, then acid-base cleanup with water and dichloromethane. The mescaline concentration in each of the extracts was then determined by HPLC. Quantitative analyses provided evidence that the small crowns that develop in response to harvesting contain a lower mescaline concentration-about half as much-compared to that of crowns of mature unharvested plants in the same population. The deficiency in the mescaline concentration of these regrowth buttons (new crowns) exacerbates the problem posed by the small size of the buttons; that is, it further increases the number of buttons that must be consumed to obtain an efficacious dose for ceremonial use by members of the Native American Church (NAC). That means that either the NAC members must consume less than the traditional amount of peyote, or there will be increased demand for peyote. Any increase in demand, reflected in the price, will engender more intensive harvesting, which will inevitably have adverse effects on both the supply of sacrament for the NAC and the conservation status of L. williamsii wherever the harvesters have access to peyote populations.
... Extensive photographic documentation of such postharvest regrowth in this population can be seen in Terry and Mauseth (2006). If it were the case that peyote crowns that grow as lateral branches from the subterranean stems of harvested plants are, at least for several years, deficient both in size and in mescaline content-as is widely believed but only partially documented (Terry et al. 2011)-then it would be reasonable to expect that a population such as RES, in an area known for intensive commercial peyote harvesting, would show evidence of such harvesting in the form of depression of the average mescaline content of the population. ...
A phytochemical analytical study was conducted to address the question of whether Lophophora williamsii (peyote) plants from Chihuahuan Desert populations in the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas exhibited higher tissue concentrations of mescaline than plants from Tamaulipan Thornscrub populations of South Texas. This question is of cultural significance to the Native American peyote religion, which involves the ingestion of peyote as a psyehopharmacologically active sacrament. Tissue samples were field-collected from 10 individuals in each of four L. williamsii populations, two of which were located in the Chihuahuan Desert, and two of which were located in the Tamaulipan Thornscrub ecoregion. For each of the four populations, the tissue samples from 10 individual plants were pooled, the alkaloids were extracted, and the average mescaline concentration of the population was determined by HPLC. There was limited geographic variation in mescaline concentration; the highest concentration (3.52% of dry tissue) was only 27% greater than the lowest (2.77%), and the difference between the Chihuahuan Desert populations and the Tamaulipan Thornscrub populations was not significant. However, mescaline concentrations increased significantly along a gradient from southeast to northwest, i.e., from the southeasternmost Tamaulipan Thornscrub population to the northwestemmost Chihuahuan Desert population.
Lophophora williamsii (Cactaceae) is thought to be threatened by habitat loss and overharvesting. However, basic demographic and habitat information to evaluate its conservation status has been lacking. We surveyed six wild populations of this species, three in South Texas and three in West Texas, to begin to address this gap. We found high levels of heterogeneity in plant presence and density at multiple spatial scales. While plant densities were not consistently different between South and West Texas, plants were significantly larger in West Texas. The two regions differ strongly in precipitation, temperature, elevation, and topography, all of which are correlated at the regional scale. Therefore, it was not possible to identify which of these variables, or other factors such as competition and human harvesting, may be responsible for the regional differences in plant size. However, our results provide initial information for determining the conservation status of this species.
RESUMEN
Lophophora williamsii (Cactaceae) se considera amenazada por la pérdida de hábitat y cosecha excesiva. Sin embargo, se carece de información demográfica y ambiental básica para evaluar su estado de conservación. Para abordar este déficit, examinamos seis poblaciones salvajes de esta especie (tres en el sur y tres en el oeste de Texas respectivamente). Encontramos altos niveles de heterogeneidad en la presencia y densidad de plantas en múltiples escalas espaciales. Las densidades no son consistentemente diferentes entre el sur y el oeste, pero las plantas son significativamente más grandes en el oeste. Las dos regiones difieren notablemente en precipitación, temperatura, elevación y topografía. Todas estas variables están correlacionadas a escala regional, por lo que no es posible identificar cuál de ellas (u otros factores como la competencia y la cosecha humana) causan las diferencias regionales observadas en el tamaño de la planta. Nuestros resultados proporcionan información fundamental para determinar el estado de conservación de esta especie.
Interculturality regarding the use of peyote. An Illegal Biocultural Patrimony. This paper establishes an alternative vision to the trendy discussions about the legalization of prohibited substances with psychoactive properties in Mexico. Itfocuses on the subject of peyote from an intercultural dimension and its relevance in the emerging religiousfield related to the traditions and rituals of American native origin. The objective is to generate an interdisciplinary debate that, beyond legalization, allows recognizing the heritage value (biological and cultural) of this plant.
In 2008 we began a long-term study of the effects of harvesting on a wild population of the cactus Lophophora williamsii (peyote), including harvesting treatments similar to those used to harvest it for legally protected religious use by members of the Native American Church. Here we assess the effects of harvesting in three different treatments: (1) plants that were harvested once, (2) plants that were harvested every two years (typical of commercial harvesting rates), and (3) control plants that were never harvested. After four years, the survival rate was significantly greater in the unharvested control plants (94%) than in the harvested plants (73%). Average harvested mass of fresh tissue per plant decreased significantly (by 44%) between the first and second harvests, and then further decreased significantly (by 32%) between the second and third harvests. The average number of crowns per plant, which increased after the first harvest, decreased after the second harvest. Estimated total volume of the above-ground crown(s) of each plant, which was closely related to harvested plant mass, was used to compare growth rates between treatments. The average growth rate of the multiple-harvest plants was significantly lower than the average growth rates of plants in the other two treatments. Growth rates in the control and single-harvest treatments did not differ significantly in 2012, but because the single-harvest plants were so much smaller than the control plants in 2010, they remained smaller than the control plants in 2012. The annual number of crowns harvested and sold commercially as "buttons" by licensed peyote distributors continued its slow decrease in 2011, while the price per unit continued to rise. These trends and the results of this study all indicate that present rates of peyote harvest are unsustainable.
