Peyote Laws: Discrimination?

There has been a raging debate on drugs and psychoactive agents for a very long time in the United States. Yet, arguments have rarely made it to the floor of Congress for serious debate and strict DEA scheduling laws have made many drugs illegal to own even to this day. However, one particular drug has not only caused controversy with its ambiguous illegality, but has also called into question the validity of drug legislation that has become full of holes.

Peyote is a small, spineless cactus that contains mescaline, a hallucinogenic compound. The portion of the cactus that is visible above ground, called the button, is the part that is consumed for its mescaline. When consumed orally in sufficient quantities, peyote can cause feelings of altered consciousness, spatial distortion, and hallucinations. This cactus has been used spiritually and recreationally for an extremely long time. Preserved buttons have been found in caves in Texas dating back nearly 7,000 years. Traditionally, peyote was and continues to be used primarily by southwest Native American tribes.

Currently, the largest group of sanctioned peyote users belongs to what is known collectively as The Native American Church. The Native American Church (NAC) is a loosely associated organization of predominantly native believers in the spiritual use of the peyote cactus. Peyote is central to certain prayer and spiritual meetings of the NAC and it is for this reason that the Schedule I status of Peyote was disputed during the 1990s by activist groups. Was it constitutional for the United States government to make it illegal for a religious group in America to use a substance it had been using centuries before drug enforcement acts were put into place?

Federal Law concerning the nebulous legality of peyote can be found in Title 42, 1996a. The stipulations of this particular section of U.S. law lift the illegal status of peyote for what Congress has called "bona fide traditional ceremonial purposes" by Indians. Furthermore, Congress found that to restrict use of peyote by religious Native American groups long associated with the practice would "increase the risk that they will be exposed to discriminatory treatment."

It is this final quote that causes legal and moral problems concerning not only peyote, but other substances as well. If peyote is made illegal to cultivate, consume, or possess for all people, then those who have used it for centuries for religious purposes would have their rights infringed upon. The Bill of Rights contained in the United States Constitution extends freedom of religious worship to all citizens of the United States. Thus, making it illegal for Native Americans to use peyote in worship ceremonies would be unconstitutional. To avoid a maelstrom of criticism over infringement of rights, Congress thus decided to make the NAC exempt from the schedule I status of peyote cacti. Unfortunately, this creates another issue.

Why does the Native American Church hold exclusive rights to harvest and consume peyote cacti for spiritual purposes? Constructing criminalization laws based upon a specific group's traditional use of the plant is simultaneously necessary and completely fallacious. To not allow Native Americans of the southwest to use peyote would seem to infringe upon U.S. citizen's right to freedom of religion. However, making peyote illegal to own or use in the population that does not belong to the Native American Church is equally controversial. Why can one group use it while another can't? The situation with peyote is comparable to the United States government restricting the use of wine and wafers to the Catholic Church due to their use in the Eucharist. Unfortunately, in its quest to eliminate "the risk that they (Native Americans) will be exposed to discriminatory treatment," Congress has put the rest of the peyote-curious population of American in that dangerous position.

So what exactly is the United States government saying? That a drug that is deemed so dangerous that it has been made illegal to use is not so dangerous for use by a specific group of people? Have the members of the NAC been officially deemed experts on peyote, or have they been sentenced to insanity and death while the U.S. population at large is protected from the effects of a tiny desert cactus? Unfortunately none of these questions represents the actual case. And quite unfortunately for those who seek spiritual and mental enlightenment in the U.S. at large, discrimination that was avoided was simply reflected back on a much larger group of people.