Peyote Remains 'Quiet' Drug Amid Mexico's Raging Drug War

REAL DE CATORCE, Mexico — The fleshy, button-shaped plants barely peek from the desert floor.

But Enrico Baldella knew how to scout for them. Walking gingerly through waist-high cacti and mean thorns, he quickly spied a cluster of peyote, a hallucinogenic plant considered sacred by some Mexican Indian tribes.

"There's a colony of them," said Baldella, an Italian ex-patriot who has lived for years in Mexico. He knelt and sliced an inch-high palm-sized button carefully from its long subterranean root. It may have taken a decade for it to reach this size.

Baldella built a small fire and coaxed smoke toward the remaining colony, bowing his head and murmuring prayers he learned from Mexican Indian and Native American acquaintances in the United States.

Peyote (pay-O-tay) is an indisputable attraction for Mexican, American and European tourists in Mexico's San Luis Potosi state, on the southern edge of the vast Chihuahua Desert.

Not everyone who visits Real de Catorce, an old mining and tourist town, is looking to get high.

But the little mountaintop town has a reputation for being a place where one can readily — albeit illegally — seek peyote to eat fresh, dried or mixed into a drink. Under the watch of guides like Baldella, tourists can descend to the desert valley below, harvest and chew the plant — and contemplate their surroundings for hours in an altered state of consciousness.

The tolerance for peyote experimentation is an odd juxtaposition to Mexico's violent drug cartel wars. Peyote, which is also used by Native Americans and found in the deserts of Texas, grows naturally. It isn't of interest to traffickers because, police say, there is no big money in it.

In contrast, more than 900 people have been slain so far this year alone as organized crime cartels battle over the lucrative trafficking of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States.

Mexico's Huichol (Wee-CHOL) Indians have consumed peyote for millennia as part of a traditional spiritual pilgrimage they make from Mexico's Pacific coast to San Luis Potosi state. Mexican law abides the use, an exemption that allows the Indians to collect and consume the cactus as long as they don't possess substantial amounts for the purposes of trafficking.

In theory, non-Indians are prohibited from possessing any peyote, and can face stiff sentences if convicted of trafficking large quantities. But the law doesn't seem to deter on-the-spot experimentation.

Residents of Real de Catorce complain that local police sometimes extort money from tourists if they discover the outsiders have a few buttons in their pockets. Environmentalists seem more concerned that peyote tourism is endangering the slow-growing plant with over-harvesting.

"In general, there's always been quite a bit of tolerance when it comes to peyote," said Pedro Medellin, a professor at the University of San Luis Potosi who in 1994, as a state ecology coordinator, helped turn a swath of peyote-laden desert here into a state protected area.

Communities allow outsiders to enter the protected zone as long as they present an ID and submit to a search when they leave to make sure the tourists haven't loaded up their cars with peyote.

On highways here, army soldiers regularly search vehicles at roadblocks for weapons and drugs. In the last three months, only one person has been detained for possessing about 30 buttons of peyote, enough to trigger an accusation of suspected trafficking, said Enrique Buendia, the San Luis Potosi representative of the federal Attorney General's office.

The accused could face a minimum sentence of 10 years or up to 25 years in prison, Buendia said.

Officials in the U.S. consulate in Monterrey declined to respond to requests for information about American citizens arrested for peyote possession.

"It's a small number of people who do this," Buendia added, denying that peyote is the main draw in the area.

Real de Catorce is a picturesque town that offers charms other than the hallucinogenic plant. Yet peyote symbolism is everywhere.

Necklaces, T-shirts, carvings on buildings and crafts made by the Huichol Indians and sold here all bear symbols of the round cactus buttons.

After a long drive, travelers enter Real de Catorce through a mile and half long tunnel used to haul out silver in the old days. Quaint hotels have mushroomed in old stone buildings that date back to the 1700s. Locals lead tourists on horseback rides, hiking and photographing expeditions of old ruins.

Italian, Swiss, Spanish, French and Argentine expatriates serve cappuccinos and sophisticated cuisine in cafes tucked among narrow stone streets.

"It's a great place to come to just rest, to get away from the summer heat," said Austin, Texas, midwife Natalie Lake, who once delivered a baby here and has close friends who live in the town.

The town of a few thousand residents has served as a movie set because of its Old West flavor. Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt filmed "The Mexican" here, and Antonio Banderas expects to shoot scenes here for a movie about Pancho Villa.

Real de Catorce is so popular with tourists from Austin, in fact, that buses leave regularly from the Texas capital to the town, passing through Nuevo Laredo — where drug cartel violence has been among the worst this year in Mexico.

Hotel owner Humberto Fernandez, a font of knowledge about Real de Catorce, adorns himself with necklaces of peyote symbols. On occasion, he said, he's had to deal with youths who got high, regretted it and wandered back to his hotel to request help.

"Once a big blond guy came and said he wanted to search for the plant by himself. He would come back every night, sun-burned and disappointed," recalled Fernandez, who has been invited to peyote ceremonies with the Huichol.

"Some people think they can do it on their own," the hotel owner said with a shake of his head.

Mexico City environmentalist Humberto Fernandez, who has the same name but is no relation to the hotel owner, said he's worried peyote tourism is seriously threatening the slow-growing plant.

"I've seen peyote in Amsterdam," said Fernandez, who runs a group called Conservacion Humana.

He said peyote can be made into a paste and shaped into necklaces and bracelets and dried so it can be transported for later consumption. "You can walk into JFK Airport without anybody knowing you're wearing peyote," he said.

In Real de Catorce, Huichol Indian Martina de la Cruz, 51, sells beaded jewelry and boxes emblazoned with peyote designs. She smiled at inquiries about the plant. She's heard the questions before.

"Where do you think we get the design ideas for the things we make?" she said. "We all consume it."