Posted on 12/17/2007 4:02:28 PM PST by TFFKAMM
RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas (Reuters) - Mauro Morales has chickens in his yard, deer antlers hanging from the fence and a shed full of peyote behind his house.
A slight, balding man in his 60s, Morales is one of just three "peyoteros" in the country licensed by the government to sell the small green cactus that contains the hallucinogen mescaline.
His profession is an old one that used to be more common along the Rio Grande, the only place where peyote grows in the United States. Now it is threatened by the forces of modernity.
His customers are the 250,000 to 400,000 members of the Native American Church, the only people in the United States for whom peyote is legal.
The government warily allows them to buy it because it has been part of indigenous religious ceremonies for centuries.
The church members think the visions that peyote produces provide enlightenment and that the cactus has curative powers. They reverently call it "the medicine."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Discrimination!! Why cant I buy peyote?
LOL . . . because you’re paleface, that’s why.
Query how much of this “legal” peyote finds its way into “illegal” hands.
Uh-oh. Having flashbacks to my younger days.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................What was I saying?
Paging Don Juan. Suddenly I am getting the urge to sit on the porch and bark like a dog. (Carlos Casteneda for those that don’t know).
Next to none, according to TX Dept of Safety investigations. These guys are way, way, way above board. People can, I suppose, get drunk on Communion wine, too... so should Catholics not be allowed to sell wine?
Uh, ok . . .if a governmental agency says it ain’t so in South Texas, then who am I to argue?
I mean after all, if government can secure the border there, then I’m sure a small little job like controlling access to peyote is no sweat.
That is so true, wink wink nudge nudge.....
How much peyote abuse have you ever heard of? When’s the last time anybody anywhere in the U.S. was even charged with trafficking in peyote?
Geeze, a few native herbalists are having their business destroyed by social changes, and you immediately come to the defense of a bunch of city-slicker lawyers who buy up the land out here. Are you against traditional values?
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