It was February 2024, and the Scottsdale Research Institute had just received concerning news. Morning Star Conservancy, an Indigenous group dedicated to preserving the ritual use of peyote, had warned the institute that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency was about to set flame to 2,000 peyote cacti that had been neglected by a lab at Sul Ross State University in Texas. Peyote is a Schedule I substance, and it’s normal DEA practice to incinerate such drugs after seizing them.
Peyote was already in short supply, considered “vulnerable,” according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. As a result, Indigenous groups — who maintain a legal right to use peyote in their rituals — had trouble finding it its natural habitat of Mexico and South Texas. And now a large crop of it was about to be destroyed.
Enter SRI and its executive director, Sue Sisley. Within 24 hours of learning about the planned burn, SRI researchers began talking to the DEA about saving the plants. They joined forces with the Council of Peyote Way of Life Coalition, a peyote conservation group on the Navajo Nation. Since SRI already has a DEA research license to work with Schedule I drugs, it was approved in the summer for a first-ever joint study of peyote by non-Native researchers and federally recognized tribal members.
“We were trying to prevent that because that’s like blasphemy to the tribes,” Sisley told Phoenix New Times. “That’s like the most horrific thing you could do — burn their medicine.”
Peyote is a sacred plant to Indigenous groups across America, especially those whose ancestors have lived for centuries in areas where it grows. Peyote cacti take up to 30 years to mature. When they do, they contain alkaloids like mescaline that cause psychedelic effects in people who consume the buttons that grow on the plant. The federal government considers it a controlled substance, but a 1994 amendment to the American Indian Religious Freedom Act granted Native Americans legal use of peyote for ceremonial purposes.
But peyote and the tribes who hold it in reverence as their medicine are in a precarious situation. The plant is verging on being endangered as a result of overpoaching and big agriculture. In addition, a wave of psychedelic renaissance researchers — sometimes backed by Silicon Valley investors — want peyote decriminalized, which would further stress its limited supply.
SRI’s study of the plant will not pursue a similar goal. Instead, Sisley said, SRI plans to rehabilitate the plants and reintroduce them into their natural habitat, under the rightful possession of Indigenous groups. At SRI, researchers will study what is required to accomplish that.
It’s a rescue mission, not a drug study.
“This is not our medicine. Peyote is really the domain of the Indigenous community to manage,” Sisley said. “We were asked to help rescue these plants because they were at a university and they were dying. Our hope is that eventually we can rehabilitate the plants and get them back to the tribes.”
“This is not our medicine. Peyote is really the domain of the Indigenous community to manage,” said Sue Sisley, the executive director of the Scottsdale Research Institute.
Courtesy of Andrew Neugebauer
Plant rehab
Frank Dayish, the president of the Peyote Way of Life Coalition and a former vice president of the Navajo Nation, celebrated the initiative with SRI."This study bridges cultural respect and scientific inquiry, providing an opportunity to preserve Peyote for generations to come," Dayish said in a written statement.
Dayish has previously advocated for peyote to remain under the jurisdiction of Indigenous communities. In 2023, he wrote to Congress with concerns over the pharmaceutical industry’s strong interest in extracting mescaline from peyote to use in drugs.
“The Council of Peyote Way of Life Coalition strongly opposes any extraction and synthesis of mescaline from peyote, and any cultivation, tincture or manufacturing for scientific purposes (research), or for any other reasons outside of a traditional bona fide ceremonial setting or purposes,” Dayish wrote. “In addition, we oppose the decriminalization of peyote and stress peyote should be used for religious, cultural and ceremonial purposes by a federally recognized member only, as protected under federal law.”
The Scottsdale lab, which is also running what could become the nation’s first-ever study of whole psilocybin mushrooms on humans, took on the project with a commitment to researching how to best rehabilitate the plants.
“The research that’s being done right now is not about creating a product,” said Kevin Kozup, the head of cultivation for the SRI. “This is at the baseline level of understanding and appreciating the value of plant medicine. Unfortunately, this plant medicine is at risk of decimation.”
Peyote is already hard to obtain for the tribes who actually have a legal right to it. Kozup said efforts to decriminalize the plant will only make it more scarce. He hopes that “like-minded individuals” will rally around “tapping the brakes on legalization and realizing you have to protect your medicines first, or it won’t be there.”
The challenge of reintroducing the peyote plants currently at SRI will be difficult enough. Some of the specimens the lab is working with are 200 years old, Kozup said, with extremely delicate root systems. Many bear telltale signs of distress, like scarring. It’s taken intense effort to replicate the plant’s natural environment, down to the cool breeze SRI’s peyote plants enjoy in the evening.
“It’s taught me an incredible amount of patience,” Kozup said. “Peyote is a slow grower. It’s a really wild experience to watch new growth, especially from some of the peyote that was scarred over.”
Kozup said the reintroduction effort is expected to last between three and five years. It’s hardly a scientific theory, but he noted one factor that could speed things up. Kozup said he’s noticed that the plants seem to do better when Native groups come to SRI to pray over them.
“The peyote looks more robust and vibrant. But I could be just imagining that,” Kozup said with a chuckle. “We truly believe that this is important for the medicine — it needs to be in communion with people.”
