The Decline of American Peyote (vice.com)

dmoberhaus writes: An investigation into the decline of America's peyote, a hallucinogenic cactus that is critically important to the rituals of the Native American Church, the largest pan-tribal religious organization in the U.S. Motherboard spoke with Dawn Davis, a researcher using satellite data to track the destruction of peyote's habitat, as well as Salvador Johnson, one of only four people who is licensed to harvest and sell peyote in the U.S. by the DEA. "In 2011, Davis traveled to the peyote gardens for the first time and met with Johnson," reports Motherboard. "Davis said that Johnson was following many conservation best practices, such as cycling through the areas where peyote is harvested, but this hadn't slowed the steady decrease in the size and quantity of peyote buttons in his harvests. Today, the biggest threats to peyote continue to be rapid land development, poaching, and rooting by feral pigs -- problems that responsible harvesting by peyoteros can't solve."

While there has been an increase in the number of indigenous people growing peyote in greenhouses, this is only a temporary solution to the conservation crisis. Davis is advocating for conservation easements or tax breaks for landowners to encourage the protection of peyote. She also said it will be necessary to push for the DEA to reschedule peyote, which is still considered a Schedule I substance that has "no currently accepted medical use." This makes it exceedingly hard for individuals to become licensed peyoteros.

Comments

Re:Religion legitimates ALL the things?

[Applehu Akbar]

In any case, how is this News For Nerds?

Bing recommends piracy for peyote 2019?

[zennling]

Maybe check the links in the article, editor?

One of those is easily solved

[MikeRT]

and rooting by feral pigs

Pigs are an invasive species in the wilds of North America. There is no conservation argument for protecting them under hunting regulations. Just lift all of the hunting regs and give hunters a standard meat value of a few bucks per pound donated to a charity, and you'll see the problem dry up quickly.

Re:One of those is easily solved

[rmdingler]

Some States place restrictions on hunting feral hog populations, but Texas is not one of them. Nuisance hogs can be trapped en masse, killed at night using IR, and from a vehicle such as a four-wheeler or helicopter, and still:

Best places to hunt

It shouldn't be a surprise, but Texas by far tops this list of the best states to hunt hogs in the United States. With a hog population conservatively estimated at upwards of 1.5 million hogs, Texas has by far the largest hog population of any state. In fact, Texas is experiencing such a dramatic increase in feral hog populations (an average of 20% per year) that some think that the state is actually losing the war on feral hogs.

Re:One of those is easily solved

[bill_mcgonigle]

The idea of a tax credit like the GP suggested is a pretty good one. You have to cook feral hog well-done but it's quite delicious.

Target practice may be the current standard but if that target is worth $200 then more shooters will be out bagging them.

Avoiding the Saigon Cobra Problem is important but a simple lipid test should be able to determine feral from farmed - my tastebuds sure can. Maybe $4 cost on a $200 benefit.

Re:One of those is easily solved

[Anonymous Coward]

They should introduce vast quantities of wolves to kill the boars. Then tigers to kill the wolves. Then when winter comes the tigers will die.

Re:Religion legitimates ALL the things?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm not sure you need religion to legitimize people eating whatever plants they want to in the first place.

Correct link

[Alwin Henseler]

15 Comments and still no one bothered to provide the correct link... sigh. Must be this one I assume:

The Decline of American Peyote

Re:Don't indians now use alcohol for their rituals

[bill_mcgonigle]

The founder of AA felt psychadelics were so important to combating alcoholism that he resigned from AA when the board refused to make it one of the twelve steps.

So go ahead and criminalize (in 1972, as a political weapon) substances that societies have used for at least 180,000 years and see what the repercussions might be.

Here's an example of where conservatism is wise.

Re:Religion legitimates ALL the things?

[Anonymous Coward]

HOW is this news for nerds? HOW??

As an enthusiastic psychedelic drug user and self-professed psychonaut, who also happens to be a college-educated Mensa member who works in Silicon Valley and makes comfortable money, who also knows tons of other computer programmers, intellectuals, and nerds from many places and can speak for them....

I assure you this is news for nerds. You may be too straight-edged to have ever opened your mind to the other places it can go and find out what other types of thinking exist, but that doesn't mean that the rest of us have done the same. I've broken my mind, gotten lost in it, found beauty where I had never seen it before, comprehended things that can't be put into words, then put my mind back together again, and then gone to work again on Monday. I can't emphasize how important and useful exploring these other planes of thought has been for my psyche, my character, my disposition, my attitude, and my capacity for love and understanding. I am a deeper, smarter, more efficient...and here's the big one: MORE CREATIVE person than I was before, and more than I ever would have been without this in my life.

So yeah, peyote and its history and its chemical effects on the mind are very fucking important to some of us. And not because we're lazy escapist losers who want to kill brain cells. That is a stereotype dreamed up by squares who want to justify living in their safe spaces and never really tasting life. It is important to us because the human mind is the most powerful and interesting and useful thing in all of science. Maybe it should be explored and understood, huh? Ya think?