Could Peyote Be An Endangered Species One Day?

<v Speaker 1>Welcome to the Crime Pays a Botany doesn't podcasts. I'm
<v Speaker 1>here with Leonardo Mercado, who is the greenhouse steward for
<v Speaker 1>morning Star Conservancy, which is a PAOTI conservation and propagation
<v Speaker 1>organization based out of southern Arizona and the beautiful Tucson
<v Speaker 1>area and whose board is comprised of Native American church members.
<v Speaker 1>Morning Star. When when was morning Star formed? Leo? When
<v Speaker 1>did it? When did you guys aggregate and come together
<v Speaker 1>to attain this goal or working towards this goals?
<v Speaker 2>We probably started looking around southern Texas doing your basic
<v Speaker 2>recon on what the situation was down there. We probably
<v Speaker 2>started looking around southern Texas at conservation possibilities in two
<v Speaker 2>thousand and three. But it goes back to the original
<v Speaker 2>trip we had in ninety five or ninety six in
<v Speaker 2>which we met up with doctor Martin Terry at that time,
<v Speaker 2>and we met with the Peyotros down there. We uh
<v Speaker 2>trucked around, We had discussions and thought about it, and
<v Speaker 2>we started to pray about it, and somewhere in the
<v Speaker 2>early two thousands we decided, well, let's let's get this together.
<v Speaker 2>It's been too many years. Let's at least start an
<v Speaker 2>organization where we can start to advocate mm hm.
<v Speaker 1>And so you were going were you going to Mirando City?
<v Speaker 1>Where were you going? In South Texas?
<v Speaker 2>Mostly to Rio Grand City right on the river. There
<v Speaker 2>were several licensed dealers back then. So we'd visit around
<v Speaker 2>and we we'd head up to Mirando City as well.
<v Speaker 1>And what was the what was the status of the
<v Speaker 1>plant back then?
<v Speaker 2>Like?
<v Speaker 1>What did that area look like back then? What what
<v Speaker 1>did you see?
<v Speaker 2>Like?
<v Speaker 1>What was that the first time you would really spend
<v Speaker 1>time in this region.
<v Speaker 2>No, I'd been down there trekking around myself throughout the
<v Speaker 2>eighties also, and I think what we saw that is
<v Speaker 2>most noticeable differentiated from today is that the average size
<v Speaker 2>of the plants that were being harvested were fairly large,
<v Speaker 2>or was fairly large three inches across, you know, nothing
<v Speaker 2>really smaller than a silver dollar, with some exceptions maybe
<v Speaker 2>down to a fifty cent kind of size, so.
<v Speaker 1>Like baseball size, probably.
<v Speaker 2>Well up to yeah. Yeah, you also saw a certain
<v Speaker 2>proportion of large plants. It was not uncommon. Insadly, you
<v Speaker 2>still find from fresh fines some really nice plants occasionally,
<v Speaker 2>but the average is sometimes quarter size, fifty cent size.
<v Speaker 2>And I think that's the best way to describe it
<v Speaker 2>is in terms of coin size.
<v Speaker 1>Just so for people that might be listening in other
<v Speaker 1>regions of the country, describe what South Texas I mean,
<v Speaker 1>because if I remember, the first time I came down
<v Speaker 1>here was like twenty fourteen for Botany, and it just
<v Speaker 1>it felt like just total backgroad like remote, Like this
<v Speaker 1>place is off the map. This is wild. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>the buildings world it was, the habitat was wild. I
<v Speaker 1>came down here expecting desert, and it's not really desert.
<v Speaker 1>It's kind of desert, but it's it's humid and it's green.
<v Speaker 1>And I mean, explain what explain to people who might
<v Speaker 1>be listening what it felt like. I mean, not just
<v Speaker 1>the Payot difference, but like the whole the whole area.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's different than the snoring desert for sure. I
<v Speaker 2>consider it. Uh, it's almost well, it's a thorn scrub
<v Speaker 2>and so for me, it's kind of hard to get
<v Speaker 2>around it. It's so brushy.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's not open because you're you grew up in
<v Speaker 1>southern Arizona, you grew up on the Heler rivers.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and I know how to navigate this desert pretty well.
<v Speaker 2>It's a lot more opened up. It's a lot more
<v Speaker 2>like West Texas. So when you're in Brewster Presidio County
<v Speaker 2>in West Texas, Uh, it's a completely different environment than
<v Speaker 2>that South Texas, and I was not accustomed to it.
<v Speaker 2>It's pretty wild, you know it. It's called thorn scrub
<v Speaker 2>for a reason. But you know, uh, if you don't
<v Speaker 2>get some scratches while you're in it, you're not really
<v Speaker 2>doing it right.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Yes, scratches and maybe some ticks.
<v Speaker 2>So it's tough and it's humid, and it's not really
<v Speaker 2>easy to find medicine. But back in the day when
<v Speaker 2>you found it, it was you could find healthy populations
<v Speaker 2>scattered about, and as you know, those are a lot
<v Speaker 2>harder to find. And the applied pressure from just harvesting
<v Speaker 2>for Native American churches is accumulative, I think, is the
<v Speaker 2>word right. So it's added up over fifty years. It
<v Speaker 2>sixty years now since nineteen seventy what year we enjoy
<v Speaker 2>this five now? Yeah, yeah, you're the snake. And I
<v Speaker 2>think in that time we've seen this this ramped up
<v Speaker 2>gradient effect. And that's why I mentioned the size of
<v Speaker 2>the planets, because when there's less fine you're getting down
<v Speaker 2>to like what would be the equivalent of fawns in
<v Speaker 2>the deer population.
<v Speaker 1>Right, it's like the bottom of the barrel, the last drags,
<v Speaker 1>like all the all the big plants are gone, and
<v Speaker 1>you're just harvesting what's left. But explain to people, because
<v Speaker 1>I think a lot of people, I mean, the vast
<v Speaker 1>majority of Americans have no clue that this is a thing.
<v Speaker 1>They just they view peyote as some sort of party drug.
<v Speaker 1>They don't, you know, it's just the effects of the
<v Speaker 1>failed drug war. They don't. They're they're unaware of its
<v Speaker 1>sanctity to Native Americans, how it's used that it's uh,
<v Speaker 1>you know, the tepee ceremony, the origin of the Native
<v Speaker 1>American Church, all that. We don't need to get into everything.
<v Speaker 1>But but basically, in short, there's a huge cultural demand
<v Speaker 1>among Native Americans for this plant, and this is the
<v Speaker 1>only place that it grows in a sizable enough population
<v Speaker 1>to harvest, right. So, and that's set up by the
<v Speaker 1>peyotero system. So you got we're coming down here to
<v Speaker 1>basically purchase medicine for ceremonies, and seeing that there was
<v Speaker 1>less of it, that's when morning Star formed.
<v Speaker 2>Right. So a lot like that, dear analogy. If there's
<v Speaker 2>a license hunt, if it's not regulated, an unlicensed hunt
<v Speaker 2>is the same as a license hunt. In other words,
<v Speaker 2>at that point, it's all poaching. If you can take
<v Speaker 2>the pregnant dose the fonds as well as the bucks,
<v Speaker 2>if there's an economic incentive to do so, you will
<v Speaker 2>eventually degrade the species by taking everybody. Right, So it's
<v Speaker 2>a license but unregulated for pot because there is a
<v Speaker 2>license hunt for it. And that sounds a little weird
<v Speaker 2>because most people are like, right, Poti is a schedule
<v Speaker 2>and substance listed with you know, heroine, meth whatever. Everybody
<v Speaker 2>kind of knows that, but not everybody knows that there's
<v Speaker 2>a licensed hunt. And that's for the use of Native
<v Speaker 2>American Church members. It's a claw out in the nineteen
<v Speaker 2>seventy Controlled Substances Act, So there's this exemption for members
<v Speaker 2>of the Native American Church and for people who register
<v Speaker 2>to distribute to members of the Native American Church very specifically,
<v Speaker 2>and so it's a licensed hunt. The dealers pay it's
<v Speaker 2>something like thirteen hundred dollars a year right now. They
<v Speaker 2>pay it three years at a time, but they have
<v Speaker 2>to reregister annually to keep the license. It's fairly controlled
<v Speaker 2>that way. There's only three dealers left. There may be
<v Speaker 2>a new one right now, but it's a hard scrabble
<v Speaker 2>living when the population has declined and you still have
<v Speaker 2>to make a business out of it.
<v Speaker 1>And this is state regulated, right, This is not I
<v Speaker 1>mean the dealer system to pay a thera system state regularly.
<v Speaker 1>It's not even federal regularly. This is like run by Texas.
<v Speaker 1>This is Texas jurisdiction.
<v Speaker 2>There's a federal form. But yes, I do believe it
<v Speaker 2>is for several years now been managed by Texas DPS. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And so the thing about that is, like I said,
<v Speaker 2>it is licensed, but it's not regulated in any manner.
<v Speaker 2>In other words, pick as much as you want, sell
<v Speaker 2>as much as you want, We don't care. As long
<v Speaker 2>as you have the landowner's permission. That's the only other
<v Speaker 2>three requisite to the legal trade, you know, the legal hunt. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And so not every land is going to want to
<v Speaker 2>allow random people that work for the dealer to be
<v Speaker 2>clawing around on their land.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So there's a limited area, not just geographically and ecologically,
<v Speaker 2>but also I guess what you call privately because of
<v Speaker 2>land ownership. And there's no public lands where payote is growing.
<v Speaker 1>But there's also there's also the payote lease too, which
<v Speaker 1>I think is again the foreign idea to people that
<v Speaker 1>don't live down here or don't have any you know,
<v Speaker 1>don't know anybody in the Native American Church. There's payote
<v Speaker 1>leases where just like with hunting, you know, payotero's will
<v Speaker 1>pay a landowner for the right to go on their
<v Speaker 1>land and look for payote and cut it, harvest it,
<v Speaker 1>put it in a little potato sack, bring it back,
<v Speaker 1>and then sell it to members of the NAC of
<v Speaker 1>the Native American.
<v Speaker 2>Result to sell it to the dealer specifically who resells
<v Speaker 2>it to the Native American Church. Yeah, but yeah, it's
<v Speaker 2>a payouty lease, which is where the analogy comes together
<v Speaker 2>here because that peuty lease. The reason it's done is
<v Speaker 2>because the same ranchers sell leases to deer hunters, and
<v Speaker 2>so there's no reason for them not to do likewise
<v Speaker 2>for the peuty dealers. But in the case of the
<v Speaker 2>deer hunt, you can't take out every dear, and you
<v Speaker 2>don't or there won't be a future hunt. But when
<v Speaker 2>it comes to payote, they just sure take whatever payote.
<v Speaker 2>There's no standards, is what I'm trying to say, there's
<v Speaker 2>there's no mind to its future. And that's really the
<v Speaker 2>crux of what we're talking about today. How it gets
<v Speaker 2>that way, How it got that way. It's it's very multilayer.
<v Speaker 2>There's a lot of reasons, and that creates this pressure
<v Speaker 2>on the population. That's kind of how my mind looks
<v Speaker 2>at it. Yeah, I look at it as like, I
<v Speaker 2>don't know what are we talking about here? Six or
<v Speaker 2>seven different forms of pressure on it because we haven't
<v Speaker 2>even discussed the land degradation right, the land converge.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, this is like it's a whole other element of
<v Speaker 1>It's a whole other weight on it. But definitely when
<v Speaker 1>you start thinking about this, I mean, every Native American
<v Speaker 1>church chapter that uses peyote as medicine or as sacrament
<v Speaker 1>in all night meetings and teepee ceremonies, whether they're in
<v Speaker 1>upstate New York, or whether they're in Idaho, or whether
<v Speaker 1>they're in Canada, all that peote comes from down here
<v Speaker 1>because it's the only place that it grows, and so
<v Speaker 1>there it's like having a bathtub filled with a population
<v Speaker 1>of a plant species to use a metaphor, and the
<v Speaker 1>drain is consistently on. It's there's water going out the drain,
<v Speaker 1>there's plants going out the drain, but the spigot is
<v Speaker 1>slowly the handle slowly being turned to the right and
<v Speaker 1>turned off, and there's not as much there's not as
<v Speaker 1>many plants going in. And I like the deer hunt
<v Speaker 1>analogy especially because it's it really sums it up. Everybody
<v Speaker 1>who's got any experience with hunting or in a you know,
<v Speaker 1>in a rural area whatever, understands you can't take certain
<v Speaker 1>deer because that will affect the population. It's it's just
<v Speaker 1>a it's just it's just logic. But when it comes
<v Speaker 1>to this plant, that's not really I mean, there's not
<v Speaker 1>many people that seem to be getting that. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>I guess more so today. But you know, it's it's
<v Speaker 1>kind of a new thing. The concept well.
<v Speaker 2>You know, the rich old people, it's actually an whole
<v Speaker 2>thing in a sense because they literally actually say that
<v Speaker 2>the peary hunt is the deer hunt, you know, And
<v Speaker 2>and traditionally they talked about how the roots or the
<v Speaker 2>bones and so that you leave them buried so that
<v Speaker 2>the deer can grow back from the bones.
<v Speaker 1>So the wheat showl are in Mexico for anybody listening,
<v Speaker 1>which is again like the southern, the southern end of
<v Speaker 1>Payot's distribution. But they're I mean, they're getting they're facing
<v Speaker 1>issues their clearance for land clearance for building just residential areas,
<v Speaker 1>and also for agriculture, for tomato farms. I think, I
<v Speaker 1>don't know what it Maybe it wasn't.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, tomato and chili greenhouses mostly. Yeah, and it's money
<v Speaker 2>laundering operation. You know, the money wasn't clean to start with,
<v Speaker 2>and it's not really clean when it's done either, you know.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, imagine that corruption in Mexico sketchy. Okay, Well, anyway,
<v Speaker 1>so that habitat is much different from from this too.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's more akin to West Texas. It's drier, it's
<v Speaker 1>not as humid, and it's high. It's higher elevation. I
<v Speaker 1>think it's like four thousand and five thousand feet.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it is. Well, let's let's get into that real
<v Speaker 2>quick though, because to use your bathtub analogy, right, So,
<v Speaker 2>because of the pressure on that one bathtub north of
<v Speaker 2>the Rio Grande, uh, what actually happens is you have
<v Speaker 2>to start opening up the taps on the bathtub south
<v Speaker 2>of you too, and the neighboring buildings guy, because the
<v Speaker 2>reality is that a lot of people are now dependent
<v Speaker 2>I guess you'd say on medicine that comes up from
<v Speaker 2>south of the border. It's a dirty little secret that
<v Speaker 2>kind of everybody knows. So almost to bring it up,
<v Speaker 2>bring it up, right. Although I believe the IPCI officially
<v Speaker 2>applied for license to bring it from Mexico at one point,
<v Speaker 2>I don't know what the status of that application or
<v Speaker 2>or endeavor might be right now. So that's like the
<v Speaker 2>open air one. But there's a lot of Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>This is ip Movement Indigenous Paoti Conservation Initiative.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they actually applied for a DEA license standport, which
<v Speaker 2>is the way you're supposed to do it, But there's
<v Speaker 2>a lot of other ways to do it, as everybody knows, right,
<v Speaker 2>And I just want to bring that up because if
<v Speaker 2>we don't, we're not looking at the whole chessboard.
<v Speaker 1>So now the drain's been opened on the bathtub in
<v Speaker 1>Mexico too.
<v Speaker 2>Well, yeah it has been for some time. I can
<v Speaker 2>tell you this that in the late nineteen eighties we
<v Speaker 2>used to see it down there by the literally by
<v Speaker 2>the borough, pulled cart load. And I'm not saying that
<v Speaker 2>all that was going to Native American church use in
<v Speaker 2>the States. A lot of that was going to Europe.
<v Speaker 2>And I don't believe that's really ever stopped, although it
<v Speaker 2>may be getting hard to do, just because they got
<v Speaker 2>to get back more into the real wild zones to
<v Speaker 2>find it more often. So the population in Mexico.
<v Speaker 1>The populations in Mexico were much more robust. I mean
<v Speaker 1>probably still are compared to South Texas.
<v Speaker 2>There still are because of the expanse of it, just
<v Speaker 2>the vast amount of terrain involved. Whereas in South Texas,
<v Speaker 2>as you know, you got a little strip going what
<v Speaker 2>maybe one hundred miles north of the Rio Grand the
<v Speaker 2>Medicine Road. Four counties, there's a little strip.
<v Speaker 1>Four counties here, and then two counties in two or
<v Speaker 1>three counties in West Texas. But the West Texas populations
<v Speaker 1>are tiny compared to this, I mean they're.
<v Speaker 2>Just and there used to be a ton around Laredo, right,
<v Speaker 2>and we're talking in the fifties and sixties to the
<v Speaker 2>point to where it was commercially exported before the Controlled
<v Speaker 2>Substances Act. To my understanding, most of that was for
<v Speaker 2>collectors in your.
<v Speaker 1>Oh so just just like horticultural nerds, not even.
<v Speaker 2>Like yeah, yeah, it was before the acid age, so
<v Speaker 2>it was being shipped out, though nonetheless along with a
<v Speaker 2>lot of other species. It wasn't just the Lafatha. It
<v Speaker 2>was also like area of carpus and I can't remember
<v Speaker 2>what a lot of things.
<v Speaker 1>I mean that should be noted too, that the Laredo
<v Speaker 1>area is in it's it's a huge amount of sprawl.
<v Speaker 1>At some point, Laredo and the Rio Grand Valley are
<v Speaker 1>going to merge into the same metro area. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>the sprawl here is insane. It's gonna be an endless
<v Speaker 1>strip of you know, ambulance chaser billboards, car dealership's, Chick
<v Speaker 1>fil A and just tracked housing. I mean, the water
<v Speaker 1>will probably run out before that. I don't know. I
<v Speaker 1>guess we could take bets on that, well, the water
<v Speaker 1>run out before Laredo and the Rio Grand Valley merge.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, but my bid is on Phoenix they
<v Speaker 2>run out first.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Phoenix is going to run out first.
<v Speaker 2>But you know what, here's an interesting thing like this
<v Speaker 2>is just because you know me, I'm a little bit
<v Speaker 2>of a weirdo. I'm not afraid to say it. I
<v Speaker 2>actually have like beliefs about stuff, and one of them
<v Speaker 2>I like to just you know, play around with in
<v Speaker 2>my own mind, is that maybe up there in those
<v Speaker 2>regions around Laredo that are still left to you know,
<v Speaker 2>they just like, yeah, they got over harvested and da
<v Speaker 2>da da. But I like to believe that somewhere out
<v Speaker 2>there there's these seeds and small remnants of plants that
<v Speaker 2>are repopulating these territories where nobody even bothers to look
<v Speaker 2>for it anymore.
<v Speaker 1>Behind the loobies, there could be like I'm just ups.
<v Speaker 2>Around Valverdi County, you know, Valberdi County. What's that up there?
<v Speaker 1>Comstock, It's nice theo You go north of Laredo and
<v Speaker 1>it is egle Pass. I mean, I like those little
<v Speaker 1>border towns as depressing as they could be with their
<v Speaker 1>payday loan centers like you see like nine payday loan
<v Speaker 1>centers on the same block.
<v Speaker 2>You know, a family dollar.
<v Speaker 1>You could go buy a dildo with you know, take
<v Speaker 1>out like a thirty percent interest loan and then go
<v Speaker 1>buy a dildo and hit a newdy booth and then
<v Speaker 1>like go, you know, buy some buy some Chinese goods
<v Speaker 1>at the dollar store. Yeah. But uh, but.
<v Speaker 2>You know, don't know what. So there used to be
<v Speaker 2>medicine growing up there right there used to be is
<v Speaker 2>what I'm saying. And so so my backwards belief is
<v Speaker 2>that like maybe when it just gets left alone for
<v Speaker 2>long enough, it repopulates somehow, like a seed.
<v Speaker 1>Bank, Like there's this like a seed bank that can
<v Speaker 1>I'm sure payoty seeds can probably last for decades.
<v Speaker 2>I think they do.
<v Speaker 1>You would know more than anyone else, which we're going
<v Speaker 1>to get to because you're a propagator. But okay, so
<v Speaker 1>we're setting the stage for the situation, which is again
<v Speaker 1>the bathtub analogy as well as the deer hunt analogy
<v Speaker 1>really hits it spot on. I mean that is like
<v Speaker 1>it's better than the bathtub almost, but there's a constant
<v Speaker 1>there's a constant drain. And Native American church members from
<v Speaker 1>all over North America are getting their plants, mostly from
<v Speaker 1>South Texas, maybe from maybe a bit from Mexico as well,
<v Speaker 1>but either way, that's what we're seeing is a shrinking
<v Speaker 1>population and it gets moving. It's like quickly shrinking, it's
<v Speaker 1>very rapidly shrinking. And so a few people noticed this,
<v Speaker 1>yourself included, and decided to come together to form this organization.
<v Speaker 1>And when did you guys form this? This was late nineties,
<v Speaker 1>early two thousands, or when did Morning start form?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the official year that we incorporated might have been
<v Speaker 2>two thousand and six. I'm having fuzzy memory. Time happened
<v Speaker 2>quickly since I but we've been talking about this forever,
<v Speaker 2>just as members of the church. I mean, you don't
<v Speaker 2>really come out of the teepee in the morning without
<v Speaker 2>a certain amount of pondering the situation of how lucky
<v Speaker 2>we are to have this plan. See. So it's like
<v Speaker 2>it's sparked by a sense of gratitude for the benefits
<v Speaker 2>we feel from it. It starts with that. But I
<v Speaker 2>guess some people might say that that's kind of what
<v Speaker 2>is it anthropicentric? It's like ducks Unlimited, So you decide
<v Speaker 2>to save the ducks because you're so into duck hunting.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, ducks unlimited. You know, I'm not familiar with ducks
<v Speaker 1>and limited. I just see the hats, so don't I
<v Speaker 1>don't know.
<v Speaker 2>So what I'm saying though, is, yeah, we love the
<v Speaker 2>fact that it's there for us. But you know, I
<v Speaker 2>love where you're coming from, Joey, because you're looking at
<v Speaker 2>the ecology as a whole, right, looking at the interplay
<v Speaker 2>of species, and you know, ethnabotany is part of that.
<v Speaker 2>I always the human use of the plant is part
<v Speaker 2>of that. Yeah, So I guess what I'm saying is
<v Speaker 2>like I fell in love with the plant originally as
<v Speaker 2>a plant, right trying to find it myself out in
<v Speaker 2>the desert, and then became so intrigued by the fact
<v Speaker 2>that there were people who apparently knew how to use
<v Speaker 2>it medicinally, so.
<v Speaker 1>You fell in love with it before you ever ing.
<v Speaker 2>God, Yeah, it dragged me into the tep against my will.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, this was a and what was it? It's
<v Speaker 1>I mean because I always tell people that, you know,
<v Speaker 1>the fact that psychoactive is the least interesting thing about
<v Speaker 1>the species to me, right right, It's a giant battery
<v Speaker 1>in the ground. That's that, without using spines, like like
<v Speaker 1>so many of its relatives, is able to defend itself
<v Speaker 1>against things that want to eat it. It's able to hide.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's such a cool adaptation so perfectly.
<v Speaker 2>I just wish I almost wish it wasn't psychoactive now
<v Speaker 2>that I think about it, right, because like it makes
<v Speaker 2>it so complicated to even talk about like I'm serious,
<v Speaker 2>Like there's something about it that just weirds me out.
<v Speaker 2>Like let me just say this. I don't want to
<v Speaker 2>be like insensitive to anybody here, but this thing about
<v Speaker 2>psychoactivity is almost like the new gay, you know what
<v Speaker 2>I'm saying, or or or people not wanting to get
<v Speaker 2>blacklisted for cammy sympathies or something like this.
<v Speaker 1>What do you mean?
<v Speaker 2>It's it's barely we're barely able to talk about it
<v Speaker 2>a little bit now because of psychedelic research therapy, investment potential.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, yeah, And.
<v Speaker 2>Like you know, there was this recent Rogan thing about
<v Speaker 2>abrogating therapy, and it was like I enjoyed it. It
<v Speaker 2>was former Texas Governor Rick Perry.
<v Speaker 1>Was he wearing a glasses? Was he wearing a he
<v Speaker 1>puts on those glasses?
<v Speaker 2>Do you think I watched it?
<v Speaker 1>He makes himself look smarter?
<v Speaker 2>And it was actually weird to me in the sense that, hey,
<v Speaker 2>we're actually openly talking about this thing about the prohibition
<v Speaker 2>of a medicine because it happens to be psychoactive as
<v Speaker 2>ridiculous anymore, you know, And I'm glad we're finally getting there.
<v Speaker 2>And so I guess that's the reason I say, it
<v Speaker 2>would be so much simpler if it was just the
<v Speaker 2>beauty of the plant, the collectibility, Like, yeah, everybody who's
<v Speaker 2>in the cacti in succulents, they want to have a
<v Speaker 2>paoty plant. They're not wanting to eat it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I.
<v Speaker 2>Don't want to eat it, Joey, And I'm the peoty warrat. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>I don't want to eat it, like I really don't.
<v Speaker 2>So I love that I can go to ceremonies, but
<v Speaker 2>even in there, I'm like, oh God, here comes that
<v Speaker 2>medicine really quick.
<v Speaker 1>When when you guys got together for a morning Star
<v Speaker 1>decided to start growing this and trying to because you
<v Speaker 1>were initially trying to purchase land to conserve in South Texas,
<v Speaker 1>but having to live in South Texas can be a
<v Speaker 1>tall order for anybody, let me tell you, I know
<v Speaker 1>firsthand about that. So but but why was My question
<v Speaker 1>is why was nobody doing this before? What was there
<v Speaker 1>there was a saying that the peoty will take care
<v Speaker 1>of itself right among NAC members and natives, that the
<v Speaker 1>paoty will take care of itself? Is that partially to
<v Speaker 1>explain why nobody had really, you know, ventured out into
<v Speaker 1>the area of conservation and propagation before or what.
<v Speaker 2>Well, it's largely because in nineteen seventy when this whole
<v Speaker 2>thing was set up for the Paro Dedo distribution system,
<v Speaker 2>and thank God for it. You know the story of
<v Speaker 2>Grandma garden Us, Grandma Coyote down there and amount into
<v Speaker 2>the city.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah right, yeah, yes.
<v Speaker 2>It was her family.
<v Speaker 3>That randof Literally they literally stepped up and made a
<v Speaker 3>case out of it, you know, purposefully to say, look,
<v Speaker 3>are we wrong in doing this and supplying the natives,
<v Speaker 3>you know, for their ceremonial needs.
<v Speaker 2>No, it's a tradition, it's something that needs to happen. Otherwise,
<v Speaker 2>how are we going to do this Because it's all
<v Speaker 2>private land. Somebody needs to be set up to help
<v Speaker 2>these people out that can't get out and do their
<v Speaker 2>own prayers and everything. It was set up in a
<v Speaker 2>good way that way, but you get the government involved
<v Speaker 2>and sometimes help can be otherwise. So what I'm saying
<v Speaker 2>is in nineteen seventy one that was basically set up
<v Speaker 2>around there. Uh, there was plenty of paeoti still growing
<v Speaker 2>out there, so it didn't look like it was going
<v Speaker 2>to be an issue. And little did they know that
<v Speaker 2>in fifty or sixty years we would have overfish that pathub,
<v Speaker 2>you know, like you just you can't just keep poling
<v Speaker 2>from the same stock, same stock, with no like I say,
<v Speaker 2>actual consideration to the future expected to exist.
<v Speaker 1>The land clearance too. I don't think anybody saw the
<v Speaker 1>amount of habitat destruction and sprawl. I mean, the idea
<v Speaker 1>of a metro suburban region slowly encroaching on this region
<v Speaker 1>to Texas was I'm sure in the nineties seemed like otherworldly,
<v Speaker 1>like impossible, you know, because it was so cutty. When
<v Speaker 1>I came down here in twenty fourteen, it was so cutty,
<v Speaker 1>you know, I was like, God, where the fuck am I? Man?
<v Speaker 1>It was, I mean, I liked it, but it was
<v Speaker 1>it had this kind of almost spooky feeling down here,
<v Speaker 1>like you'd see these old houses, dilapidated houses, overgrown with
<v Speaker 1>you know, pollo verde trees and miscuats that were all
<v Speaker 1>And it's a different species of misky than you get
<v Speaker 1>in Arizona too. It's a much more robust, drooping tree.
<v Speaker 1>And it just, I mean it was it just felt
<v Speaker 1>so like, you know, off the map down here, and
<v Speaker 1>I don't think people saw that at some point they're
<v Speaker 1>going to be clearing land to put up like little
<v Speaker 1>you know, ten acre rancheetahs, uh, you know, and and
<v Speaker 1>with lawns and you know, the fucking all the suburban amenities.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, they're they're like suburbanizing parts of Starr County.
<v Speaker 1>It's wild to see. But really quick though. With Amada,
<v Speaker 1>did you had you met her? I was at her
<v Speaker 1>her house that anybody listening is like a is like
<v Speaker 1>a museum now basically, and it's still an active They
<v Speaker 1>have tep ceremonies there and Native American Church has tep
<v Speaker 1>ceremonies there and comes down to hold all night meetings
<v Speaker 1>people from Oklahoma. A lot of people from Oklahoma come
<v Speaker 1>down monthly. And I was at her house once and
<v Speaker 1>I remember, uh, someone showing me a box of letters
<v Speaker 1>that she had in envelopes that were stamped in the
<v Speaker 1>mid eighties from people from natives from all over the country,
<v Speaker 1>you know, writing or these really heartfelt letters saying thank
<v Speaker 1>you or you know, placing orders for medicine. It was
<v Speaker 1>really cool to see. I mean, that whole area Miranda
<v Speaker 1>City is a really really cool little spot on the map.
<v Speaker 1>I'm glad her house is protected, but did you meet her.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I was able to meet her a few times
<v Speaker 2>in the last five years or so of her life.
<v Speaker 2>And she was, you know, in a wheelchair and church
<v Speaker 2>members had built a ramp up to her door so
<v Speaker 2>she could still come in and out. And it was beautiful.
<v Speaker 2>It was like my grandma's house. That's why. That's why
<v Speaker 2>it's named Grandma's Place still. And for people that don't know,
<v Speaker 2>it's a prayer site, right, It's where people stop when
<v Speaker 2>they go down to purchase their pot and they make
<v Speaker 2>prayers and they pray for their travel, They smoke tobacco,
<v Speaker 2>they leave coins sometimes and make offerings and it's just
<v Speaker 2>a beautiful thing that we have that. And the thing
<v Speaker 2>is is it's you know, a weird way, Joey. It
<v Speaker 2>reminds me of how humble this, this actual tradition is.
<v Speaker 2>Like all these other religions. They got their meccas there,
<v Speaker 2>you know, Saint Peter's Square, you know, or what have you.
<v Speaker 2>We got this little place where Grandma's kind of semi
<v Speaker 2>beat up a little bit on the edges. Old house
<v Speaker 2>is just sitting there and people still stop and pay
<v Speaker 2>respects to her and her family. It's a it's a
<v Speaker 2>real beautiful cultural tradition.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's a really special site we I was helping
<v Speaker 1>to put in. Yeah, like a native plant garden at
<v Speaker 1>the UH at the little prayer garden that they have,
<v Speaker 1>and they've got a there's a cool archway, like metal
<v Speaker 1>archway ri over the entrance to her house too. It's
<v Speaker 1>a it's a it's a really beautiful, beautiful.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that archway, it's like a metal cutout with a tepee.
<v Speaker 2>I've got a really nice image of it. And it's
<v Speaker 2>got the four words, which are the tenants of the
<v Speaker 2>Native American Church, Faith, Love, Hope, and charity.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Yeah, Yeah, that was I was trying to remember
<v Speaker 1>what the words were when I was talking about that.
<v Speaker 1>I should mention that that's a real because I remember
<v Speaker 1>seeing it was it's a beautiful saying, but I couldn't
<v Speaker 1>remember what exactly the the words were. So I'm glad
<v Speaker 1>you did.
<v Speaker 2>That's that's our journey, brother, that is our journey.
<v Speaker 1>Your memory is much your memory is better than mine sometimes. Okay. So,
<v Speaker 1>so morning Star is a conservation and propagation organization. You
<v Speaker 1>guys are actively growing payote seedlings in Arizona where state
<v Speaker 1>law permits it for Native Americans because Native American I
<v Speaker 1>don't I don't even think ANAC members Native Americans are
<v Speaker 1>able to propagate in Texas, actively growing it in Arizona.
<v Speaker 1>But at the same time, there's a demand by many
<v Speaker 1>Native groups to keep it, to keep it illegal, to
<v Speaker 1>prevent any decriminalization. Like some of the I feel like
<v Speaker 1>the psychedelic it's such a corny word. The psychedelic renaissance, God,
<v Speaker 1>I fucking hated has died down a little bit, especially
<v Speaker 1>since you know, the failures of MDMA to be legalized,
<v Speaker 1>and it was found out there were touchers in some
<v Speaker 1>of these psychedelic therapy groups, which is not surprising to me,
<v Speaker 1>you know, there were creepers. But but anyway, it's died
<v Speaker 1>down a little bit, so there's not I feel like
<v Speaker 1>there's not as much demand for you know, for psychedelics
<v Speaker 1>among these startups, these these startup groups. But but there's
<v Speaker 1>I think it this this this motive to keep it,
<v Speaker 1>to keep payodia illegal and prevent it from being decriminalized.
<v Speaker 1>While all these other things were like psilocybin and other psychdelics,
<v Speaker 1>this was a thing that was kind of started with
<v Speaker 1>the last eight to ten years where there you actually
<v Speaker 1>had now Native groups, you know, petitioning the federal government
<v Speaker 1>to keep payote illegal or petitioning local municipalities like Santa
<v Speaker 1>Cruz County, California, to prevent payote from being decriminalized.
<v Speaker 2>Well, yeah, you had interest in psychedelic therapy, you ramping up.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe the investment level of it has ramped down a
<v Speaker 2>bit lately, but the interest in d KRIM laws probably
<v Speaker 2>has also ramped down a little bit. And what that
<v Speaker 2>was was these localized, usually localized municipal referendums to legalize
<v Speaker 2>plants basically in some cases all controlled substances, depending on
<v Speaker 2>the jurisdiction. And one of the one of the hallmark
<v Speaker 2>efforts was in the city of Santa Cruz, California, there
<v Speaker 2>was an exemption to decriminalizing all plants applied in that
<v Speaker 2>Santa Cruz referendum. And that was that because of the
<v Speaker 2>UH consideration for spiritual use of purity by Native Americans,
<v Speaker 2>that it should remain illegal to possess, cultivate, or.
<v Speaker 1>Just what was the point of It's a it's.
<v Speaker 2>A backwards exemption, you know, instead of being exempt so
<v Speaker 2>it is legal, it's exempt so it remains illegal. In
<v Speaker 2>a d CRIM law, and that became like a boiler
<v Speaker 2>plate attachment the style that was used in Santa Cruz
<v Speaker 2>for upcoming future d crim laws which were passed around
<v Speaker 2>the country after that.
<v Speaker 1>M like you were talking about something in Michigan that.
<v Speaker 2>Was yeah, yeah, different places, Portland, Oregon possibly some states.
<v Speaker 2>It might have been Oregon and Washington possibly that passed
<v Speaker 2>their own d crim I can't quite remember, but the
<v Speaker 2>reason for it was ostensibly out of respect for the
<v Speaker 2>spiritual traditions that go with pod Well. I mean, there's
<v Speaker 2>if I could find a straight logic to all this,
<v Speaker 2>I would have endorsed the very same idea. The idea
<v Speaker 2>may be noble, but the reality is that every other
<v Speaker 2>plant that they were d crimming also has its own
<v Speaker 2>spiritual traditions, you know, and some indigenous traditional culture that
<v Speaker 2>knows how to use that plan. So it was you know, okay,
<v Speaker 2>I get it. This one grows native in the US,
<v Speaker 2>and it has its spiritual tradition. It's otherwise scheduled one,
<v Speaker 2>but we respect that, so we don't want people messing
<v Speaker 2>with it. The problem is is that that would also
<v Speaker 2>exclude conservation efforts for one thing, and does it really
<v Speaker 2>help anybody, because just to get a little bit into
<v Speaker 2>the weeds. This this proposal in Lansing, Michigan. I was
<v Speaker 2>asked to speak to the city council about and I
<v Speaker 2>tried to help make sense of it for them because
<v Speaker 2>they were curious, how do you feel, you know, you're
<v Speaker 2>a conservator of paote. What do you think we should
<v Speaker 2>do about this payote thing? I said, well, I I
<v Speaker 2>feel like it should be protected and you know, conserved.
<v Speaker 2>I don't understand how legalizing its, let's say, cultivation and
<v Speaker 2>lancing in Michigan takes away from anything. It's not a
<v Speaker 2>thing that's instant. It's not like growing mushrooms where you
<v Speaker 2>can have a crop in two months, you know. I
<v Speaker 2>kind of more or less said to them that I
<v Speaker 2>feel that if somebody can grow peoty from the seed
<v Speaker 2>in their apartment in Lansing, Michigan at the end of eight, ten,
<v Speaker 2>twelve years, they kind of deserve to eat that thing
<v Speaker 2>in the privacy of their own life, you know. I mean,
<v Speaker 2>I can't really And here's the crazy thing, Jerry that
<v Speaker 2>it's kind of hard to get across, but it's kind
<v Speaker 2>of weird, doesn't make any sense. Let's just say that
<v Speaker 2>all of a sudden today they decide I can grow
<v Speaker 2>peoty in my apartment legally in Lansing, Michigan. And so
<v Speaker 2>I'm a good law biding citizen. I say, hey, it's
<v Speaker 2>no longer illegal. I think I'm interested. Well, you don't
<v Speaker 2>then get in a car and drive down to South
<v Speaker 2>Texas to pluck some up from the desert, or you
<v Speaker 2>can't find it in the first place, really, and it's
<v Speaker 2>highly illegal and you might get shot, and it's federally illegal,
<v Speaker 2>and it's illegal in the state of Texas, and it's
<v Speaker 2>illegal to transport it between every state between Texas and Michigan.
<v Speaker 2>That legalization in lancing is not going to make you
<v Speaker 2>go break the law and deplete it in this native habita.
<v Speaker 1>Now, we're not saying Lansing, Michigan is not important. We're
<v Speaker 1>not trying to offend, you know, we're not saying that
<v Speaker 1>what lancing does isn't going to affect other locales. You know,
<v Speaker 1>we don't want to downplay beautiful lancing. But but this
<v Speaker 1>does seem absurd. It does seem absurd to put laws
<v Speaker 1>in place, or to petition for laws to be kept
<v Speaker 1>in place, to prevent the cultivation of what's essentially a
<v Speaker 1>harmless plant in a place that's you know, a thousand
<v Speaker 1>miles away from where it's native.
<v Speaker 2>Well, you hit on something that I think is also
<v Speaker 2>important to discuss. It's really one of the main pieces
<v Speaker 2>on the chessboard, and that is that it's not right
<v Speaker 2>that it's classified as a Schedule one substance by the
<v Speaker 2>very wording required to make a substance Schedule one. If
<v Speaker 2>you think about it for a.
<v Speaker 1>Second, it.
<v Speaker 2>Was it was we kind of know this about cannabis, right, Like,
<v Speaker 2>come on, it can't it's not Schedule one. Read the
<v Speaker 2>words apply it to the plant, you know, And it's
<v Speaker 2>the same way with peoty. Guess what. It has never
<v Speaker 2>hurt anybody.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, if you have too much, you just throw up.
<v Speaker 2>I'm living in a desert where there's rattlesnakes, choya and
<v Speaker 2>uh detura plant, and detura is perfectly legal to grow
<v Speaker 2>around your place. It's a it's a desired ornamental to some,
<v Speaker 2>but it's a kind of a weedy ever presence around here.
<v Speaker 2>You know. It just grows. It doesn't acquire hardly any
<v Speaker 2>water or anything, and people tend to oftenselves by over
<v Speaker 2>ingesting it from time to time.
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, and everybody. Everybody knows. You know someone in
<v Speaker 1>high school who ate a couple who ate a pod
<v Speaker 1>and then you know was picked up by the cops
<v Speaker 1>walking down the freeway naked at three in the morning.
<v Speaker 2>You know, at least i'd so if I walk out
<v Speaker 2>in my backyard and I'm not watching what I'm doing,
<v Speaker 2>I run straight into Teddy Beartoia guy, and that is
<v Speaker 2>going to be one of the worst days of your.
<v Speaker 1>Talk about a sensual essensual cactus.
<v Speaker 2>So the main thing, even if you're even if your
<v Speaker 2>dog runs down into it, right, you're one of the
<v Speaker 2>worst days of your life.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I appreciate it. I appreciate did you miss?
<v Speaker 1>Lindra Puntia is a botanist. But I'm not gonna I'm
<v Speaker 1>not going to pretend it's not harmful and dangerous.
<v Speaker 2>But so I'm just trying to say that there's a
<v Speaker 2>lot more dangerous plants than they and if we look
<v Speaker 2>at it clearly, it really shouldn't be a Schedule one drug. Well, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, all I'm trying to say.
<v Speaker 1>Caffeine has a LD fifty a lethal dose when consumed
<v Speaker 1>by half the population. That's much much higher than mescaline.
<v Speaker 2>Not to mention toquila.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I mean, come on, totally yeah. But I
<v Speaker 1>certainly understand, you know, the the motivation to protect it culturally.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, this is a plant that's that's sacred to
<v Speaker 1>Native people. You don't want you know what I call
<v Speaker 1>the hanky shaman out there abusing it or selling it
<v Speaker 1>or you know it. This is the thing that that's
<v Speaker 1>culturally sensitive. I totally understand that. It'd be the you
<v Speaker 1>know the same if someone was out there. You know,
<v Speaker 1>I have a Catholic priest outfit that I sometimes put
<v Speaker 1>on for live streams because I think it's funny. You
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't you know? That'd be like I'm sure that offends
<v Speaker 1>many Catholics. It would be like the same thing. There's
<v Speaker 1>plenty of room uh for cultural uh you know, to
<v Speaker 1>use the word cultural appropriation or or things will be
<v Speaker 1>offensive to to a population to whom this plant's important.
<v Speaker 1>I totally understand that.
<v Speaker 2>But it doesn't offensive offensive. Yes, but is that government's job.
<v Speaker 2>Government's job is safety, right, definitely, to take it, to
<v Speaker 2>take it back to safety. Like, let's just all throw
<v Speaker 2>you one word? How about this Canada?
<v Speaker 1>So wait, hold on, I want to talk about that,
<v Speaker 1>But what The point I wanted to make was that
<v Speaker 1>the preserve it culturally is it seems at odds with
<v Speaker 1>preserving it physically, like with actually conserving it, and especially
<v Speaker 1>using a law that was created as part of a
<v Speaker 1>culture war, and before that, which was created as a
<v Speaker 1>result of a racist, a racist agenda against Native Americans.
<v Speaker 1>I mean the early twentieth century, the late eighteen hundreds,
<v Speaker 1>early nineteen hundreds, paid you know, there were many efforts
<v Speaker 1>to criminalize payota use among Natives by you know, the
<v Speaker 1>Anglo population, and it was all it was all racist intent.
<v Speaker 1>It was they felt it interfered with you know, converting
<v Speaker 1>them to Christianity, so you know, right, yeah.
<v Speaker 2>And kept them, kept them on a lower level of
<v Speaker 2>existence in some cultural manner. But see, that's the thing
<v Speaker 2>is like, I guess the reason I'm trying to get
<v Speaker 2>to the safety thing because if it was really about safety,
<v Speaker 2>by the way, then why did we carve out an
<v Speaker 2>exemption for Native Americans? Is it that their safety is
<v Speaker 2>less important? Well? Or is that they don't deserve equal
<v Speaker 2>protection from dangerous substances.
<v Speaker 1>I think people know that, I mean unless you're When
<v Speaker 1>I was an adjunct professor at SEUL Ross, there were
<v Speaker 1>some people there who their main motivation for getting rid
<v Speaker 1>of Martin Terry's dea licensed payoty collection was that they
<v Speaker 1>thought it was dangerous. They thought the football team's going
<v Speaker 1>to come in here, eat all of it and have
<v Speaker 1>to be sent to the er, which is hilarious. And
<v Speaker 1>also it's so Texas, like I could totally picture, you know,
<v Speaker 1>some administrator in Texas. No offense to anybody imagining that
<v Speaker 1>that's a reality and that Payote's dangerous. But I think
<v Speaker 1>most people know payote is not dangerous. But this attempt
<v Speaker 1>to culturally preserve it is what I'm concerned about. It
<v Speaker 1>seems like this is some fear of it being appropriated
<v Speaker 1>or further endangered if it's decriminalized. And that again comes
<v Speaker 1>from this idea that you know, these Anglo drug bros
<v Speaker 1>or whoever, are going to drive down to Texas hop
<v Speaker 1>a fence, walk through thorn scrub and go around digging
<v Speaker 1>this plant up when you can and purchase seeds of
<v Speaker 1>it online for nothing.
<v Speaker 2>So that cultural sensitivity and the illogical idea that is
<v Speaker 2>dangerous or like the two main harmful elements to the
<v Speaker 2>species itself. I mean, it helps to identify that because
<v Speaker 2>then you start seeing the multiple layers involved. So I
<v Speaker 2>want to backtrack just for a second in terms of Arizona.
<v Speaker 2>So you're right. So what it is is that Arizona
<v Speaker 2>law has an exemption to where your possession and use
<v Speaker 2>of piety is exempt from prosecution if it was being
<v Speaker 2>used in a religious context. Whereas the state of Texas,
<v Speaker 2>where the insitu work needs to take place, it's specifically
<v Speaker 2>prohibited for you to possess paety for anything other than
<v Speaker 2>to sell or as a licensed member of the Native
<v Speaker 2>American church, buying it and transporting it out of it
<v Speaker 2>and maybe using it within the state. But it is
<v Speaker 2>specifically prohibited to cultivate it, transplant it, put it in
<v Speaker 2>a pot, collect the seeds, plant the seeds. So there
<v Speaker 2>is no religious exemption for conservation. It is not made
<v Speaker 2>exempt in Texas. I just want to be specific.
<v Speaker 1>So the status called that it's set up for extinction
<v Speaker 1>basically in Texas.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, it's a legal bias toward extinction. I've said this
<v Speaker 2>for too many years. It is actually a legal bias
<v Speaker 2>to create a trend, which, like I say, takes some
<v Speaker 2>decades to see the effect of. You don't see it
<v Speaker 2>in nineteen seventy. There's plenty around every time we go
<v Speaker 2>buy it is cheap. I think when I first went
<v Speaker 2>down it was like a maybe it went up to
<v Speaker 2>one hundred and ten dollars after a couple of years
<v Speaker 2>per thousand. And that sack of a thousand was not small.
<v Speaker 1>So eleven cent plant, eleven cents a button, yeah, and
<v Speaker 1>these were.
<v Speaker 2>So now we're up to I don't know, seven, seven
<v Speaker 2>hundred and fifty dollars for a very small sack of
<v Speaker 2>small buttons.
<v Speaker 1>And these these are these are cuttings too. These are
<v Speaker 1>cut buttons, which means the plant is still intact and
<v Speaker 1>we'll re sprout. That's the other thing we forgot to
<v Speaker 1>mention is that this, you know, cutting this plant harvesting
<v Speaker 1>is a sustainable thing. If there is some guy growing
<v Speaker 1>it in an apartment in Lansing, Michigan, he could very
<v Speaker 1>well cut his own plant and it would re sprout
<v Speaker 1>as long as he didn't like.
<v Speaker 2>Every time you cut. Every time you cut your plant,
<v Speaker 2>you get new crowned so you're technically making more, but
<v Speaker 2>only if it's done correctly. And it's not done correctly
<v Speaker 2>in Texas because of the degradation of the the populations
<v Speaker 2>these little ones that we buy. Now, I'll tell you, Joey,
<v Speaker 2>for the most part, if I had to give you
<v Speaker 2>a percentage, I would say that a good still have
<v Speaker 2>their stem, their underground stem attached, because nobody's getting in
<v Speaker 2>there on their hands and knees and just cutting off
<v Speaker 2>the tops of these smaller ones. It's easier doing their
<v Speaker 2>big and when they're right in front of you, But
<v Speaker 2>the rest of them are kind of kind of root
<v Speaker 2>hold up. You know, there's like a hoe, like a
<v Speaker 2>little short handled plow kind of.
<v Speaker 1>Thing, because that's what's going inefficient. I guess it's you.
<v Speaker 1>You're a Palo taro. You're sweating your ass off, you're
<v Speaker 1>getting bit by mosquitos, covered in ticks and poked with
<v Speaker 1>you know, thorny blackbrush, and you're just out there just
<v Speaker 1>just whacking whatever. You know, who cares? Just getting the.
<v Speaker 2>Harvesting technique is partly you're blamed for this. And none
<v Speaker 2>of those remain, None of those remain to make more,
<v Speaker 2>those little ones like that. So what we do is
<v Speaker 2>I purposefully sort out the little ones that come for
<v Speaker 2>church use. And fortunately a lot of other Native American
<v Speaker 2>church members take part in this kind of thing. They
<v Speaker 2>select out the smaller ones with their whole stem intact,
<v Speaker 2>rather than slicing them up for ceremonial use, because they'll
<v Speaker 2>be big in just a few years and can be
<v Speaker 2>then used for ceremonial use. And every time you cut them,
<v Speaker 2>they make more. It just doesn't make sense to not
<v Speaker 2>do it that way.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so you guys are purchasing. You guys are purchasing medicine.
<v Speaker 1>It's all legal, all transported legally, all the paperwork bringing
<v Speaker 1>it to Arizona, and then you use what you save
<v Speaker 1>some for ceremony, and then the ones that are too
<v Speaker 1>small you just root and make new plants.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we're forced to do that. There's no other source.
<v Speaker 2>That's the crazy thing. It's like having one source for
<v Speaker 2>your venison. It's all licensed by the same entity, and
<v Speaker 2>there's no regulation into how it's hardested, whether properly or improperly.
<v Speaker 2>I mean that is just like this technical aspect. It's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>the hardesting technique itself is partially the source of the depletion.
<v Speaker 1>It's it's cool.
<v Speaker 2>Rather than rather than creating more, you see what I'm saying.
<v Speaker 2>It's like very it's it's it right and there's more
<v Speaker 2>or you cut it wrong, and there's less It's.
<v Speaker 1>It's crazy and it's unfortunate that Arizona law facilitates conservation
<v Speaker 1>X city conservation and propagation at its plant, but the
<v Speaker 1>place where it's native, the state where it's native, doesn't.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's not even native. It's not even legal
<v Speaker 1>for Native Americans to plant it. If there was a
<v Speaker 1>Native American group that wanted to go purchase land and start,
<v Speaker 1>you know, repopulating it with payote ceilings, they could not
<v Speaker 1>legally do it unless they got a DEA permit like
<v Speaker 1>I pc I did, et cetera. I mean, there's there's
<v Speaker 1>no in South Texas is where it grows. Best's this
<v Speaker 1>is there's.
<v Speaker 2>So many layer there's so many layers of the ill
<v Speaker 2>logic that it's hard to get my mind around. And
<v Speaker 2>I think about it all the time. Here's another goofy thing.
<v Speaker 2>For example, you can be a Mexican in South Texas
<v Speaker 2>and perfectly illegal, legally go and cut extremely certain threatened
<v Speaker 2>plants and bring them back to the dude, and he
<v Speaker 2>gives you money for them, and you go buy beer
<v Speaker 2>and whatnot, and that's perfectly illegal. But you cannot eat
<v Speaker 2>one of those you can't. Oh, that is a federal offense,
<v Speaker 2>so law offense.
<v Speaker 1>So law also states that the payotos cannot consume what
<v Speaker 1>they're harvesting, the Payotaro's and the dealers the license they.
<v Speaker 2>Can unless they can show what they call twenty five
<v Speaker 2>percent Indian blood and be a member of the Native
<v Speaker 2>American Church all at the same time. So that's three things.
<v Speaker 2>You're a Mexican, you're an Indian, and you're a member
<v Speaker 2>of a Native American church. And that species doesn't exist
<v Speaker 2>too much down there, at least not among the people
<v Speaker 2>that are picking the plants themselves. So it's it's just
<v Speaker 2>as weird. It's there's so many layers that don't make sense,
<v Speaker 2>is what we're kind of all talking about.
<v Speaker 1>Right. So the law, the law, the law is is
<v Speaker 1>kind of putting the plant on track towards extinction, and
<v Speaker 1>populations are rapidly declining. I've even heard, you know, botanists
<v Speaker 1>in the state who possibly have some authority, you know,
<v Speaker 1>mumbling about it being listed as an endangered species, which
<v Speaker 1>I think is the worst, the worst thing you could
<v Speaker 1>do in a state like Texas, because if you make
<v Speaker 1>something an endangered species of plant in Texas, then it
<v Speaker 1>now it becomes targeted, you know, and people will actively,
<v Speaker 1>if it's on their land, will actively destroy it and
<v Speaker 1>get rid of it because there's this fear that it
<v Speaker 1>means the federal government's going to come in and take
<v Speaker 1>your land. I think putting this not just terrible idea, But.
<v Speaker 2>There's not just that. There's also the element that if
<v Speaker 2>you make it an endangered species, that directly conflicts with
<v Speaker 2>the legal trade. Right, nobody in the Native American church
<v Speaker 2>really wants to see all of a sudden that they
<v Speaker 2>can't order medicine for their prayer ceremony.
<v Speaker 1>Right. There's this too. But then there's again the Native
<v Speaker 1>American groups that want to petition to keep it. They
<v Speaker 1>don't want it legalized, they don't want it decriminalized. And
<v Speaker 1>this is what I wanted to get to. I think
<v Speaker 1>it's I understand the motives, but I think it is
<v Speaker 1>completely short sighted and illogical and further endangers the plant.
<v Speaker 1>Can we talk about that a little bit? What's your
<v Speaker 1>what's your opinions on that? I mean there have been
<v Speaker 1>you know, Navajo Nation wrote uh, I don't know the
<v Speaker 1>exact details. They wrote the federal government and basically petitioning
<v Speaker 1>it to keep it illegal. You know, I totally believe
<v Speaker 1>in cultural preservation, but this is not the way to
<v Speaker 1>do it. This is not the way to do it.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, And you brought up Canada, where it's legal
<v Speaker 1>to grow, and let's talk about Canada. What's what's what's
<v Speaker 1>the status of payote up there? It's totally illegal to grow,
<v Speaker 1>but illegal to consume unless you're Native, right.
<v Speaker 2>Right? They have Native American church groups in Canada. So
<v Speaker 2>people up there must purchase their medicine from Texas did
<v Speaker 2>it ship to them? At the same time, Canadian laws
<v Speaker 2>specifically states that you can grow, possess, share, sell the
<v Speaker 2>plant itself. You're just not allowed to eat it for
<v Speaker 2>drug purposes. So this goes back to that question of safety.
<v Speaker 2>Does government have a compelling interest in regulating paote in
<v Speaker 2>Canada because of safety issues? No, there is no safety
<v Speaker 2>issue with the legal possession of parity in Canada. This
<v Speaker 2>is this is just verified by time. And I actually, Joey,
<v Speaker 2>you love this story. But I know a fella who
<v Speaker 2>was arrested and put in prison in Canada for manufacture
<v Speaker 2>I guess possibly distribution of LSD. And he decided as
<v Speaker 2>his prison project, asked permission to grow paoty in the
<v Speaker 2>prison greenhouse and was allowed to do so so.
<v Speaker 1>In jail.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, And so I'm saying this is the status in Canada.
<v Speaker 2>I am blessed to spend part of my time there
<v Speaker 2>with my Canadian wife and family. We have a home
<v Speaker 2>there and we grow medicine there, and there's just no
<v Speaker 2>issue with it. There's no issue with it. There is,
<v Speaker 2>just isn't. And there's payoty growers and collectors just on
<v Speaker 2>the west coast of Canada that I know personally that
<v Speaker 2>I've met over time. It's not an issue. It's not
<v Speaker 2>a drug issue, and nobody's getting stuff on peyote. There's
<v Speaker 2>why through the mail you can you can buy the seed,
<v Speaker 2>you can purchase a plant, grow it at home. And
<v Speaker 2>so I guess what I'm coming to with this, Joey,
<v Speaker 2>is that there's also no compelling interest in the United States.
<v Speaker 2>It's a myth and and this is like, so we've
<v Speaker 2>bushwhacked our way down to what you're talking about, which
<v Speaker 2>is why there's a push to keep it illegal, and
<v Speaker 2>why Native American church members themselves are oftentimes as individuals
<v Speaker 2>and sometimes as organizations, making statements uh to keep it illegal.
<v Speaker 2>I mean because we had to bushwhack our way there.
<v Speaker 2>So there's all these layers, starting with the federal prejudices,
<v Speaker 2>the cultural prejudices, the thing towards Christianization. I guess you
<v Speaker 2>could say, away from native traditions.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, that's obviously, you know, a partially a
<v Speaker 1>way to hide it from or to or to to
<v Speaker 1>to get it permitted among you know, the dominant culture
<v Speaker 1>that's trying to suppress you, which is Christian. You know,
<v Speaker 1>you inject the Christianity into it and at this point
<v Speaker 1>that's basically part of it now. But that totally makes
<v Speaker 1>sense too. But there's yeah, I mean, there's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>like you were saying, we bushwhacked here, it was. There's
<v Speaker 1>many layers. But the point is because we have a model.
<v Speaker 1>We have a model for how it is, what happens
<v Speaker 1>when it's legal someplace. We have a model in Canada.
<v Speaker 1>It's not it's not an issue of safety. No one's
<v Speaker 1>getting hurt by this. And also it's not an issue
<v Speaker 1>of cultural disrespect because as far as I know, there's
<v Speaker 1>not some big cult of Caucasian drug bros who are
<v Speaker 1>engaging in the sale and trade of peyote for you know,
<v Speaker 1>for drug use for consumption. It's not some there's not
<v Speaker 1>been some rush as far as I know, by psychedelic
<v Speaker 1>entrepreneurs on Canadian populations of this plant and cultivation that
<v Speaker 1>would in any way disrespect you know, Native American churches
<v Speaker 1>of it.
<v Speaker 2>So again, plant dorks, plant dorks are not your problem.
<v Speaker 2>You know, Cacti bros aren't even your problem. As far
<v Speaker 2>as I can tell. That's a good thing. Like let
<v Speaker 2>a person get in love with nature. Man, I mean yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I mean, how not dangerous can we possibly be talking
<v Speaker 2>about here? I mean, it's not an issue in cannabis.
<v Speaker 1>Like the cannabis thing is an excellent example. I know
<v Speaker 1>so many people who've ridden me, who you know, said, oh,
<v Speaker 1>I got into your podcast because I was. I was
<v Speaker 1>initially into cannabis, and now I'm into all these other things,
<v Speaker 1>these other native plants. I'm you know, learning about science
<v Speaker 1>and interested in all these elements of the natural world.
<v Speaker 1>It's a it's a gateway, it really is towards towards
<v Speaker 1>not just conservation and quote nature, but also towards science.
<v Speaker 1>So I don't understand why there's this, you know, repetitive
<v Speaker 1>and constant push to keep it illegal among among the
<v Speaker 1>native groups down here. It's I understand, it's like this
<v Speaker 1>gatekeeping thing. It's it's an emotional issue, but it seems
<v Speaker 1>that directly conflicts with conservation of a plant who's becoming
<v Speaker 1>with every passing year more endangered.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I have a lot of compassion for the emotion
<v Speaker 2>of it, you know, I have a lot of emotion
<v Speaker 2>about it. I confessed this to you earlier, Like I
<v Speaker 2>do have a lot of emotion about it. And non
<v Speaker 2>tribal people might not be able to easily recognize what
<v Speaker 2>it feels like to have your traditions taken away within
<v Speaker 2>your grandparents' generation. It feels different, you know, if you
<v Speaker 2>were raised at a boarding school, taken away from your
<v Speaker 2>family and tadd different ways to have a lot of
<v Speaker 2>them about it. And so I get that we still
<v Speaker 2>need to look for a logic in our arguments. So
<v Speaker 2>you were at a ceremony with me in South Texas
<v Speaker 2>and we had one of the thirteen Indigenous Grandmother Council
<v Speaker 2>members there with us. We were so fortunate to have her.
<v Speaker 2>She was happy to share her thoughts with us, and
<v Speaker 2>I remember her in the morning and here we are
<v Speaker 2>in a very meditation filled space, you know, trying to
<v Speaker 2>have our minds and our hearts clear and be open
<v Speaker 2>each other. And she went ahead and shared with us
<v Speaker 2>how she didn't really look around at her reservation in
<v Speaker 2>Oklahoma and see the problem could be with like other
<v Speaker 2>than Native people trying to do something good. She even
<v Speaker 2>cracked us up when she said something like, you know,
<v Speaker 2>I look around sometimes I see these white people taking
<v Speaker 2>care of things better than we do ourselves. She's like,
<v Speaker 2>why can't we, you know, work together. Yeah, I remember saying,
<v Speaker 2>and that kind of clarity, you know, she had to
<v Speaker 2>cut through the emotion of it to like get this
<v Speaker 2>recognition that this is what we're praying about. That's what
<v Speaker 2>that ceremony was for, right, and so could we just
<v Speaker 2>get clear about this, like let's it was almost like
<v Speaker 2>she was saying, we needed the jettison some of our
<v Speaker 2>opinionated emotions. And I have to do the same thing.
<v Speaker 2>Like I get on the Instagram and you know, I
<v Speaker 2>see and I get contacted by different cact dibros and stuff,
<v Speaker 2>and sometimes I wonder, like, you know, it's beautiful what
<v Speaker 2>you're doing, but you do have to realize that you
<v Speaker 2>are kind of like a thorn in the side of
<v Speaker 2>some people when you're coming onto this like it's your
<v Speaker 2>privilege somehow. Well, not everybody's had that privilege. Like a
<v Speaker 2>lot of people, you know in inquisition days died about this.
<v Speaker 2>You know a lot of people in our timeline went
<v Speaker 2>to jail for this, or or got ostracized for this,
<v Speaker 2>or lost their jobs for this.
<v Speaker 1>There's been a war against Peyote for five suspense got
<v Speaker 1>here since the spear.
<v Speaker 2>Social pressure not to be one of those people. I
<v Speaker 2>guess even in my own life, brother, I you know,
<v Speaker 2>I've seen a couple of jails in a Mexican prison
<v Speaker 2>over my own activities and beliefs. I was arrested with
<v Speaker 2>a little film canisterer half full of seeds I had collected,
<v Speaker 2>and they told me and that ago it was popping
<v Speaker 2>sceeds and I was going to do twenty seven years
<v Speaker 2>in their whole prison.
<v Speaker 1>You were in jail with the weechos, right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and uh, it's not uncommon. So I guess I'm
<v Speaker 2>just saying like, yeah, there's a lot involved here on
<v Speaker 2>personal levels, Like all of us, every one of us
<v Speaker 2>that really believes somehow in the goodness of this plant.
<v Speaker 2>We can tell our stories of how it's just not
<v Speaker 2>like a game like your life is involved. I in
<v Speaker 2>the United States, I was once charged with child endangerment
<v Speaker 2>for having a peety planter a garden in my living
<v Speaker 2>room in front of the sun window that my kids
<v Speaker 2>grew up with, and I grew.
<v Speaker 1>Up this was it. I mean, this is an and
<v Speaker 1>your native American.
<v Speaker 2>And they were still, well, I'm a Mexican, brother, I'm
<v Speaker 2>a I'm a Native American manufactured with parts made in my.
<v Speaker 1>It look pretty indigenous to me. I mean, and I
<v Speaker 1>don't know, I I'm kind of surprised, well that surprise,
<v Speaker 1>but still, I mean, this is nineties, right, This was
<v Speaker 1>a big deal. Was this nineties or late eighties? You
<v Speaker 1>remember you tell me about this before? This was an
<v Speaker 1>Arizona right, oh, in the early nineties.
<v Speaker 2>And I just point that out because like my kids
<v Speaker 2>were raising the desert with rattlesnakes outside. I used to
<v Speaker 2>have to haul them off, you know, keep them away
<v Speaker 2>from the place, and you know, learning about which how
<v Speaker 2>walk in the desert without getting hurt. And here they
<v Speaker 2>were telling me I was endareting my kids by having
<v Speaker 2>this beautiful garden with flowers you know that we could
<v Speaker 2>see every morning. So what I did was at that time.
<v Speaker 2>You know, I'm a bit of a maniac when I
<v Speaker 2>have to be. I got a hold of the Department
<v Speaker 2>of Poison Control in Texas specifically, you know, started in
<v Speaker 2>South Texas but ended up with somebody I think in
<v Speaker 2>Austin somewhere, and they were like, what, that's ridiculous charging
<v Speaker 2>with child endangerment. They maintained that they had no record
<v Speaker 2>ever of anybody in South Tape, Texas, any child ever
<v Speaker 2>being poisoned by the peoty that grows around there, you know,
<v Speaker 2>and and it is kind of omnipresent in a lot
<v Speaker 2>of people's world when you live out there. And I'm
<v Speaker 2>just pointing that out, and I was like, this has
<v Speaker 2>never been this thing to where we're like, hey man,
<v Speaker 2>this this is awesome. Everybody gets some payoty and la
<v Speaker 2>la la lah No. We we have a personal relationship
<v Speaker 2>with the plant that is important to us. And I
<v Speaker 2>guess so I'm just trying to explain that the emotion
<v Speaker 2>that goes with it is very understandable, and that's why
<v Speaker 2>the squeeze comes. Like politically, there's certain organizations that the
<v Speaker 2>file briefs to whatever you might call it, with these
<v Speaker 2>jurisdictional bodies that are trying to pass and D crime law,
<v Speaker 2>saying please don't decriminalized peuty. We're very sensitive about this,
<v Speaker 2>you know, we haven't been consulted, whatever it might be.
<v Speaker 2>And then one time I saw something that really did
<v Speaker 2>kind of make sense about this to me, and that
<v Speaker 2>was that I believe it's probably still somewhere in their
<v Speaker 2>website and their documents that the Indigenous Peoty Conservation UH
<v Speaker 2>Protection Initiative, the IPCI asked a certain jurisdiction I can't
<v Speaker 2>remember which to just not use the word peuty in
<v Speaker 2>their D crime laws. Now, that kind of made sense
<v Speaker 2>to me, like, let's not bring that up.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I get on board with that.
<v Speaker 2>I can get on board with that. That makes sense
<v Speaker 2>to me. Somehow. You're not waving a flag it, you're
<v Speaker 2>not saying we don't care how you feel about it.
<v Speaker 2>If you're going to make plants legal, make plants legal,
<v Speaker 2>but let's not get into all this hair splitting, because
<v Speaker 2>it's not going to make it any better realistically.
<v Speaker 1>So there's this very understandable emotional certainly urged to protect this,
<v Speaker 1>and I think anybody with any sense about them can
<v Speaker 1>understand that. How do you think you convince people that
<v Speaker 1>want to but at the same time, before we even
<v Speaker 1>get into that, but at the same time, this urge
<v Speaker 1>to protect it might be might have adverse effects that
<v Speaker 1>actually affect physical populations of the plant and effect negatively
<v Speaker 1>affect its conservation. How do you convince people that want
<v Speaker 1>to keep it illegal for cultural reasons to see that
<v Speaker 1>one there's a different there's another way to protect their
<v Speaker 1>culturally that doesn't include, you know, making it illegal to
<v Speaker 1>grow or work with for restoration and conservation, and at
<v Speaker 1>the same time get them to see the conservation does
<v Speaker 1>need to happen. In order for it to happen, some
<v Speaker 1>of these roadblocks have to be removed.
<v Speaker 2>Well, I've considered it a lot. How do you convince
<v Speaker 2>some I think, honestly, there's really one way, and it
<v Speaker 2>takes a little bit of time. And the way it
<v Speaker 2>is is that you set an example that you actually
<v Speaker 2>are able to provide beautiful, healthy plants for sacramental use
<v Speaker 2>through conservation. I believe that the day that you can
<v Speaker 2>have a peety ceremony, which that day or that night specifically,
<v Speaker 2>is not that far away. Really, that you can have
<v Speaker 2>a peuty ceremony with plants that were not moved sideways
<v Speaker 2>from somewhere else, in other words, transplanted from somewhere, grown
<v Speaker 2>somewhere else, and harvested. But we're actually grown from seeds.
<v Speaker 2>The day you can in the night that you can
<v Speaker 2>have a paety ceremony with plants grown from seeds that
<v Speaker 2>didn't have to deplete the population in Texas by law,
<v Speaker 2>it's like a force depletion. Then you start showing how
<v Speaker 2>to do it right. I don't really see any other
<v Speaker 2>alternative way of explaining it. Fully, it actually has to
<v Speaker 2>be exemplified.
<v Speaker 1>I think it would have to be. It have to
<v Speaker 1>be a native led organization too. You're not going to
<v Speaker 1>get a bunch of you know, pasties, You're not going
<v Speaker 1>to get a bunch of Anglos doing it. I mean
<v Speaker 1>that goes without saying.
<v Speaker 2>There are there are some people of all colors trying
<v Speaker 2>to help.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, everybody should be trying to help. But in
<v Speaker 1>terms of convincing the people who need convincing, it's going
<v Speaker 1>to have to be some one from within. It's going
<v Speaker 1>to have to be a cadre of people from within.
<v Speaker 2>You know, well that that is probably true, that is
<v Speaker 2>the reality, and that's why we're a native led organization.
<v Speaker 2>Myself personally, I'll start with that I'm doing it for
<v Speaker 2>the plant's sake, But our organization has this other consideration
<v Speaker 2>in that the Native American Church depends on a supply
<v Speaker 2>of payety to continue. So we just have to be
<v Speaker 2>realistic and say, okay, as members of the Native American Church,
<v Speaker 2>we can at least plant the seed to set the
<v Speaker 2>example that it doesn't have to be called from a
<v Speaker 2>threatened population. It can be regenerated from seed and then
<v Speaker 2>harvested sustainably, so you don't always have to have more
<v Speaker 2>and more. You don't always have to be opening up
<v Speaker 2>a new ranch to go in and pick the few
<v Speaker 2>that are left there. It doesn't have to be an
<v Speaker 2>extracted process, is the point. It can be a regenerative harvest.
<v Speaker 2>I almost, Joey, don't really see any alternative. If you
<v Speaker 2>run up the timetable twenty twenty five years, Yeah, what
<v Speaker 2>are we going to do? Then? I really don't see it.
<v Speaker 2>I don't see anybody that does.
<v Speaker 1>With a few exceptions, and I think I think, I
<v Speaker 1>think place. I think location is important too. And this
<v Speaker 1>is going to end up sounding like a damn promotional
<v Speaker 1>for Morning Star, which I did not which I did
<v Speaker 1>not mean to do, but you guys are the only
<v Speaker 1>one doing this. I mean location. What I was gonna
<v Speaker 1>say is location is important, and and there's so many
<v Speaker 1>impediments in Texas where where payote's legal, where payote grows,
<v Speaker 1>there's so many impediments towards doing something like that here.
<v Speaker 1>But a few states over in a somewhat similar climate,
<v Speaker 1>the impediments are far less. And so it makes things
<v Speaker 1>like X sit to conservation, you know, conserving things out
<v Speaker 1>of their native range, but as a means of growing
<v Speaker 1>their population. The situation in Arizona is more amenable to that,
<v Speaker 1>and so.
<v Speaker 2>Well, yeah, and not only that, but if you think
<v Speaker 2>about the farm to fort concept, there's no exact percentage,
<v Speaker 2>but a large percentage of the peuty that is distributed
<v Speaker 2>from South Texas for Native American church use is consumed
<v Speaker 2>in Arizona. I mean it's a pretty hefty percentage of it.
<v Speaker 2>I have literally thumbed through the receipt books down there,
<v Speaker 2>and you can see like lots of Northern Arizona Navajo Reservation,
<v Speaker 2>southern Arizona. You know, I'm just saying it makes sense
<v Speaker 2>on other levels as well, that you would have a
<v Speaker 2>source where the medicine is being consumed. That doesn't require
<v Speaker 2>you to literally be poaching payote from populations that are
<v Speaker 2>already extremely minimized. It just doesn't make sense.
<v Speaker 1>Payote can be grown in the ground in southern Arizona
<v Speaker 1>as well. I mean, it doesn't occur in the United
<v Speaker 1>States anywhere but Texas. I hear people say I saw
<v Speaker 1>some in New Mexico. It's no, no, you didn't. You
<v Speaker 1>didn't see it there. It does. It's not native. I
<v Speaker 1>saw some in Arizona. You know you didn't, not unless
<v Speaker 1>it was planted. But it will grow fine in the
<v Speaker 1>volcanic soils. Even though it's only native to limestone in Texas.
<v Speaker 1>It will grow fine on the volcanic soils in the
<v Speaker 1>ground in southern Arizona. So that's another thing. I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>why was nobody doing this until now? But that's what
<v Speaker 1>you guys are hoping to do.
<v Speaker 2>Well, we've kind of been doing it. You and I
<v Speaker 2>both visited a something like a twenty seven year old
<v Speaker 2>garden together down here. It's been being done on I guess,
<v Speaker 2>like a kind of micro level. I think I would
<v Speaker 2>be the exemption to that. At some point I had
<v Speaker 2>an outdoor garden of many thousand plants just just thriving
<v Speaker 2>under the mesquite trees out here. It does quite well
<v Speaker 2>in Tucson.
<v Speaker 1>Where was it, Oh.
<v Speaker 2>Just north of Tucson and the heel of River Valley.
<v Speaker 2>There's a lot of limestone ground out there, you know,
<v Speaker 2>along the river. And yeah, the medicine tends to thrive
<v Speaker 2>just planted in the ground. I call it natural culture
<v Speaker 2>because it's totally natural. It's with the desert rains. We
<v Speaker 2>get a very similar average rainfall. Well actually a little
<v Speaker 2>bit more rainfall than the pearity populations of West Texas
<v Speaker 2>do out here. Yeah, most years we get like two
<v Speaker 2>or three more annual inches, you know than like Presidio
<v Speaker 2>for example.
<v Speaker 1>The population that that you and I saw in southern
<v Speaker 1>Arizona was on a reservation and that was I mean,
<v Speaker 1>those were incredibly healthy plants. I was so surprised that
<v Speaker 1>it was such an eye opener for me, and it
<v Speaker 1>kind of hit home harder too. I was like, why
<v Speaker 1>what someone needs to be doing this? I mean, they
<v Speaker 1>this is amazing, Like this is they don't They're they're fine.
<v Speaker 1>Like it's a different climate, you guys get. I mean
<v Speaker 1>it's more similar to West Texas again, but still I
<v Speaker 1>mean it's from South Texas. It's totally different. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>it's chili. It doesn't really get that chili down here.
<v Speaker 1>Uh you know. But these plants were thriving, they were fine.
<v Speaker 1>They were massive clumps. I mean they looked like some
<v Speaker 1>of the populations you see in Mexico. And it was
<v Speaker 1>only thirty years old. Could you tell us about that
<v Speaker 1>garden without naming who it was? Obviously, but but you
<v Speaker 1>know it was a someone who's permitted to use it
<v Speaker 1>and grow it. But how how did that start? I mean,
<v Speaker 1>you you what's the history of that garden? Because it's
<v Speaker 1>it's a real great example of what can be done
<v Speaker 1>for anybody living in southern Arizona. I advise you to
<v Speaker 1>I advise you to do it. But these I mean,
<v Speaker 1>how what do those plants look like when it started.
<v Speaker 2>Well, it was a small handful of medium sized plants,
<v Speaker 2>probably nothing more than silver dollar size, honestly, probably still
<v Speaker 2>had some underground stem attached to it.
<v Speaker 1>They're like grapefruit size. Now that's crazy, and there's huge
<v Speaker 1>clumps of like twenty grapefruits.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and I could go back to the year, but
<v Speaker 2>it was probably something like the late eighties. I believe
<v Speaker 2>it was now like twenty nine, almost thirty years ago, so,
<v Speaker 2>and I've been involved in beauty conservation since nineteen eighty two.
<v Speaker 2>So through the years I've made a lot of relations
<v Speaker 2>amongst the local tribal people. And back in the day,
<v Speaker 2>the concept was just a little bit out there, like
<v Speaker 2>all they knew me as was like this plant dork,
<v Speaker 2>kind of stoner looking Chicano dude. Right, But I loved
<v Speaker 2>this plant so much that I would go around giving
<v Speaker 2>my plants away to native people who wanted to take
<v Speaker 2>care of it. And you know, I'm not saying every
<v Speaker 2>garden succeeded. I put in a few on certain reservations
<v Speaker 2>in myself at the request of the of the people,
<v Speaker 2>and not all of them really took kind of depends
<v Speaker 2>a little bit on the particular environment. But this one
<v Speaker 2>in southern Arizona, this man took the plants. We talked
<v Speaker 2>about where to put him, We set the few in
<v Speaker 2>the ground, and that started his collection. And since then,
<v Speaker 2>every time he'd go to Texas and purchased more plants,
<v Speaker 2>he'd put a few more in. So that garden expanded
<v Speaker 2>and they were like, weren't they like just about the
<v Speaker 2>bigger ones almost grapefruit size at that point. Definitely naval org.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, yeah, I've got photos.
<v Speaker 2>I was.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I see peyote all the time at our
<v Speaker 1>conservation property when I'm out doing surveys. It's not you know,
<v Speaker 1>it's nothing new to me. And I was impressed. I
<v Speaker 1>mean I remember seeing like these look like some of
<v Speaker 1>the wild populations you see in West Texas, you know,
<v Speaker 1>or southern Mexico or Central Mexico and northern Mexico. I
<v Speaker 1>guess where it's you know, you see large clumps of these.
<v Speaker 1>I mean it was impressive. I mean, especially only being
<v Speaker 1>thirty years old, and so he was just I mean,
<v Speaker 1>and this man is not a botanist, he's not a horticulturalist.
<v Speaker 1>He just was he could, but he was still able
<v Speaker 1>to do this. He would just take what was he doing,
<v Speaker 1>taking you know, cut buttons, rooting them and then putting
<v Speaker 1>them in the ground, or what was he doing.
<v Speaker 2>I think he was just rooting them in the ground.
<v Speaker 1>Just putting the buttons in the ground and letting right right.
<v Speaker 2>That's what I've done here. I've brought him back from
<v Speaker 2>Texas and just stuck them in the ground with no
<v Speaker 2>actual roots. You've got the stem right, but you don't
<v Speaker 2>have like the finer roots on them anymore. They just
<v Speaker 2>dry and fall off and transport, right. So you just
<v Speaker 2>stick them in the ground and with the desert rains,
<v Speaker 2>they root all on their own and thrive. They're very adaptable.
<v Speaker 2>After two or three years of our chili winter mornings,
<v Speaker 2>you know, I can see like their their look even
<v Speaker 2>changes a little bit. They get that grayer green look.
<v Speaker 1>Wax and that wax on the on the epidermis.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they get a little bit tougher looking, and they
<v Speaker 2>start to handle the cold winter mornings just fine. I
<v Speaker 2>mean I have actually seen them under the mesquites flowering
<v Speaker 2>in the month of December for example. Wow, So they're
<v Speaker 2>not suffering out here at all.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I was. It was cool at that at that
<v Speaker 1>at that gentleman's house, they were growing under kreosode, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>clumps just thriving under kreosode. And the look is much
<v Speaker 1>different than you know, like the plants that morning Star
<v Speaker 1>has in the greenhouse there that you're growing. How many
<v Speaker 1>which we should talk about to how many plants do
<v Speaker 1>you have in that greenhouse? Now?
<v Speaker 2>Oh gosh, it's not a small number.
<v Speaker 1>Five thousand Oh no, it's more than that.
<v Speaker 2>It's between that and you know, honestly, it might be
<v Speaker 2>up to thirty thousand when you include all the seedlings
<v Speaker 2>and thirty we have mother plants and seedlings and everything
<v Speaker 2>in between. I have some sprouting probably today. So a
<v Speaker 2>specific number.
<v Speaker 1>All the time your Instagram, which is peyoti lorex everybody
<v Speaker 1>on Instagram, and uh, and you're always collecting seed. You're
<v Speaker 1>always collecting fruits. And each fruit is what like a
<v Speaker 1>five to ten seeds in it? What do you think
<v Speaker 1>or seeds? How many?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the smaller fruits on the smaller plants will give
<v Speaker 2>like five, but you know a lot of the larger
<v Speaker 2>plants will give twenty per fruit, sometimes a little more
<v Speaker 2>than twenty.
<v Speaker 1>So you, guys, so there's a green You guys have
<v Speaker 1>a greenhouse with upwards of potentially thirty thousand plants you're
<v Speaker 1>growing from seed. You've got the seed starting room, and
<v Speaker 1>then you've got an actual greenhouse where you're you're growing
<v Speaker 1>these in the original like what's the eventional plant the
<v Speaker 1>eventual plan for all of these plants to put them
<v Speaker 1>back in the ground somewhere, to get to have some
<v Speaker 1>sort of established garden or what Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So the collection that we have is a mixed collection
<v Speaker 2>from different localities, right, seed from different areas, something like
<v Speaker 2>seven different Mexican states and I think five Texas counties.
<v Speaker 2>So we're not looking at trying to necessary early repatriate
<v Speaker 2>or rematriate ah natural environments with this collection as a collection.
<v Speaker 2>Like let's just say there was a repatriation program in
<v Speaker 2>South Texas. Yeah, we've got seeds from Star County. Let's
<v Speaker 2>just say there was one somewhere in San Luis. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>we've got some seeds from those locales. You mean, really,
<v Speaker 2>when you.
<v Speaker 1>Say repatriation of it, you mean you're getting You're just
<v Speaker 1>getting seeds from these areas or what I'm saying.
<v Speaker 2>If plants ever go back to the wild, that's not
<v Speaker 2>necessarily the value. The main value, it's the election we
<v Speaker 2>have here.
<v Speaker 1>It's not legally possible. And also, I mean we've already
<v Speaker 1>established that the plants aren't safe in Texas.
<v Speaker 2>Basically who knows when you could do it. So the
<v Speaker 2>real value of this collection is that it is a
<v Speaker 2>genetic repository of different localities of Lafafa, and so I
<v Speaker 2>see the future potential of it being this that it
<v Speaker 2>continues to grow in the USDA Zone nine, you know,
<v Speaker 2>warmer desert of southern Arizona as a collection. And yeah,
<v Speaker 2>there's separation between varieties just physically on outdoor land, but
<v Speaker 2>we're not trying to maintain genetic purity. What we're trying
<v Speaker 2>to do is supplement the Native American Church needs in
<v Speaker 2>southern Arizona.
<v Speaker 1>You're trying to turn this more in the bathtub.
<v Speaker 2>So that less has to be harvested in South Texas.
<v Speaker 2>That's the short of it.
<v Speaker 1>But the plant is I mean the plan for you
<v Speaker 1>guys to get them in the ground eventually, right, because
<v Speaker 1>I mean they just the plants. Just do any plant
<v Speaker 1>that's so much better in the ground post.
<v Speaker 2>Some of them are already in the ground, but we're looking
<v Speaker 2>for a larger, more permanent location to do that perpetually. Yes, Uh,
<v Speaker 2>we're looking. We're actively looking also raising funds and uh,
<v Speaker 2>we see this collection as a very valuable asset to
<v Speaker 2>the Native American Church in southern Arizona. And so that
<v Speaker 2>is the plan. And and how you do that has
<v Speaker 2>been the question. Like we're not licensed distributors as such,
<v Speaker 2>we're just conservationists. So what I'm looking at is setting
<v Speaker 2>up a prototype of what we're calling a sacramental sponsorship.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I was going to ask I was going to
<v Speaker 1>ask you if this is so, if these are being
<v Speaker 1>grown next sit do for for native use? Yeah? How
<v Speaker 1>do you? How do you get them out there to natives?
<v Speaker 2>So we want it to be their own project in
<v Speaker 2>a sense, although not every teepee ground or reservation has
<v Speaker 2>a desire or capacity to up their own situation, what
<v Speaker 2>they can do is sponsor the plants that already exist.
<v Speaker 2>In other words, they join a program where we maintain
<v Speaker 2>a set of a thousand plants for them. The idea
<v Speaker 2>is that over a ten year period, you'll be able
<v Speaker 2>to harvest from those thousand plants for them. That's the
<v Speaker 2>term of the program. It's in ten year segments really,
<v Speaker 2>and the reason it's ten years is because we're giving
<v Speaker 2>the plants a minimum of five years to grow from
<v Speaker 2>seed before they ever get harvested. Most of them will
<v Speaker 2>be older than that when harvested. But it's a sponsorship
<v Speaker 2>program that Native American church chapters can join, and it's
<v Speaker 2>almost like a friend of mine called it pearity insurance
<v Speaker 2>to where as a sponsor, you know that over a
<v Speaker 2>period of five years, you're going to get two hundred
<v Speaker 2>large Payote crowns per a year for your ceremonial use.
<v Speaker 2>So I'm looking at this as something of a math problem.
<v Speaker 2>If we don't have a realistic plant and we don't
<v Speaker 2>know where future parody is going to come from, we
<v Speaker 2>better start doing some math. So the way we're looking
<v Speaker 2>at it, one thousand plants that are properly cut instead
<v Speaker 2>of one thousand plants less being in the world. At
<v Speaker 2>the end of that, there's going to be at least
<v Speaker 2>one thousand plants more created because when you properly cut paoty,
<v Speaker 2>it creates more. So this is the idea behind sponsorship,
<v Speaker 2>that you sponsor one thousand plants that are ethically harvested,
<v Speaker 2>sustainably grown, and at the end of that there's actually
<v Speaker 2>more and you can re up for another ten years.
<v Speaker 2>So this is kind of a realistic, somewhat long term
<v Speaker 2>investment in parity's future that we can see that makes sense.
<v Speaker 2>It's what we can do. We can't save the ecology
<v Speaker 2>of South Texas. We can't make it okay, we can't
<v Speaker 2>change the laws necessarily, especially not right away. But if
<v Speaker 2>we don't start planting seeds for the future now, there
<v Speaker 2>is no future. That's the crux of the matter. We're
<v Speaker 2>stuck between time and scarcity, so we can't do nothing.
<v Speaker 1>So that's again it's ext to do conservation. It's the
<v Speaker 1>same thing that was done with the California condors and
<v Speaker 1>is actively occurring with many other endangered plants and animals.
<v Speaker 1>It's a way of growing the population and trying to
<v Speaker 1>stem the tide of population decline that's hitting the species,
<v Speaker 1>both in the US and in Mexico. And I wanted
<v Speaker 1>to mention too that I think the thing that's interesting,
<v Speaker 1>and I see this with all the native plants anywhere
<v Speaker 1>I go, is that, especially in extreme climates like you
<v Speaker 1>see in Texas or in the American Southwest, is that
<v Speaker 1>the native plants and cultivation many times look much healthier
<v Speaker 1>and more robust than some of the plants you might
<v Speaker 1>see in habitat you know, where they're in habitat where
<v Speaker 1>they're getting hit by prolonged drought, climate change related weather issues,
<v Speaker 1>howter summers, I mean, you know, the climate change I mean,
<v Speaker 1>christ Man, Like I was just in Chicago, they don't
<v Speaker 1>even really get harsh winters anymore. And so but in
<v Speaker 1>a cultivated setting, the native plants can be cared for.
<v Speaker 1>They can be stewarded, They can be attended to if
<v Speaker 1>something looks like something's being hit. You know, if plants
<v Speaker 1>look like they're being hit by a fungal infection, or
<v Speaker 1>there's an insect or or there's a rabbits or something,
<v Speaker 1>they can be you know, measures can then be taken
<v Speaker 1>to protect them against that. They can also be watered.
<v Speaker 1>They can be given supplemental watering if needed if it's
<v Speaker 1>an especially long drought, because I mean, Payot's really really
<v Speaker 1>drought resists, and obviously it's a cactus. But they can
<v Speaker 1>still I mean, it can still take a toll on them.
<v Speaker 1>It can slow growth rate, it can set them back,
<v Speaker 1>it can make the plants more prone to diseases, to
<v Speaker 1>insect their fungal pests. So, I mean there's a lot
<v Speaker 1>to be said there for crew. But at the same time,
<v Speaker 1>it's in the ground, so there's a lot to be
<v Speaker 1>said there for this method you're proposing of preserving it
<v Speaker 1>exit to putting it in the ground and also being
<v Speaker 1>able to stewart it, nurture it and care for it
<v Speaker 1>and pay attention to it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I don't think it's just a good idea. I
<v Speaker 2>think it's necessary. That's where I get emotional about it.
<v Speaker 2>I'm not just playing around like sixty some years old.
<v Speaker 2>I'd really like to see something positive happen here. I
<v Speaker 2>think it's so blessed throughout my life by this little plant. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and my love for it. It's just I can't even
<v Speaker 2>describe it.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I think it's necessarily. It's like like the way.
<v Speaker 2>You feel about the way you feel about a child,
<v Speaker 2>or your your favorite dog or from your childhood. You know,
<v Speaker 2>that's kind of like the relationship I have with this
<v Speaker 2>little plant. So it puts this whole weight on it
<v Speaker 2>for me where I just want to see something could happen.
<v Speaker 2>And the only way I know how to do it is,
<v Speaker 2>like I say, to do what we can do. It's
<v Speaker 2>very limited, but you can do what's in front of you.
<v Speaker 2>And what I can do is I can handpullin eight
<v Speaker 2>flowers every day, I can collect the seeds, I can
<v Speaker 2>replant those seeds and at least something's happening, so you know,
<v Speaker 2>and like you say, it's straight up conservation at that point,
<v Speaker 2>based out of love, you know, built with prayer. There's
<v Speaker 2>been a lot of prayers about this, so it's weird
<v Speaker 2>that with these other plants like that, or species like
<v Speaker 2>the condor or bison, or any endangered species very rarely.
<v Speaker 2>I'm trying to think of an exception to this. Is
<v Speaker 2>there a legal trade in the species at the same time.
<v Speaker 2>So that's the weird thing about the multiple impact of
<v Speaker 2>pressure on this spe Yeah, yeah, you're selling it at
<v Speaker 2>the same time. You know. The last time they kept
<v Speaker 2>records I think was in twenty sixteen, and the quantity
<v Speaker 2>of payote, or at least that they made records available publicly,
<v Speaker 2>was twenty sixteen. That was the last year, I believe,
<v Speaker 2>and the number at that year was still around a
<v Speaker 2>million plants per year being sold legally, right, and it
<v Speaker 2>had peaked at just under two million for a few
<v Speaker 2>years when that could still be done. I imagine that
<v Speaker 2>if you look at the graph now, it would be
<v Speaker 2>a downslide because there's just yeah, I've seen that available.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I've seen that graph based on Texas Department of
<v Speaker 1>Public Safety records, and you can already see I mean again,
<v Speaker 1>they stop they stopped taking take collecting data in twenty sixteen,
<v Speaker 1>but even then, prior to that, you could see a
<v Speaker 1>you know, a very visible and ridiculous downward trend. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Right, And so I'm just saying most other species, unless
<v Speaker 2>it's like hunting or something else killing it off, it
<v Speaker 2>doesn't have that artificial pressure on it. It probably does
<v Speaker 2>have some artificial pressures, but not a commercial trade of
<v Speaker 2>a million of those poor guys every year.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's that's crazy. It's like a I mean, it's
<v Speaker 1>a it's like a crop demand. It is. It's a
<v Speaker 1>crop demand, but there's nobody farming it.
<v Speaker 2>So that's what people don't really always recognize about the
<v Speaker 2>whole payudia issue. Yeah, it's a schedule on drug. Hippies
<v Speaker 2>used to try to have it and blah blah blah,
<v Speaker 2>Beavis and Butt had found it in their big venture
<v Speaker 2>or whatever it is. It's like a cultural thing, but
<v Speaker 2>the reality of it is even weirder than any of
<v Speaker 2>our cultural war like just the craziness of it. Like,
<v Speaker 2>let me just say this, because again we're not even
<v Speaker 2>you got to look at all the squares on the
<v Speaker 2>chess board sometimes just get perspective, right, So this whole
<v Speaker 2>thing of how like anybody pretty much like myself, we
<v Speaker 2>can go down there and get a little card from
<v Speaker 2>the distributor who's license and that makes us license to
<v Speaker 2>go out on this land that the man has bought
<v Speaker 2>a lease for. You go out there and you pick
<v Speaker 2>it all day long. You find as many as you can,
<v Speaker 2>you bring it back. He gives you money, cash money,
<v Speaker 2>but you better not have eaten one that day. Another
<v Speaker 2>tangent to that is that that whole thing about can
<v Speaker 2>we just openly talk about, for like at least a minute,
<v Speaker 2>about how weird it is that the federal government can
<v Speaker 2>tell you what race you have to be or what
<v Speaker 2>church you have to be a member of to do anything.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's I think that is a really it's weird.
<v Speaker 2>I just want to say that we're not looking at
<v Speaker 2>everything if we don't look at how weird that is too.
<v Speaker 2>So there's so much weirdness about it that you almost
<v Speaker 2>it's hard to get in there and talk about it.
<v Speaker 2>And that's what you and I have been trying to
<v Speaker 2>do here write like I say, doing some weed wacket. Well,
<v Speaker 2>I think you get to like what really is going on?
<v Speaker 1>I think, well, yeah, and I think it's hard to
<v Speaker 1>because it's I mean, it took me years to understand
<v Speaker 1>the situation down here with Peyotero's with who's is there
<v Speaker 1>actually poaching going on? How much of how much of
<v Speaker 1>it is like you know, drug bro meat heads on Facebook,
<v Speaker 1>market place, how much of it? You know, what's going
<v Speaker 1>on with the native element of it. I mean, you know,
<v Speaker 1>people like families will come down to purchase medicine. Some
<v Speaker 1>might go poaching too sometimes, you know, hoping fences with
<v Speaker 1>buckets and cutting you know, where does this It took
<v Speaker 1>me a while to understand it's so it's not there's
<v Speaker 1>not a lot of knowledge out there, and again it's
<v Speaker 1>all tainted by the drug war aspect. I mean, I
<v Speaker 1>think you make something taboo and you increase demand for
<v Speaker 1>it when you make it illegal. Sam Pedro, I mean,
<v Speaker 1>there's so many plants that are psychoactive that are illegal,
<v Speaker 1>and there's not a lot of people outside of a
<v Speaker 1>very very small minority who learned about it on the
<v Speaker 1>internet and also have the desire to use them, who
<v Speaker 1>are out using them. And I think would be the
<v Speaker 1>same way with peyote, Like it's it tastes like hell,
<v Speaker 1>it's no offense of the plants. It causes stomach upset,
<v Speaker 1>it causes vomiting, and a lot of people it's but it,
<v Speaker 1>you know, but mushrooms are very easy to get for
<v Speaker 1>a somewhat similar effect. I don't think, you know, if
<v Speaker 1>it were legal or decriminalized, there's going to be this
<v Speaker 1>massive rush by non native users to descend on this
<v Speaker 1>plant and try to ingest it or try it out
<v Speaker 1>or use it. I just don't think that's the reality.
<v Speaker 2>Well, oh man, it's so weird, Like, hang on, one
<v Speaker 2>more weirdness. So in the state of Texas, let's say
<v Speaker 2>you're a Native American church member, but you're not a
<v Speaker 2>federally registered Indian as the law says. That means all
<v Speaker 2>of a sudden, your use paity is illegal. Or if
<v Speaker 2>you're a Native American who's not a member of the
<v Speaker 2>Native American Church, your use is also illegal. Like when
<v Speaker 2>you start splitting hairs on the logic here, it's almost infinite.
<v Speaker 2>And then the other aspect of this is, so we've
<v Speaker 2>out like what heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, all these things on
<v Speaker 2>scheduled one that are highly illegal, right, federal crimes. How
<v Speaker 2>well have we eliminated these things by doing that? If
<v Speaker 2>we don't look at that part of it. How what
<v Speaker 2>you just mentioned, Joe, that we make all these laws
<v Speaker 2>and it almost increases intrigues. I think a variation of
<v Speaker 2>what they call the streisand effect, you know.
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, and then there's the black market effect too,
<v Speaker 1>of course, I mean there's.
<v Speaker 2>So the demand increases at that point, distribution will follow.
<v Speaker 2>And you just look at the urban streets and you
<v Speaker 2>see the amount of opiates that are afflicting our society. Dude,
<v Speaker 2>oh my god.
<v Speaker 1>Wild. And at the same time, you know, people law
<v Speaker 1>abiding citizens and posizens are otherwise law abiding, like some
<v Speaker 1>old lady who wants to grow a because she collects cactus,
<v Speaker 1>and this is an actual thing. I mean, I've seen this.
<v Speaker 1>I've seen a number of just like old like three
<v Speaker 1>or four of people I know that are women in
<v Speaker 1>their sixties seventies who just grow a ton of cactus
<v Speaker 1>but are afraid to grow peyote because it's illegal to
<v Speaker 1>possess and they have no interest in using it. They're
<v Speaker 1>not they don't use any drugs, they're not drug people,
<v Speaker 1>but they don't they can't grow it, and if they could,
<v Speaker 1>they could be growing a ton of it, you know,
<v Speaker 1>they grow a ton of other rare cactus species and
<v Speaker 1>do really well by it, you know, and increase the population,
<v Speaker 1>but they can't do that with lafafa because it's illegal.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's just it's it's a wild it's wild
<v Speaker 1>that it's still illegal, and it's wild that there's still
<v Speaker 1>a push to keep it that way when it's it's
<v Speaker 1>still threatened.
<v Speaker 2>Well, i'd like to say that, like regarding that whole
<v Speaker 2>Fennel thing two, Like, the reason we have that problem
<v Speaker 2>is because of the Controlled Substances Act. Because we squose
<v Speaker 2>out all the you know, whatever you want to call it,
<v Speaker 2>former opium trade and drove it down to this highly
<v Speaker 2>lethal substance which now contaminates most classes of recreational drugs, and.
<v Speaker 1>It is easier to transport because it's so much impotent too.
<v Speaker 2>In other words, the Act itself made the problem worse.
<v Speaker 2>You've got to look at that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Yeah, and it's I think that's I mean, that's
<v Speaker 1>what the drug work does. That's why it that's why
<v Speaker 1>it's failed. I was on the cultural aspect, though, I
<v Speaker 1>do want to mention, you know, I was at the
<v Speaker 1>the I got invited to speak at the Oklahoma City
<v Speaker 1>Fungus Fair last fall, and I I have a you know,
<v Speaker 1>a drawing of Payoty I did that. I was selling
<v Speaker 1>for for Thorn Scrubs Sanctuary for our conservation property or nonprofit.
<v Speaker 1>And you know, I had a number of people come
<v Speaker 1>up to me who are Native who said, oh, I
<v Speaker 1>know it that plant is. Do you have any more
<v Speaker 1>of this this drawing or do you have a you know,
<v Speaker 1>any other sizes of this shirt available with the shirt
<v Speaker 1>with the peyote image on it?
<v Speaker 2>You know?
<v Speaker 1>I said no, I'm sorry, I don't, But you know,
<v Speaker 1>how do you Obviously you go to South Texas, like
<v Speaker 1>you've gone to meetings and ceremonies, and they were all
<v Speaker 1>because they were native, and they were all like, yes,
<v Speaker 1>you know, I've we go to Miranda City, we go
<v Speaker 1>to wherever. And for me, that especially was you know,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I'm I'm seven hundred miles away from the
<v Speaker 1>wild habitat of this species, and I could see It's
<v Speaker 1>obvious to me how important it is to people all
<v Speaker 1>over the United States, I mean all over the world.
<v Speaker 1>Really yeah, and it's it's nuts. And at the same time,
<v Speaker 1>I know how endangered it is. I mean, I've seen
<v Speaker 1>populations of it bulldozed and destroyed. I've seen areas where
<v Speaker 1>I know it grows leveled to make way for solar
<v Speaker 1>farms and border walls, and it's it is. It's like
<v Speaker 1>washing a bucket drain when no one's turning on the
<v Speaker 1>spigot above it.
<v Speaker 2>And at the same time, there's a lot of hope.
<v Speaker 2>You know. I've been in New York City, walked into
<v Speaker 2>a commercial establishment and found a beautiful pot of flowering
<v Speaker 2>pot growing in their windows.
<v Speaker 1>You know.
<v Speaker 2>Where I live. I'm a very short desert hike away
<v Speaker 2>from an airbnb, which is really nice set up in
<v Speaker 2>the desert, And when you get there, the first thing
<v Speaker 2>that you don't notice is about fifty beautiful payoti plants
<v Speaker 2>mixed among you know, the desert cacti that they've landscaped
<v Speaker 2>with at the airbnb.
<v Speaker 1>Wow, that's cool. It's pretty nice. And nobody gangs them.
<v Speaker 2>Nobody takes obviously somebody there's a lot, but nobody cares
<v Speaker 2>at the same time. Yeah, and so this is like
<v Speaker 2>the iron because everything we've talked about all this bs
<v Speaker 2>like politics, legislation and like legal bias towards extinction and
<v Speaker 2>like really like fearful. The only word is fuckery. That
<v Speaker 2>happened from the War on drugs, you know, and the
<v Speaker 2>hippie craze and the ramifications of the acid age, when
<v Speaker 2>everything was about you know, tune in, turn on, and
<v Speaker 2>drop out. You know, we had a natural reaction to that.
<v Speaker 2>But you know what, Peuty, it doesn't care. It's just
<v Speaker 2>this beautiful little plant that wants to grow. So it's
<v Speaker 2>almost like I look at it and I'm like, is
<v Speaker 2>everybody not seeing what I'm seeing? I'm out of my
<v Speaker 2>greenhouse hours of day, Joey, when I can't be just
<v Speaker 2>looking at the plans. For God's sake. People have asked me.
<v Speaker 2>They've actually asked me this, Hey, how much do I
<v Speaker 2>need to eat? I'm like, eat, do you really need
<v Speaker 2>to eat any of this? Hands off? You know, I mean,
<v Speaker 2>you're fine, right.
<v Speaker 1>And that's the thing too, is would they be asking
<v Speaker 1>that question if it wasn't a schedule one, if there
<v Speaker 1>wasn't this whole, this this gestalt around it being taboo,
<v Speaker 1>of it being illegal, of it being a drug. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>there would be no I think there would be such
<v Speaker 1>a smaller population of people that was trying to abuse it.
<v Speaker 2>There's like a salacious, salacious, like sexy mystos about it, right,
<v Speaker 2>instead of just being oh, yeah, it's a beautiful plant,
<v Speaker 2>good for you, because that's like I say, how it
<v Speaker 2>is in Canada.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, that's the example, right
<v Speaker 1>there is Canada. Look at Canada. What's going on? Nothing? Nothing,
<v Speaker 1>It's fine, it's legal, and it's fine. Who you know.
<v Speaker 1>I just but at the same time, the very negative
<v Speaker 1>effects of keeping it illegal are that it becomes further
<v Speaker 1>in danger. I mean, I've repeated this like five times,
<v Speaker 1>and I apologize, but it's there's a lot of a
<v Speaker 1>lot of cons and not many pros. So again I.
<v Speaker 2>Well then and I question whether there's any solution, right,
<v Speaker 2>just you know, pragmatically speaking, And so that's why I
<v Speaker 2>bring up this sponsorship program, because we're really serious about
<v Speaker 2>the fact that we're stewarding already the basis of this
<v Speaker 2>kind of concept.
<v Speaker 3>Well, that's that is not yothetical, it's a solution pathetical
<v Speaker 3>we need.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, well, the plant needs, you know, one hundred
<v Speaker 1>more organizations doing that around the United States and in Canada.
<v Speaker 2>I mean it's well, it needs at least one, you know.
<v Speaker 1>It does at least one at least well, that's all
<v Speaker 1>there is right now, and thank God for that. So
<v Speaker 1>sacramental sponsorship program. I'll put a link to the PDF
<v Speaker 1>that you prepared in the podcast episodes, so people can
<v Speaker 1>and see it for themselves. It's got air and force,
<v Speaker 1>its painting.
<v Speaker 2>It's not an answer, but it's a it's the genesis
<v Speaker 2>of a solution, right, So, like you got to start
<v Speaker 2>with a C and I'm just like looking at it
<v Speaker 2>like that. I'm like, well, unless you come up with
<v Speaker 2>it at least one reasonable proposal that works both ethically,
<v Speaker 2>horticulturally and I guess chronologically right, and even financially. By
<v Speaker 2>the way, because you know that that chart we discussed
<v Speaker 2>about the decline of Payot's availability, that same chart shows
<v Speaker 2>you the price. So there's like an X and the
<v Speaker 2>trending upward tangent is the price goes up correspondingly. And
<v Speaker 2>so I'm looking at what are we doing in twenty years?
<v Speaker 2>How many of us can even afford it now? If
<v Speaker 2>it's a matter of money, and it shouldn't just be
<v Speaker 2>a matter of money, that's what we're trying to say.
<v Speaker 2>So it's going to cost us to make that happen,
<v Speaker 2>but it can't just be a commodity. So yeah, that's
<v Speaker 2>partly what's.
<v Speaker 1>So you guys, really, I mean, what you need now
<v Speaker 1>is to get you know, to get land, to get
<v Speaker 1>a place to plant, and then Meanwhile, you're just keeping
<v Speaker 1>growing ceilings. What I mean, I guess you can take
<v Speaker 1>some of those plants out of the greenhouse, you know,
<v Speaker 1>as spring approaches in southern Arizona. What's the plan? I mean,
<v Speaker 1>you guys running you guys running out of space in
<v Speaker 1>the greenhouse yet or what?
<v Speaker 2>Well? Fortunately we're very close to that, yes, yeah, and
<v Speaker 2>I'm happy that that's the case. Yeah, we're really in
<v Speaker 2>need of funding because we need to move on to
<v Speaker 2>Phase B. Phase A has been a success, and that
<v Speaker 2>was that we increase the supply and the foot space
<v Speaker 2>for that. Fortunately right now is fifty by one hundred feet.
<v Speaker 1>And Phase B is planting. Phase A, Phase B is
<v Speaker 1>planting right.
<v Speaker 2>Phase is getting them to where they exist. Phase B
<v Speaker 2>is making sure they can continue to exist because at
<v Speaker 2>that point you harvest them properly, and there's always more,
<v Speaker 2>so you're always making more. So even what we have
<v Speaker 2>is a good start because the math works in our
<v Speaker 2>favorite toward the future.
<v Speaker 1>And so it's what can people do if they want
<v Speaker 1>to help out? They can donate. You guys are a
<v Speaker 1>five oh one c three nonprofit. What can they do?
<v Speaker 1>Morningstar Conservancy dot org? What else? Follow you on Instagram?
<v Speaker 2>A lot of people. A lot of people are helping.
<v Speaker 2>If you're a multimillionaire, just god a morning Star Conservancy
<v Speaker 2>dot org, and it's pretty easy to find out how
<v Speaker 2>to help us. But just regular people, uh are also
<v Speaker 2>able to help us monthly. A lot of people choose
<v Speaker 2>to do that and that does keep the lights on
<v Speaker 2>here and it keeps the fan on in the greenhouse temporarily.
<v Speaker 2>But we do need a boost to get from phase
<v Speaker 2>A to Phase B. Like I say, there's a lot
<v Speaker 2>of little babies that are ready to live on their own.
<v Speaker 1>Do you guys have a go fundme? Like? Is there
<v Speaker 1>a way that people can donate strictly for land purchase,
<v Speaker 1>Like they can throw twenty bucks in the pot and
<v Speaker 1>you know know that this is going to go strictly
<v Speaker 1>for purchasing land.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, we're in the process of setting up a separate
<v Speaker 2>account strictly for land. Right now, we're just operating from
<v Speaker 2>a general budget. But there's definitely ways to donate on
<v Speaker 2>Morningstarconservancy dot org for sure. I think there's multiple ways
<v Speaker 2>we're happy to help. There's contacts there. We're always happy
<v Speaker 2>to talk. I myself talk to people half today about
<v Speaker 2>such things so we can really use the help. It's
<v Speaker 2>not because we want to save the world. We just
<v Speaker 2>want to make sure that something gets done that can
<v Speaker 2>be learned from, can be some benefit to the Native
<v Speaker 2>American Church and to the species itself, and then can
<v Speaker 2>be replicated for reels and maybe our children will do that. Now.
<v Speaker 1>You guys are all about teaching people too. I mean,
<v Speaker 1>you know, yeah, we have workshops here knowledge.
<v Speaker 2>Uh yeah, we got stuff going on. We share our
<v Speaker 2>knowledge as much as we can. And there are several
<v Speaker 2>new Native American Church gardens around the country based from
<v Speaker 2>what they've learned here quite literally physically being here for
<v Speaker 2>a workshop and learning to plant their own seeds and
<v Speaker 2>what to do from there.
<v Speaker 1>And you guys have news like announcements of workshops you'll
<v Speaker 1>be holding on the website, like if people end up
<v Speaker 1>passing through Tucson, I want to attend one.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, staying in touch with us. We always make arrangements
<v Speaker 2>for people, whether it's a officially scheduled or not, we
<v Speaker 2>always make arrangements for people who want to help. And
<v Speaker 2>you know, obviously I'm happy to blah blah blah about it.
<v Speaker 2>I do all the time, but you know, it's a passion,
<v Speaker 2>it's hard to shut off.
<v Speaker 1>We should talk about the sponsor, the sponsor membership, the
<v Speaker 1>Sacramento Sponsorship program. So it's the price for that for
<v Speaker 1>Native American church members. One thousand dollars donation at entry
<v Speaker 1>into the program, which covers ten years sponsorship. First five
<v Speaker 1>years the plants are growing. Last five years, they can
<v Speaker 1>have an annual harvest. A sponsor can receive an annual harvest.
<v Speaker 1>Anything else you want to throw in there or.
<v Speaker 2>What, Yeah, we got what I guess you might call
<v Speaker 2>two tier sponsorship program. One is if you're a Native
<v Speaker 2>American church chapter proper, then the medicine goes directly to
<v Speaker 2>your chapter. Everything's all covered that way. If you're not
<v Speaker 2>a Native American church chapter, we have an associate membership,
<v Speaker 2>which is where you sponsor a thousand plants for a
<v Speaker 2>Native American church chapter. And you need to know that
<v Speaker 2>I've never seen a rich Native American church chapter. We're
<v Speaker 2>all struggling. We all have a tiny budget that comes
<v Speaker 2>in from membership donations to buy medicine, to buy a tepee,
<v Speaker 2>to keep the place up. It's not easy. So somebody
<v Speaker 2>who's not even a Native American church member or even
<v Speaker 2>living in this country can go ahead and do their
<v Speaker 2>own associate sponsorship that way, and then we agree to
<v Speaker 2>a designated Native American Church chapter which becomes the beneficiary
<v Speaker 2>of the program. So, like I say, it's a little
<v Speaker 2>like paeoty insurance for an NAC group.
<v Speaker 1>But the money is also going directly towards growing more
<v Speaker 1>plants and protecting cultural sacrament and protecting Native American culture
<v Speaker 1>and fostering and nurturing Native American culture. And uh and
<v Speaker 1>I mean again, the plants get harvested, but they're still alive,
<v Speaker 1>and we'll just regrow new heads. So all this money
<v Speaker 1>is going towards active conservation, conservation and propagation as well
<v Speaker 1>as you know, the cultural benefits of it as well.
<v Speaker 1>It seems like a pretty wonderful.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, the contributions go directly towards sanctuary keeping, then that's it.
<v Speaker 2>Uh So, yeah, it's a direct benefit.
<v Speaker 1>And I've seen you, I've.
<v Speaker 2>Seen every donation that comes in. I am literally so
<v Speaker 2>you know, putting into cultivation supplies.
<v Speaker 1>I was gonna say, I was gonna say, I know you, Leo,
<v Speaker 1>and I know I know how you live. You live
<v Speaker 1>very frugally. You're not out there, You're not out there
<v Speaker 1>like buying Gucci sunglasses. You're not going to be, you know,
<v Speaker 1>enriching yourself. But I've seen how you live.
<v Speaker 2>You know, you like wa an since over here.
<v Speaker 1>It around in sandals with a satchel, you know, driving
<v Speaker 1>a driving a very small car whose tire we had
<v Speaker 1>to repair. I don't know how we did that either.
<v Speaker 1>We were coming. Oh that was the Watermen mountains, wasn't it.
<v Speaker 2>It was so much fun hunting that elephant tree with you.
<v Speaker 1>All right, But the tire got destroyed. I do remember that.
<v Speaker 1>I was gonna say, I don't know how the tire
<v Speaker 1>got shredded, but then I.
<v Speaker 2>Ah, it was I needed you tires. Let's just face.
<v Speaker 1>Well, it was the ballast that rough limestone of that
<v Speaker 1>mountain range too.
<v Speaker 2>But anyway, limestone will put a hole in your shoes.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'll put a I'll put the Sacramento sponsorship link
<v Speaker 1>up into uh into the podcast description, and and then
<v Speaker 1>of course people can check out your Instagram, which is
<v Speaker 1>the Peyoti Lorex and and then the morning Star website
<v Speaker 1>Morningstar conservancy dot org.
<v Speaker 2>Is that correct, Yeah, buddy, And I just got to
<v Speaker 2>tell you I appreciate that you care about this, because
<v Speaker 2>you know there's not a lot of people that I
<v Speaker 2>can talk to you about the details and emote and
<v Speaker 2>then be myself when we're not recording so much. You know,
<v Speaker 2>like it's therapeutic for me to talk to you about
<v Speaker 2>these things.
<v Speaker 1>No, I agree. I mean I've I've called you many
<v Speaker 1>times and you've you've played therapist for me.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, we're coviding.
<v Speaker 1>It's a reciprocal thing. I I mean, my thing with
<v Speaker 1>Payote is you get people caring about Payote and then
<v Speaker 1>you get them that's the way to get them caring
<v Speaker 1>about the habitat and all the other plants.
<v Speaker 2>Hey, you know what, I started carrying about paoty and
<v Speaker 2>it led directly to me caring about my freaking life. Man.
<v Speaker 1>You know, yeah, I think that's.
<v Speaker 2>Why I'm That's why I'm into this.
<v Speaker 1>That's a common theory.
<v Speaker 2>I'm healthy, I'm still alive, I got a family, and honestly,
<v Speaker 2>you know me, I could tell you the details of
<v Speaker 2>how it all came from my love of this plant.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, I hate to get all mystical here, but
<v Speaker 2>I am half.
<v Speaker 1>A hippie though. That's you know, plants. Plants make us
<v Speaker 1>better people that they are teachers. They are teachers.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I owe something back, I guess, is what I'm saying.
<v Speaker 2>So I appreciate you letting me, you know, talk about it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, man, I appreciate you coming on and hopefully I
<v Speaker 1>get to see it this year. So everybody else, have
<v Speaker 1>a good rest of your day. Check out Morningstar Conservancy
<v Speaker 1>dot org, and you know, go fuck yourself back.