PEYOTE: THE DIVINE CACTUS

Small cactus, big controversy.

For a plant so steeped in controversy, peyote is quite unassuming.
The average cactus resembles an oversized green molar. And after
growing for nearly 80 years, it's barely the size of a navel orange,
covered in tender, muted spikes with the occasional daisy-like flower.

But it's what's inside that counts for thousands who believe its
hallucinogenic properties are an integral part of their religious ceremonies.

Peyote is illegal for general use because it contains hallucinogenic
mescaline, though federal law allows for limited use in American
Indian religious ceremonies. Courts have generally refused to allow
non-American Indian groups to use peyote in ceremonies.

Still, drive along a dirt road for more than an hour in the remote
Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness and you will eventually reach the Peyote
Way Church of God. Started by Annie Zapf, Matthew Kent and an older
man known only as Immanuel in 1978, the church is a nondenominational
organization centered on the use of peyote.

For about $200, anyone can come to the church by appointment, go to a
secluded part of the grounds and drink a tea made of peyote. By most
accounts, it is not a happy high: People tend to feel nauseous and
vomit after ingesting.

"They believe it is the sacrament of God, it is a medicine," said
John Halpern, a psychiatrist who spent nearly seven years studying
the effects of peyote among members of the Native American Church.
"It's not taken to see visions, or to get high or anything like that."

Zapf says she wants people to be exposed to the "sacrament" of
peyote. The original idea was to build a community on the 160 acres
of land surrounding her church.

Legal problems prevented that: A state statute says a person who
sells or possesses peyote can be convicted of a felony, although
using it for "bona fide" religious reasons is a defense. Federal law
is more restrictive.

Native American Church:

Federal law does authorize members of the Native American Church to
consume peyote during ceremonies.

The church traces its roots to the 1880s, around the time of the
Wounded Knee massacre, when a new religion known as the ghost dance
sprung up among American Indians. Different tribes gathered to chant
and dance, in the hope ancestors would be reborn and destroy
Westerners, and bring back the buffalo so they would no longer be hungry.

The dance often transfixed participants. Legend has it that during
this time John Wilson, a ghost dance leader, ate peyote and the
cactus instructed him on how to paint his face and sing holy songs.
He spread the word and others started using it as sacramental food.

The church now has nearly 250,000 members in the U.S., Canada and
Mexico. Peyote is central to their rituals.

The Peyoteros:

There are only a handful of farmers licensed to grow peyote in the
U.S., and they can do business only with members of the Native
American Church. Although 90 percent of the peyote in North America
grows in Mexico, the number of ceremonial users there is a small
fraction of the number in the United States and Canada.

Some American Indian rights advocates and conservationists are trying
to legalize the importation of peyote from Mexico, where most of the
plants grow, and create legal cultivation centers in the United States.

Zapf is concerned that the cactus is disappearing. The land where it
grows has been whittled away, acre by acre, over the years.

"It's an endangered species," she said. "We need to ensure it for the
future, which means we must start taking better care of it."