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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Crime Pays a Botany doesn't podcasts. I'm

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here with Leonardo Mercado, who is the greenhouse steward for

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morning Star Conservancy, which is a PAOTI conservation and propagation

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organization based out of southern Arizona and the beautiful Tucson

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area and whose board is comprised of Native American church members.

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Morning Star. When when was morning Star formed? Leo? When

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did it? When did you guys aggregate and come together

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to attain this goal or working towards this goals?

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Speaker 2: We probably started looking around southern Texas doing your basic

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recon on what the situation was down there. We probably

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started looking around southern Texas at conservation possibilities in two

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thousand and three. But it goes back to the original

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trip we had in ninety five or ninety six in

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which we met up with doctor Martin Terry at that time,

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and we met with the Peyotros down there. We uh

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trucked around, We had discussions and thought about it, and

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we started to pray about it, and somewhere in the

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early two thousands we decided, well, let's let's get this together.

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It's been too many years. Let's at least start an

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organization where we can start to advocate mm hm.

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Speaker 1: And so you were going were you going to Mirando City?

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Where were you going? In South Texas?

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Speaker 2: Mostly to Rio Grand City right on the river. There

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were several licensed dealers back then. So we'd visit around

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and we we'd head up to Mirando City as well.

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Speaker 1: And what was the what was the status of the

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plant back then?

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Speaker 2: Like?

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Speaker 1: What did that area look like back then? What what

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did you see?

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Speaker 2: Like?

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Speaker 1: What was that the first time you would really spend

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time in this region.

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Speaker 2: No, I'd been down there trekking around myself throughout the

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eighties also, and I think what we saw that is

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most noticeable differentiated from today is that the average size

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of the plants that were being harvested were fairly large,

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or was fairly large three inches across, you know, nothing

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really smaller than a silver dollar, with some exceptions maybe

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down to a fifty cent kind of size, so.

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Speaker 1: Like baseball size, probably.

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Speaker 2: Well up to yeah. Yeah, you also saw a certain

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proportion of large plants. It was not uncommon. Insadly, you

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still find from fresh fines some really nice plants occasionally,

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but the average is sometimes quarter size, fifty cent size.

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And I think that's the best way to describe it

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is in terms of coin size.

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Speaker 1: Just so for people that might be listening in other

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regions of the country, describe what South Texas I mean,

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because if I remember, the first time I came down

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here was like twenty fourteen for Botany, and it just

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it felt like just total backgroad like remote, Like this

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place is off the map. This is wild. I mean,

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the buildings world it was, the habitat was wild. I

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came down here expecting desert, and it's not really desert.

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It's kind of desert, but it's it's humid and it's green.

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And I mean, explain what explain to people who might

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be listening what it felt like. I mean, not just

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the Payot difference, but like the whole the whole area.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's different than the snoring desert for sure. I

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consider it. Uh, it's almost well, it's a thorn scrub

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and so for me, it's kind of hard to get

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around it. It's so brushy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not open because you're you grew up in

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southern Arizona, you grew up on the Heler rivers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know how to navigate this desert pretty well.

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It's a lot more opened up. It's a lot more

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like West Texas. So when you're in Brewster Presidio County

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in West Texas, Uh, it's a completely different environment than

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that South Texas, and I was not accustomed to it.

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It's pretty wild, you know it. It's called thorn scrub

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for a reason. But you know, uh, if you don't

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get some scratches while you're in it, you're not really

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doing it right.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yes, scratches and maybe some ticks.

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Speaker 2: So it's tough and it's humid, and it's not really

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easy to find medicine. But back in the day when

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you found it, it was you could find healthy populations

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scattered about, and as you know, those are a lot

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harder to find. And the applied pressure from just harvesting

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for Native American churches is accumulative, I think, is the

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word right. So it's added up over fifty years. It

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sixty years now since nineteen seventy what year we enjoy

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this five now? Yeah, yeah, you're the snake. And I

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think in that time we've seen this this ramped up

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gradient effect. And that's why I mentioned the size of

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the planets, because when there's less fine you're getting down

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to like what would be the equivalent of fawns in

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the deer population.

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Speaker 1: Right, it's like the bottom of the barrel, the last drags,

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like all the all the big plants are gone, and

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you're just harvesting what's left. But explain to people, because

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I think a lot of people, I mean, the vast

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majority of Americans have no clue that this is a thing.

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They just they view peyote as some sort of party drug.

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They don't, you know, it's just the effects of the

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failed drug war. They don't. They're they're unaware of its

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sanctity to Native Americans, how it's used that it's uh,

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you know, the tepee ceremony, the origin of the Native

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American Church, all that. We don't need to get into everything.

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But but basically, in short, there's a huge cultural demand

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among Native Americans for this plant, and this is the

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only place that it grows in a sizable enough population

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to harvest, right. So, and that's set up by the

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peyotero system. So you got we're coming down here to

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basically purchase medicine for ceremonies, and seeing that there was

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less of it, that's when morning Star formed.

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Speaker 2: Right. So a lot like that, dear analogy. If there's

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a license hunt, if it's not regulated, an unlicensed hunt

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is the same as a license hunt. In other words,

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at that point, it's all poaching. If you can take

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the pregnant dose the fonds as well as the bucks,

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if there's an economic incentive to do so, you will

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eventually degrade the species by taking everybody. Right, So it's

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a license but unregulated for pot because there is a

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license hunt for it. And that sounds a little weird

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because most people are like, right, Poti is a schedule

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and substance listed with you know, heroine, meth whatever. Everybody

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kind of knows that, but not everybody knows that there's

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a licensed hunt. And that's for the use of Native

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American Church members. It's a claw out in the nineteen

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seventy Controlled Substances Act, So there's this exemption for members

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of the Native American Church and for people who register

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to distribute to members of the Native American Church very specifically,

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and so it's a licensed hunt. The dealers pay it's

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something like thirteen hundred dollars a year right now. They

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pay it three years at a time, but they have

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to reregister annually to keep the license. It's fairly controlled

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that way. There's only three dealers left. There may be

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a new one right now, but it's a hard scrabble

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living when the population has declined and you still have

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to make a business out of it.

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Speaker 1: And this is state regulated, right, This is not I

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mean the dealer system to pay a thera system state regularly.

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It's not even federal regularly. This is like run by Texas.

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This is Texas jurisdiction.

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Speaker 2: There's a federal form. But yes, I do believe it

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is for several years now been managed by Texas DPS. Yeah.

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And so the thing about that is, like I said,

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it is licensed, but it's not regulated in any manner.

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In other words, pick as much as you want, sell

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as much as you want, We don't care. As long

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as you have the landowner's permission. That's the only other

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three requisite to the legal trade, you know, the legal hunt. Yeah.

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And so not every land is going to want to

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allow random people that work for the dealer to be

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clawing around on their land.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So there's a limited area, not just geographically and ecologically,

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but also I guess what you call privately because of

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land ownership. And there's no public lands where payote is growing.

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Speaker 1: But there's also there's also the payote lease too, which

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I think is again the foreign idea to people that

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don't live down here or don't have any you know,

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don't know anybody in the Native American Church. There's payote

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leases where just like with hunting, you know, payotero's will

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pay a landowner for the right to go on their

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land and look for payote and cut it, harvest it,

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put it in a little potato sack, bring it back,

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and then sell it to members of the NAC of

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the Native American.

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Speaker 2: Result to sell it to the dealer specifically who resells

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it to the Native American Church. Yeah, but yeah, it's

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a payouty lease, which is where the analogy comes together

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here because that peuty lease. The reason it's done is

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because the same ranchers sell leases to deer hunters, and

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so there's no reason for them not to do likewise

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for the peuty dealers. But in the case of the

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deer hunt, you can't take out every dear, and you

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don't or there won't be a future hunt. But when

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it comes to payote, they just sure take whatever payote.

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There's no standards, is what I'm trying to say, there's

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there's no mind to its future. And that's really the

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crux of what we're talking about today. How it gets

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that way, How it got that way. It's it's very multilayer.

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There's a lot of reasons, and that creates this pressure

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on the population. That's kind of how my mind looks

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at it. Yeah, I look at it as like, I

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don't know what are we talking about here? Six or

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seven different forms of pressure on it because we haven't

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even discussed the land degradation right, the land converge.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is like it's a whole other element of

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It's a whole other weight on it. But definitely when

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you start thinking about this, I mean, every Native American

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church chapter that uses peyote as medicine or as sacrament

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in all night meetings and teepee ceremonies, whether they're in

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upstate New York, or whether they're in Idaho, or whether

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they're in Canada, all that peote comes from down here

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because it's the only place that it grows, and so

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there it's like having a bathtub filled with a population

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of a plant species to use a metaphor, and the

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drain is consistently on. It's there's water going out the drain,

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there's plants going out the drain, but the spigot is

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slowly the handle slowly being turned to the right and

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turned off, and there's not as much there's not as

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many plants going in. And I like the deer hunt

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analogy especially because it's it really sums it up. Everybody

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who's got any experience with hunting or in a you know,

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in a rural area whatever, understands you can't take certain

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deer because that will affect the population. It's it's just

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a it's just it's just logic. But when it comes

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to this plant, that's not really I mean, there's not

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many people that seem to be getting that. I mean,

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I guess more so today. But you know, it's it's

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kind of a new thing. The concept well.

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Speaker 2: You know, the rich old people, it's actually an whole

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thing in a sense because they literally actually say that

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the peary hunt is the deer hunt, you know, And

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and traditionally they talked about how the roots or the

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bones and so that you leave them buried so that

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the deer can grow back from the bones.

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Speaker 1: So the wheat showl are in Mexico for anybody listening,

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which is again like the southern, the southern end of

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Payot's distribution. But they're I mean, they're getting they're facing

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issues their clearance for land clearance for building just residential areas,

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and also for agriculture, for tomato farms. I think, I

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don't know what it Maybe it wasn't.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, tomato and chili greenhouses mostly. Yeah, and it's money

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laundering operation. You know, the money wasn't clean to start with,

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and it's not really clean when it's done either, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, imagine that corruption in Mexico sketchy. Okay, Well, anyway,

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so that habitat is much different from from this too.

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It's it's more akin to West Texas. It's drier, it's

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not as humid, and it's high. It's higher elevation. I

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think it's like four thousand and five thousand feet.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. Well, let's let's get into that real

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quick though, because to use your bathtub analogy, right, So,

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because of the pressure on that one bathtub north of

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the Rio Grande, uh, what actually happens is you have

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to start opening up the taps on the bathtub south

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of you too, and the neighboring buildings guy, because the

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reality is that a lot of people are now dependent

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I guess you'd say on medicine that comes up from

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south of the border. It's a dirty little secret that

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kind of everybody knows. So almost to bring it up,

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00:15:44,360 --> 00:15:52,320
bring it up, right. Although I believe the IPCI officially

237
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applied for license to bring it from Mexico at one point,

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I don't know what the status of that application or

239
00:16:00,039 --> 00:16:03,879
or endeavor might be right now. So that's like the

240
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open air one. But there's a lot of Yeah.

241
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Speaker 1: This is ip Movement Indigenous Paoti Conservation Initiative.

242
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Speaker 2: Yeah, they actually applied for a DEA license standport, which

243
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is the way you're supposed to do it, But there's

244
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a lot of other ways to do it, as everybody knows, right,

245
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And I just want to bring that up because if

246
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we don't, we're not looking at the whole chessboard.

247
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Speaker 1: So now the drain's been opened on the bathtub in

248
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Mexico too.

249
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Speaker 2: Well, yeah it has been for some time. I can

250
00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:38,440
tell you this that in the late nineteen eighties we

251
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used to see it down there by the literally by

252
00:16:41,679 --> 00:16:46,200
the borough, pulled cart load. And I'm not saying that

253
00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:49,679
all that was going to Native American church use in

254
00:16:49,759 --> 00:16:52,559
the States. A lot of that was going to Europe.

255
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And I don't believe that's really ever stopped, although it

256
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:01,519
may be getting hard to do, just because they got

257
00:17:01,559 --> 00:17:06,039
to get back more into the real wild zones to

258
00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:10,400
find it more often. So the population in Mexico.

259
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Speaker 1: The populations in Mexico were much more robust. I mean

260
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probably still are compared to South Texas.

261
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Speaker 2: There still are because of the expanse of it, just

262
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the vast amount of terrain involved. Whereas in South Texas,

263
00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:27,039
as you know, you got a little strip going what

264
00:17:27,319 --> 00:17:30,279
maybe one hundred miles north of the Rio Grand the

265
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Medicine Road. Four counties, there's a little strip.

266
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Speaker 1: Four counties here, and then two counties in two or

267
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three counties in West Texas. But the West Texas populations

268
00:17:41,759 --> 00:17:44,279
are tiny compared to this, I mean they're.

269
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Speaker 2: Just and there used to be a ton around Laredo, right,

270
00:17:48,440 --> 00:17:51,480
and we're talking in the fifties and sixties to the

271
00:17:51,519 --> 00:17:54,799
point to where it was commercially exported before the Controlled

272
00:17:54,839 --> 00:17:59,119
Substances Act. To my understanding, most of that was for

273
00:17:59,200 --> 00:17:59,960
collectors in your.

274
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Speaker 1: Oh so just just like horticultural nerds, not even.

275
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Speaker 2: Like yeah, yeah, it was before the acid age, so

276
00:18:09,319 --> 00:18:12,839
it was being shipped out, though nonetheless along with a

277
00:18:12,839 --> 00:18:16,400
lot of other species. It wasn't just the Lafatha. It

278
00:18:16,480 --> 00:18:18,960
was also like area of carpus and I can't remember

279
00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:20,240
what a lot of things.

280
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Speaker 1: I mean that should be noted too, that the Laredo

281
00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:26,319
area is in it's it's a huge amount of sprawl.

282
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At some point, Laredo and the Rio Grand Valley are

283
00:18:29,519 --> 00:18:32,960
going to merge into the same metro area. I mean,

284
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:36,400
the sprawl here is insane. It's gonna be an endless

285
00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:41,599
strip of you know, ambulance chaser billboards, car dealership's, Chick

286
00:18:41,640 --> 00:18:45,680
fil A and just tracked housing. I mean, the water

287
00:18:45,720 --> 00:18:48,240
will probably run out before that. I don't know. I

288
00:18:48,279 --> 00:18:49,960
guess we could take bets on that, well, the water

289
00:18:50,039 --> 00:18:52,920
run out before Laredo and the Rio Grand Valley merge.

290
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Speaker 2: I don't know, but my bid is on Phoenix they

291
00:18:56,559 --> 00:18:57,279
run out first.

292
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Phoenix is going to run out first.

293
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Speaker 2: But you know what, here's an interesting thing like this

294
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:06,599
is just because you know me, I'm a little bit

295
00:19:06,599 --> 00:19:08,839
of a weirdo. I'm not afraid to say it. I

296
00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:14,359
actually have like beliefs about stuff, and one of them

297
00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:17,759
I like to just you know, play around with in

298
00:19:17,759 --> 00:19:20,920
my own mind, is that maybe up there in those

299
00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:23,799
regions around Laredo that are still left to you know,

300
00:19:24,079 --> 00:19:26,880
they just like, yeah, they got over harvested and da

301
00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:30,119
da da. But I like to believe that somewhere out

302
00:19:30,160 --> 00:19:36,000
there there's these seeds and small remnants of plants that

303
00:19:36,039 --> 00:19:40,200
are repopulating these territories where nobody even bothers to look

304
00:19:40,279 --> 00:19:41,160
for it anymore.

305
00:19:43,279 --> 00:19:48,079
Speaker 1: Behind the loobies, there could be like I'm just ups.

306
00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:51,680
Speaker 2: Around Valverdi County, you know, Valberdi County. What's that up there?

307
00:19:51,799 --> 00:19:57,200
Speaker 1: Comstock, It's nice theo You go north of Laredo and

308
00:19:57,279 --> 00:20:00,400
it is egle Pass. I mean, I like those little

309
00:20:00,440 --> 00:20:03,119
border towns as depressing as they could be with their

310
00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:06,880
payday loan centers like you see like nine payday loan

311
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:08,160
centers on the same block.

312
00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:11,279
Speaker 2: You know, a family dollar.

313
00:20:13,480 --> 00:20:15,720
Speaker 1: You could go buy a dildo with you know, take

314
00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:18,720
out like a thirty percent interest loan and then go

315
00:20:18,759 --> 00:20:21,359
buy a dildo and hit a newdy booth and then

316
00:20:21,480 --> 00:20:25,599
like go, you know, buy some buy some Chinese goods

317
00:20:25,599 --> 00:20:29,079
at the dollar store. Yeah. But uh, but.

318
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:31,400
Speaker 2: You know, don't know what. So there used to be

319
00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:35,200
medicine growing up there right there used to be is

320
00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:39,759
what I'm saying. And so so my backwards belief is

321
00:20:39,799 --> 00:20:42,599
that like maybe when it just gets left alone for

322
00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:46,400
long enough, it repopulates somehow, like a seed.

323
00:20:46,160 --> 00:20:48,640
Speaker 1: Bank, Like there's this like a seed bank that can

324
00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:51,319
I'm sure payoty seeds can probably last for decades.

325
00:20:51,960 --> 00:20:52,519
Speaker 2: I think they do.

326
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:54,920
Speaker 1: You would know more than anyone else, which we're going

327
00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:58,799
to get to because you're a propagator. But okay, so

328
00:20:59,119 --> 00:21:03,079
we're setting the stage for the situation, which is again

329
00:21:03,119 --> 00:21:07,319
the bathtub analogy as well as the deer hunt analogy

330
00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:09,839
really hits it spot on. I mean that is like

331
00:21:10,319 --> 00:21:13,480
it's better than the bathtub almost, but there's a constant

332
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:17,759
there's a constant drain. And Native American church members from

333
00:21:17,759 --> 00:21:21,319
all over North America are getting their plants, mostly from

334
00:21:21,400 --> 00:21:26,160
South Texas, maybe from maybe a bit from Mexico as well,

335
00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:28,839
but either way, that's what we're seeing is a shrinking

336
00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:33,759
population and it gets moving. It's like quickly shrinking, it's

337
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:39,640
very rapidly shrinking. And so a few people noticed this,

338
00:21:39,839 --> 00:21:44,559
yourself included, and decided to come together to form this organization.

339
00:21:44,839 --> 00:21:47,599
And when did you guys form this? This was late nineties,

340
00:21:47,640 --> 00:21:50,839
early two thousands, or when did Morning start form?

341
00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:55,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, the official year that we incorporated might have been

342
00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:59,200
two thousand and six. I'm having fuzzy memory. Time happened

343
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:03,920
quickly since I but we've been talking about this forever,

344
00:22:04,119 --> 00:22:07,119
just as members of the church. I mean, you don't

345
00:22:07,119 --> 00:22:09,160
really come out of the teepee in the morning without

346
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:14,559
a certain amount of pondering the situation of how lucky

347
00:22:14,599 --> 00:22:18,039
we are to have this plan. See. So it's like

348
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:21,839
it's sparked by a sense of gratitude for the benefits

349
00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:26,759
we feel from it. It starts with that. But I

350
00:22:26,839 --> 00:22:31,839
guess some people might say that that's kind of what

351
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:39,519
is it anthropicentric? It's like ducks Unlimited, So you decide

352
00:22:39,559 --> 00:22:42,480
to save the ducks because you're so into duck hunting.

353
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:45,480
Speaker 1: Oh, ducks unlimited. You know, I'm not familiar with ducks

354
00:22:45,559 --> 00:22:47,880
and limited. I just see the hats, so don't I

355
00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:48,279
don't know.

356
00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:52,119
Speaker 2: So what I'm saying though, is, yeah, we love the

357
00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:54,759
fact that it's there for us. But you know, I

358
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:57,880
love where you're coming from, Joey, because you're looking at

359
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:01,359
the ecology as a whole, right, looking at the interplay

360
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:05,240
of species, and you know, ethnabotany is part of that.

361
00:23:05,839 --> 00:23:09,160
I always the human use of the plant is part

362
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:12,599
of that. Yeah, So I guess what I'm saying is

363
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:16,559
like I fell in love with the plant originally as

364
00:23:16,599 --> 00:23:19,960
a plant, right trying to find it myself out in

365
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:25,680
the desert, and then became so intrigued by the fact

366
00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:28,880
that there were people who apparently knew how to use

367
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:29,839
it medicinally, so.

368
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:33,519
Speaker 1: You fell in love with it before you ever ing.

369
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:37,359
Speaker 2: God, Yeah, it dragged me into the tep against my will.

370
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:39,440
Speaker 1: I mean, this was a and what was it? It's

371
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:41,640
I mean because I always tell people that, you know,

372
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:44,720
the fact that psychoactive is the least interesting thing about

373
00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:49,119
the species to me, right right, It's a giant battery

374
00:23:49,119 --> 00:23:52,920
in the ground. That's that, without using spines, like like

375
00:23:53,039 --> 00:23:55,640
so many of its relatives, is able to defend itself

376
00:23:56,240 --> 00:23:58,799
against things that want to eat it. It's able to hide.

377
00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:03,319
It's it's such a cool adaptation so perfectly.

378
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:07,839
Speaker 2: I just wish I almost wish it wasn't psychoactive now

379
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:11,200
that I think about it, right, because like it makes

380
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:15,799
it so complicated to even talk about like I'm serious,

381
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,359
Like there's something about it that just weirds me out.

382
00:24:18,519 --> 00:24:20,720
Like let me just say this. I don't want to

383
00:24:20,759 --> 00:24:25,200
be like insensitive to anybody here, but this thing about

384
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:29,680
psychoactivity is almost like the new gay, you know what

385
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:33,240
I'm saying, or or or people not wanting to get

386
00:24:33,240 --> 00:24:37,039
blacklisted for cammy sympathies or something like this.

387
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:37,799
Speaker 1: What do you mean?

388
00:24:38,079 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 2: It's it's barely we're barely able to talk about it

389
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:49,000
a little bit now because of psychedelic research therapy, investment potential.

390
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:50,799
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, And.

391
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:54,039
Speaker 2: Like you know, there was this recent Rogan thing about

392
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:57,960
abrogating therapy, and it was like I enjoyed it. It

393
00:24:58,000 --> 00:24:59,960
was former Texas Governor Rick Perry.

394
00:25:00,799 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 1: Was he wearing a glasses? Was he wearing a he

395
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:04,680
puts on those glasses?

396
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:05,920
Speaker 2: Do you think I watched it?

397
00:25:06,079 --> 00:25:07,599
Speaker 1: He makes himself look smarter?

398
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:12,119
Speaker 2: And it was actually weird to me in the sense that, hey,

399
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:16,960
we're actually openly talking about this thing about the prohibition

400
00:25:17,279 --> 00:25:20,119
of a medicine because it happens to be psychoactive as

401
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:24,839
ridiculous anymore, you know, And I'm glad we're finally getting there.

402
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:26,880
And so I guess that's the reason I say, it

403
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:29,960
would be so much simpler if it was just the

404
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:36,960
beauty of the plant, the collectibility, Like, yeah, everybody who's

405
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,319
in the cacti in succulents, they want to have a

406
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:41,759
paoty plant. They're not wanting to eat it.

407
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I.

408
00:25:44,359 --> 00:25:47,640
Speaker 2: Don't want to eat it, Joey, And I'm the peoty warrat. Okay,

409
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:50,759
I don't want to eat it, like I really don't.

410
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:53,799
So I love that I can go to ceremonies, but

411
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:55,839
even in there, I'm like, oh God, here comes that

412
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:57,880
medicine really quick.

413
00:25:57,880 --> 00:25:59,920
Speaker 1: When when you guys got together for a morning Star

414
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:03,559
decided to start growing this and trying to because you

415
00:26:03,599 --> 00:26:07,079
were initially trying to purchase land to conserve in South Texas,

416
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:09,599
but having to live in South Texas can be a

417
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,240
tall order for anybody, let me tell you, I know

418
00:26:12,319 --> 00:26:15,640
firsthand about that. So but but why was My question

419
00:26:15,759 --> 00:26:20,480
is why was nobody doing this before? What was there

420
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:22,400
there was a saying that the peoty will take care

421
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:27,759
of itself right among NAC members and natives, that the

422
00:26:27,759 --> 00:26:30,039
paoty will take care of itself? Is that partially to

423
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:34,440
explain why nobody had really, you know, ventured out into

424
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,000
the area of conservation and propagation before or what.

425
00:26:38,839 --> 00:26:42,839
Speaker 2: Well, it's largely because in nineteen seventy when this whole

426
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:46,160
thing was set up for the Paro Dedo distribution system,

427
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,480
and thank God for it. You know the story of

428
00:26:49,559 --> 00:26:54,519
Grandma garden Us, Grandma Coyote down there and amount into

429
00:26:54,519 --> 00:26:54,960
the city.

430
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:57,839
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, yes.

431
00:26:57,720 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 2: It was her family.

432
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:06,079
Speaker 3: That randof Literally they literally stepped up and made a

433
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:10,000
case out of it, you know, purposefully to say, look,

434
00:27:10,039 --> 00:27:13,279
are we wrong in doing this and supplying the natives,

435
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:15,039
you know, for their ceremonial needs.

436
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 2: No, it's a tradition, it's something that needs to happen. Otherwise,

437
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:20,960
how are we going to do this Because it's all

438
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:24,039
private land. Somebody needs to be set up to help

439
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:26,279
these people out that can't get out and do their

440
00:27:26,319 --> 00:27:28,640
own prayers and everything. It was set up in a

441
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:33,200
good way that way, but you get the government involved

442
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:37,200
and sometimes help can be otherwise. So what I'm saying

443
00:27:37,279 --> 00:27:40,119
is in nineteen seventy one that was basically set up

444
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:46,200
around there. Uh, there was plenty of paeoti still growing

445
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:48,319
out there, so it didn't look like it was going

446
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:52,519
to be an issue. And little did they know that

447
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,079
in fifty or sixty years we would have overfish that pathub,

448
00:27:56,200 --> 00:28:01,440
you know, like you just you can't just keep poling

449
00:28:01,559 --> 00:28:04,559
from the same stock, same stock, with no like I say,

450
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:09,640
actual consideration to the future expected to exist.

451
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: The land clearance too. I don't think anybody saw the

452
00:28:11,759 --> 00:28:15,759
amount of habitat destruction and sprawl. I mean, the idea

453
00:28:15,799 --> 00:28:21,599
of a metro suburban region slowly encroaching on this region

454
00:28:21,599 --> 00:28:26,519
to Texas was I'm sure in the nineties seemed like otherworldly,

455
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:29,480
like impossible, you know, because it was so cutty. When

456
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:31,640
I came down here in twenty fourteen, it was so cutty,

457
00:28:32,079 --> 00:28:34,319
you know, I was like, God, where the fuck am I? Man?

458
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:37,119
It was, I mean, I liked it, but it was

459
00:28:37,759 --> 00:28:40,440
it had this kind of almost spooky feeling down here,

460
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:44,480
like you'd see these old houses, dilapidated houses, overgrown with

461
00:28:45,119 --> 00:28:48,240
you know, pollo verde trees and miscuats that were all

462
00:28:48,279 --> 00:28:50,319
And it's a different species of misky than you get

463
00:28:50,359 --> 00:28:56,480
in Arizona too. It's a much more robust, drooping tree.

464
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,960
And it just, I mean it was it just felt

465
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,759
so like, you know, off the map down here, and

466
00:29:03,799 --> 00:29:07,039
I don't think people saw that at some point they're

467
00:29:07,079 --> 00:29:09,359
going to be clearing land to put up like little

468
00:29:09,559 --> 00:29:14,440
you know, ten acre rancheetahs, uh, you know, and and

469
00:29:14,519 --> 00:29:18,559
with lawns and you know, the fucking all the suburban amenities.

470
00:29:18,559 --> 00:29:22,279
I mean, they're they're like suburbanizing parts of Starr County.

471
00:29:22,319 --> 00:29:26,279
It's wild to see. But really quick though. With Amada,

472
00:29:26,359 --> 00:29:28,079
did you had you met her? I was at her

473
00:29:28,279 --> 00:29:31,640
her house that anybody listening is like a is like

474
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:35,000
a museum now basically, and it's still an active They

475
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,119
have tep ceremonies there and Native American Church has tep

476
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,480
ceremonies there and comes down to hold all night meetings

477
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,240
people from Oklahoma. A lot of people from Oklahoma come

478
00:29:45,279 --> 00:29:49,039
down monthly. And I was at her house once and

479
00:29:49,079 --> 00:29:52,440
I remember, uh, someone showing me a box of letters

480
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,200
that she had in envelopes that were stamped in the

481
00:29:56,240 --> 00:30:00,240
mid eighties from people from natives from all over the country,

482
00:30:00,119 --> 00:30:03,519
you know, writing or these really heartfelt letters saying thank

483
00:30:03,559 --> 00:30:07,640
you or you know, placing orders for medicine. It was

484
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:11,240
really cool to see. I mean, that whole area Miranda

485
00:30:11,359 --> 00:30:14,559
City is a really really cool little spot on the map.

486
00:30:14,599 --> 00:30:17,039
I'm glad her house is protected, but did you meet her.

487
00:30:18,359 --> 00:30:22,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was able to meet her a few times

488
00:30:22,319 --> 00:30:25,039
in the last five years or so of her life.

489
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,920
And she was, you know, in a wheelchair and church

490
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:32,599
members had built a ramp up to her door so

491
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,880
she could still come in and out. And it was beautiful.

492
00:30:36,119 --> 00:30:39,640
It was like my grandma's house. That's why. That's why

493
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:43,160
it's named Grandma's Place still. And for people that don't know,

494
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:47,279
it's a prayer site, right, It's where people stop when

495
00:30:47,279 --> 00:30:50,519
they go down to purchase their pot and they make

496
00:30:50,559 --> 00:30:56,119
prayers and they pray for their travel, They smoke tobacco,

497
00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:00,839
they leave coins sometimes and make offerings and it's just

498
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:04,279
a beautiful thing that we have that. And the thing

499
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:08,200
is is it's you know, a weird way, Joey. It

500
00:31:08,319 --> 00:31:12,519
reminds me of how humble this, this actual tradition is.

501
00:31:13,519 --> 00:31:16,359
Like all these other religions. They got their meccas there,

502
00:31:17,119 --> 00:31:19,680
you know, Saint Peter's Square, you know, or what have you.

503
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:23,599
We got this little place where Grandma's kind of semi

504
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:26,160
beat up a little bit on the edges. Old house

505
00:31:26,279 --> 00:31:29,119
is just sitting there and people still stop and pay

506
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:32,960
respects to her and her family. It's a it's a

507
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:34,680
real beautiful cultural tradition.

508
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:38,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really special site we I was helping

509
00:31:38,839 --> 00:31:42,079
to put in. Yeah, like a native plant garden at

510
00:31:42,079 --> 00:31:44,279
the UH at the little prayer garden that they have,

511
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,960
and they've got a there's a cool archway, like metal

512
00:31:48,079 --> 00:31:54,240
archway ri over the entrance to her house too. It's

513
00:31:54,279 --> 00:31:58,359
a it's a it's a really beautiful, beautiful.

514
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, that archway, it's like a metal cutout with a tepee.

515
00:32:02,279 --> 00:32:04,680
I've got a really nice image of it. And it's

516
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:08,359
got the four words, which are the tenants of the

517
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:12,079
Native American Church, Faith, Love, Hope, and charity.

518
00:32:12,359 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Yeah, that was I was trying to remember

519
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:18,880
what the words were when I was talking about that.

520
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:22,519
I should mention that that's a real because I remember

521
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,079
seeing it was it's a beautiful saying, but I couldn't

522
00:32:26,079 --> 00:32:29,400
remember what exactly the the words were. So I'm glad

523
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:29,720
you did.

524
00:32:30,119 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 2: That's that's our journey, brother, that is our journey.

525
00:32:32,759 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 1: Your memory is much your memory is better than mine sometimes. Okay. So,

526
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:44,839
so morning Star is a conservation and propagation organization. You

527
00:32:44,839 --> 00:32:48,920
guys are actively growing payote seedlings in Arizona where state

528
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:54,559
law permits it for Native Americans because Native American I

529
00:32:54,559 --> 00:32:57,400
don't I don't even think ANAC members Native Americans are

530
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:01,759
able to propagate in Texas, actively growing it in Arizona.

531
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:09,319
But at the same time, there's a demand by many

532
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:12,240
Native groups to keep it, to keep it illegal, to

533
00:33:12,319 --> 00:33:15,319
prevent any decriminalization. Like some of the I feel like

534
00:33:15,359 --> 00:33:20,000
the psychedelic it's such a corny word. The psychedelic renaissance, God,

535
00:33:20,039 --> 00:33:24,440
I fucking hated has died down a little bit, especially

536
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:27,440
since you know, the failures of MDMA to be legalized,

537
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,519
and it was found out there were touchers in some

538
00:33:30,559 --> 00:33:33,799
of these psychedelic therapy groups, which is not surprising to me,

539
00:33:34,319 --> 00:33:38,759
you know, there were creepers. But but anyway, it's died

540
00:33:38,759 --> 00:33:40,680
down a little bit, so there's not I feel like

541
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:44,160
there's not as much demand for you know, for psychedelics

542
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:49,960
among these startups, these these startup groups. But but there's

543
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:54,440
I think it this this this motive to keep it,

544
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,400
to keep payodia illegal and prevent it from being decriminalized.

545
00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:00,559
While all these other things were like psilocybin and other psychdelics,

546
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:03,640
this was a thing that was kind of started with

547
00:34:03,799 --> 00:34:06,359
the last eight to ten years where there you actually

548
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:10,639
had now Native groups, you know, petitioning the federal government

549
00:34:10,639 --> 00:34:14,800
to keep payote illegal or petitioning local municipalities like Santa

550
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:18,480
Cruz County, California, to prevent payote from being decriminalized.

551
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:25,639
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you had interest in psychedelic therapy, you ramping up.

552
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,639
Maybe the investment level of it has ramped down a

553
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:39,760
bit lately, but the interest in d KRIM laws probably

554
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:42,079
has also ramped down a little bit. And what that

555
00:34:43,079 --> 00:34:53,599
was was these localized, usually localized municipal referendums to legalize

556
00:34:53,679 --> 00:34:59,159
plants basically in some cases all controlled substances, depending on

557
00:34:59,199 --> 00:35:05,079
the jurisdiction. And one of the one of the hallmark

558
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:09,880
efforts was in the city of Santa Cruz, California, there

559
00:35:10,039 --> 00:35:19,239
was an exemption to decriminalizing all plants applied in that

560
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:23,360
Santa Cruz referendum. And that was that because of the

561
00:35:25,559 --> 00:35:30,760
UH consideration for spiritual use of purity by Native Americans,

562
00:35:31,519 --> 00:35:37,719
that it should remain illegal to possess, cultivate, or.

563
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 1: Just what was the point of It's a it's.

564
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 2: A backwards exemption, you know, instead of being exempt so

565
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,320
it is legal, it's exempt so it remains illegal. In

566
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:55,079
a d CRIM law, and that became like a boiler

567
00:35:55,159 --> 00:35:59,880
plate attachment the style that was used in Santa Cruz

568
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:05,760
for upcoming future d crim laws which were passed around

569
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:08,800
the country after that.

570
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 1: M like you were talking about something in Michigan that.

571
00:36:14,519 --> 00:36:22,360
Speaker 2: Was yeah, yeah, different places, Portland, Oregon possibly some states.

572
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:25,519
It might have been Oregon and Washington possibly that passed

573
00:36:25,559 --> 00:36:28,960
their own d crim I can't quite remember, but the

574
00:36:29,079 --> 00:36:34,639
reason for it was ostensibly out of respect for the

575
00:36:34,679 --> 00:36:38,519
spiritual traditions that go with pod Well. I mean, there's

576
00:36:39,119 --> 00:36:42,079
if I could find a straight logic to all this,

577
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:45,840
I would have endorsed the very same idea. The idea

578
00:36:46,599 --> 00:36:50,119
may be noble, but the reality is that every other

579
00:36:50,199 --> 00:36:53,000
plant that they were d crimming also has its own

580
00:36:53,039 --> 00:36:59,280
spiritual traditions, you know, and some indigenous traditional culture that

581
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:03,719
knows how to use that plan. So it was you know, okay,

582
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:06,880
I get it. This one grows native in the US,

583
00:37:07,079 --> 00:37:10,400
and it has its spiritual tradition. It's otherwise scheduled one,

584
00:37:11,119 --> 00:37:13,880
but we respect that, so we don't want people messing

585
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:18,360
with it. The problem is is that that would also

586
00:37:18,639 --> 00:37:26,199
exclude conservation efforts for one thing, and does it really

587
00:37:27,119 --> 00:37:30,800
help anybody, because just to get a little bit into

588
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:34,639
the weeds. This this proposal in Lansing, Michigan. I was

589
00:37:34,679 --> 00:37:38,639
asked to speak to the city council about and I

590
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:41,480
tried to help make sense of it for them because

591
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,159
they were curious, how do you feel, you know, you're

592
00:37:44,199 --> 00:37:48,400
a conservator of paote. What do you think we should

593
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,960
do about this payote thing? I said, well, I I

594
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:56,519
feel like it should be protected and you know, conserved.

595
00:37:57,559 --> 00:38:02,960
I don't understand how legalizing its, let's say, cultivation and

596
00:38:03,079 --> 00:38:10,400
lancing in Michigan takes away from anything. It's not a

597
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:13,960
thing that's instant. It's not like growing mushrooms where you

598
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:16,360
can have a crop in two months, you know. I

599
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:19,119
kind of more or less said to them that I

600
00:38:19,159 --> 00:38:22,599
feel that if somebody can grow peoty from the seed

601
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:27,719
in their apartment in Lansing, Michigan at the end of eight, ten,

602
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:30,840
twelve years, they kind of deserve to eat that thing

603
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:33,760
in the privacy of their own life, you know. I mean,

604
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:37,239
I can't really And here's the crazy thing, Jerry that

605
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:39,960
it's kind of hard to get across, but it's kind

606
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:44,039
of weird, doesn't make any sense. Let's just say that

607
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:47,559
all of a sudden today they decide I can grow

608
00:38:47,599 --> 00:38:52,159
peoty in my apartment legally in Lansing, Michigan. And so

609
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:55,119
I'm a good law biding citizen. I say, hey, it's

610
00:38:55,159 --> 00:38:58,800
no longer illegal. I think I'm interested. Well, you don't

611
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,119
then get in a car and drive down to South

612
00:39:01,159 --> 00:39:04,360
Texas to pluck some up from the desert, or you

613
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:06,519
can't find it in the first place, really, and it's

614
00:39:06,599 --> 00:39:11,159
highly illegal and you might get shot, and it's federally illegal,

615
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:13,559
and it's illegal in the state of Texas, and it's

616
00:39:13,559 --> 00:39:19,800
illegal to transport it between every state between Texas and Michigan.

617
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:23,920
That legalization in lancing is not going to make you

618
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:26,719
go break the law and deplete it in this native habita.

619
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:30,320
Speaker 1: Now, we're not saying Lansing, Michigan is not important. We're

620
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:32,840
not trying to offend, you know, we're not saying that

621
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:37,679
what lancing does isn't going to affect other locales. You know,

622
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:42,039
we don't want to downplay beautiful lancing. But but this

623
00:39:42,199 --> 00:39:46,719
does seem absurd. It does seem absurd to put laws

624
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:50,280
in place, or to petition for laws to be kept

625
00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:56,519
in place, to prevent the cultivation of what's essentially a

626
00:39:56,519 --> 00:39:59,920
harmless plant in a place that's you know, a thousand

627
00:40:00,079 --> 00:40:02,239
miles away from where it's native.

628
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 2: Well, you hit on something that I think is also

629
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:10,000
important to discuss. It's really one of the main pieces

630
00:40:10,039 --> 00:40:16,119
on the chessboard, and that is that it's not right

631
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,760
that it's classified as a Schedule one substance by the

632
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:28,360
very wording required to make a substance Schedule one. If

633
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:29,400
you think about it for a.

634
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:30,159
Speaker 1: Second, it.

635
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 2: Was it was we kind of know this about cannabis, right, Like,

636
00:40:35,519 --> 00:40:40,199
come on, it can't it's not Schedule one. Read the

637
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:45,239
words apply it to the plant, you know, And it's

638
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:47,800
the same way with peoty. Guess what. It has never

639
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:49,760
hurt anybody.

640
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:52,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you have too much, you just throw up.

641
00:40:53,159 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 2: I'm living in a desert where there's rattlesnakes, choya and

642
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:04,199
uh detura plant, and detura is perfectly legal to grow

643
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:07,559
around your place. It's a it's a desired ornamental to some,

644
00:41:08,519 --> 00:41:12,920
but it's a kind of a weedy ever presence around here.

645
00:41:13,159 --> 00:41:16,119
You know. It just grows. It doesn't acquire hardly any

646
00:41:16,199 --> 00:41:22,400
water or anything, and people tend to oftenselves by over

647
00:41:22,559 --> 00:41:24,199
ingesting it from time to time.

648
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:27,280
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and everybody. Everybody knows. You know someone in

649
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:29,760
high school who ate a couple who ate a pod

650
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:31,800
and then you know was picked up by the cops

651
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:34,320
walking down the freeway naked at three in the morning.

652
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:36,880
Speaker 2: You know, at least i'd so if I walk out

653
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,480
in my backyard and I'm not watching what I'm doing,

654
00:41:39,599 --> 00:41:45,559
I run straight into Teddy Beartoia guy, and that is

655
00:41:45,559 --> 00:41:47,239
going to be one of the worst days of your.

656
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:49,760
Speaker 1: Talk about a sensual essensual cactus.

657
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:53,119
Speaker 2: So the main thing, even if you're even if your

658
00:41:53,159 --> 00:41:56,559
dog runs down into it, right, you're one of the

659
00:41:56,559 --> 00:41:57,679
worst days of your life.

660
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: I mean, I appreciate it. I appreciate did you miss?

661
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:03,760
Lindra Puntia is a botanist. But I'm not gonna I'm

662
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:06,320
not going to pretend it's not harmful and dangerous.

663
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 2: But so I'm just trying to say that there's a

664
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:14,400
lot more dangerous plants than they and if we look

665
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:18,559
at it clearly, it really shouldn't be a Schedule one drug. Well, yeah,

666
00:42:18,599 --> 00:42:20,400
I mean, all I'm trying to say.

667
00:42:20,199 --> 00:42:25,639
Speaker 1: Caffeine has a LD fifty a lethal dose when consumed

668
00:42:25,639 --> 00:42:31,599
by half the population. That's much much higher than mescaline.

669
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:33,639
Speaker 2: Not to mention toquila.

670
00:42:34,199 --> 00:42:37,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, come on, totally yeah. But I

671
00:42:37,679 --> 00:42:43,280
certainly understand, you know, the the motivation to protect it culturally.

672
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:45,559
I mean, this is a plant that's that's sacred to

673
00:42:45,679 --> 00:42:49,000
Native people. You don't want you know what I call

674
00:42:49,119 --> 00:42:54,320
the hanky shaman out there abusing it or selling it

675
00:42:54,599 --> 00:42:57,519
or you know it. This is the thing that that's

676
00:42:57,639 --> 00:43:00,119
culturally sensitive. I totally understand that. It'd be the you

677
00:43:00,119 --> 00:43:02,480
know the same if someone was out there. You know,

678
00:43:02,519 --> 00:43:05,760
I have a Catholic priest outfit that I sometimes put

679
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,039
on for live streams because I think it's funny. You

680
00:43:08,039 --> 00:43:09,960
wouldn't you know? That'd be like I'm sure that offends

681
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:12,400
many Catholics. It would be like the same thing. There's

682
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:17,760
plenty of room uh for cultural uh you know, to

683
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:21,000
use the word cultural appropriation or or things will be

684
00:43:21,039 --> 00:43:24,719
offensive to to a population to whom this plant's important.

685
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:25,559
I totally understand that.

686
00:43:25,559 --> 00:43:29,519
Speaker 2: But it doesn't offensive offensive. Yes, but is that government's job.

687
00:43:29,639 --> 00:43:33,239
Government's job is safety, right, definitely, to take it, to

688
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:37,480
take it back to safety. Like, let's just all throw

689
00:43:37,519 --> 00:43:40,599
you one word? How about this Canada?

690
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:44,599
Speaker 1: So wait, hold on, I want to talk about that,

691
00:43:44,679 --> 00:43:46,440
But what The point I wanted to make was that

692
00:43:46,679 --> 00:43:51,280
the preserve it culturally is it seems at odds with

693
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:55,880
preserving it physically, like with actually conserving it, and especially

694
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:59,280
using a law that was created as part of a

695
00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:02,320
culture war, and before that, which was created as a

696
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:07,000
result of a racist, a racist agenda against Native Americans.

697
00:44:07,039 --> 00:44:10,079
I mean the early twentieth century, the late eighteen hundreds,

698
00:44:10,079 --> 00:44:13,159
early nineteen hundreds, paid you know, there were many efforts

699
00:44:13,199 --> 00:44:18,519
to criminalize payota use among Natives by you know, the

700
00:44:18,599 --> 00:44:22,039
Anglo population, and it was all it was all racist intent.

701
00:44:22,119 --> 00:44:24,840
It was they felt it interfered with you know, converting

702
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:28,719
them to Christianity, so you know, right, yeah.

703
00:44:28,159 --> 00:44:33,519
Speaker 2: And kept them, kept them on a lower level of

704
00:44:33,679 --> 00:44:37,519
existence in some cultural manner. But see, that's the thing

705
00:44:38,159 --> 00:44:40,559
is like, I guess the reason I'm trying to get

706
00:44:40,559 --> 00:44:43,960
to the safety thing because if it was really about safety,

707
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,960
by the way, then why did we carve out an

708
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:50,559
exemption for Native Americans? Is it that their safety is

709
00:44:50,679 --> 00:44:54,400
less important? Well? Or is that they don't deserve equal

710
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:56,920
protection from dangerous substances.

711
00:44:57,119 --> 00:45:01,599
Speaker 1: I think people know that, I mean unless you're When

712
00:45:01,639 --> 00:45:05,360
I was an adjunct professor at SEUL Ross, there were

713
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,840
some people there who their main motivation for getting rid

714
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:12,599
of Martin Terry's dea licensed payoty collection was that they

715
00:45:12,639 --> 00:45:15,360
thought it was dangerous. They thought the football team's going

716
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:17,440
to come in here, eat all of it and have

717
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:19,599
to be sent to the er, which is hilarious. And

718
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:23,920
also it's so Texas, like I could totally picture, you know,

719
00:45:24,559 --> 00:45:28,280
some administrator in Texas. No offense to anybody imagining that

720
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:30,440
that's a reality and that Payote's dangerous. But I think

721
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:34,960
most people know payote is not dangerous. But this attempt

722
00:45:35,039 --> 00:45:39,199
to culturally preserve it is what I'm concerned about. It

723
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:44,559
seems like this is some fear of it being appropriated

724
00:45:44,679 --> 00:45:48,519
or further endangered if it's decriminalized. And that again comes

725
00:45:48,519 --> 00:45:51,519
from this idea that you know, these Anglo drug bros

726
00:45:51,599 --> 00:45:53,880
or whoever, are going to drive down to Texas hop

727
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:57,800
a fence, walk through thorn scrub and go around digging

728
00:45:57,800 --> 00:46:00,920
this plant up when you can and purchase seeds of

729
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:02,800
it online for nothing.

730
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:10,400
Speaker 2: So that cultural sensitivity and the illogical idea that is

731
00:46:10,519 --> 00:46:16,960
dangerous or like the two main harmful elements to the

732
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:21,840
species itself. I mean, it helps to identify that because

733
00:46:22,119 --> 00:46:27,159
then you start seeing the multiple layers involved. So I

734
00:46:27,199 --> 00:46:30,079
want to backtrack just for a second in terms of Arizona.

735
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:33,559
So you're right. So what it is is that Arizona

736
00:46:33,639 --> 00:46:37,559
law has an exemption to where your possession and use

737
00:46:37,599 --> 00:46:43,400
of piety is exempt from prosecution if it was being

738
00:46:43,519 --> 00:46:47,880
used in a religious context. Whereas the state of Texas,

739
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:52,920
where the insitu work needs to take place, it's specifically

740
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:57,440
prohibited for you to possess paety for anything other than

741
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:02,239
to sell or as a licensed member of the Native

742
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:06,039
American church, buying it and transporting it out of it

743
00:47:06,679 --> 00:47:10,599
and maybe using it within the state. But it is

744
00:47:10,639 --> 00:47:15,800
specifically prohibited to cultivate it, transplant it, put it in

745
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:20,039
a pot, collect the seeds, plant the seeds. So there

746
00:47:20,199 --> 00:47:25,639
is no religious exemption for conservation. It is not made

747
00:47:25,679 --> 00:47:29,280
exempt in Texas. I just want to be specific.

748
00:47:30,079 --> 00:47:35,360
Speaker 1: So the status called that it's set up for extinction

749
00:47:35,559 --> 00:47:37,159
basically in Texas.

750
00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:40,679
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a legal bias toward extinction. I've said this

751
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,840
for too many years. It is actually a legal bias

752
00:47:44,960 --> 00:47:49,039
to create a trend, which, like I say, takes some

753
00:47:49,159 --> 00:47:51,519
decades to see the effect of. You don't see it

754
00:47:51,559 --> 00:47:54,559
in nineteen seventy. There's plenty around every time we go

755
00:47:54,599 --> 00:47:58,360
buy it is cheap. I think when I first went

756
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,519
down it was like a maybe it went up to

757
00:48:01,519 --> 00:48:03,840
one hundred and ten dollars after a couple of years

758
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:07,599
per thousand. And that sack of a thousand was not small.

759
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:13,559
Speaker 1: So eleven cent plant, eleven cents a button, yeah, and

760
00:48:13,599 --> 00:48:14,119
these were.

761
00:48:14,079 --> 00:48:16,880
Speaker 2: So now we're up to I don't know, seven, seven

762
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:20,159
hundred and fifty dollars for a very small sack of

763
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:22,599
small buttons.

764
00:48:22,639 --> 00:48:25,920
Speaker 1: And these these are these are cuttings too. These are

765
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:29,400
cut buttons, which means the plant is still intact and

766
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:31,199
we'll re sprout. That's the other thing we forgot to

767
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:35,360
mention is that this, you know, cutting this plant harvesting

768
00:48:35,639 --> 00:48:37,679
is a sustainable thing. If there is some guy growing

769
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:41,400
it in an apartment in Lansing, Michigan, he could very

770
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:44,400
well cut his own plant and it would re sprout

771
00:48:44,519 --> 00:48:45,440
as long as he didn't like.

772
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 2: Every time you cut. Every time you cut your plant,

773
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:52,039
you get new crowned so you're technically making more, but

774
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:55,280
only if it's done correctly. And it's not done correctly

775
00:48:55,320 --> 00:49:01,159
in Texas because of the degradation of the the populations

776
00:49:02,079 --> 00:49:06,280
these little ones that we buy. Now, I'll tell you, Joey,

777
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:08,719
for the most part, if I had to give you

778
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:16,480
a percentage, I would say that a good still have

779
00:49:16,679 --> 00:49:21,440
their stem, their underground stem attached, because nobody's getting in

780
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:23,480
there on their hands and knees and just cutting off

781
00:49:23,519 --> 00:49:26,199
the tops of these smaller ones. It's easier doing their

782
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:29,400
big and when they're right in front of you, But

783
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:32,000
the rest of them are kind of kind of root

784
00:49:32,079 --> 00:49:35,039
hold up. You know, there's like a hoe, like a

785
00:49:35,079 --> 00:49:38,760
little short handled plow kind of.

786
00:49:38,679 --> 00:49:40,960
Speaker 1: Thing, because that's what's going inefficient. I guess it's you.

787
00:49:41,840 --> 00:49:43,920
You're a Palo taro. You're sweating your ass off, you're

788
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:46,760
getting bit by mosquitos, covered in ticks and poked with

789
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:49,960
you know, thorny blackbrush, and you're just out there just

790
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:52,280
just whacking whatever. You know, who cares? Just getting the.

791
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:56,440
Speaker 2: Harvesting technique is partly you're blamed for this. And none

792
00:49:56,440 --> 00:49:59,679
of those remain, None of those remain to make more,

793
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:03,000
those little ones like that. So what we do is

794
00:50:03,119 --> 00:50:06,480
I purposefully sort out the little ones that come for

795
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:09,920
church use. And fortunately a lot of other Native American

796
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:13,079
church members take part in this kind of thing. They

797
00:50:13,119 --> 00:50:17,159
select out the smaller ones with their whole stem intact,

798
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:22,000
rather than slicing them up for ceremonial use, because they'll

799
00:50:22,039 --> 00:50:24,400
be big in just a few years and can be

800
00:50:24,519 --> 00:50:27,760
then used for ceremonial use. And every time you cut them,

801
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:31,360
they make more. It just doesn't make sense to not

802
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:32,199
do it that way.

803
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:36,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you guys are purchasing. You guys are purchasing medicine.

804
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:39,800
It's all legal, all transported legally, all the paperwork bringing

805
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:42,440
it to Arizona, and then you use what you save

806
00:50:42,559 --> 00:50:45,400
some for ceremony, and then the ones that are too

807
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:47,599
small you just root and make new plants.

808
00:50:49,159 --> 00:50:53,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're forced to do that. There's no other source.

809
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:56,360
That's the crazy thing. It's like having one source for

810
00:50:56,440 --> 00:51:00,679
your venison. It's all licensed by the same entity, and

811
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:07,519
there's no regulation into how it's hardested, whether properly or improperly.

812
00:51:08,039 --> 00:51:12,000
I mean that is just like this technical aspect. It's like, yeah,

813
00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:17,960
the hardesting technique itself is partially the source of the depletion.

814
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 1: It's it's cool.

815
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:22,719
Speaker 2: Rather than rather than creating more, you see what I'm saying.

816
00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:26,119
It's like very it's it's it right and there's more

817
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:28,519
or you cut it wrong, and there's less It's.

818
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:33,079
Speaker 1: It's crazy and it's unfortunate that Arizona law facilitates conservation

819
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:37,159
X city conservation and propagation at its plant, but the

820
00:51:37,199 --> 00:51:39,800
place where it's native, the state where it's native, doesn't.

821
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:42,119
I mean, it's not even native. It's not even legal

822
00:51:42,159 --> 00:51:45,440
for Native Americans to plant it. If there was a

823
00:51:45,519 --> 00:51:50,079
Native American group that wanted to go purchase land and start,

824
00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:53,880
you know, repopulating it with payote ceilings, they could not

825
00:51:54,039 --> 00:51:56,679
legally do it unless they got a DEA permit like

826
00:51:56,760 --> 00:52:00,559
I pc I did, et cetera. I mean, there's there's

827
00:52:00,679 --> 00:52:05,119
no in South Texas is where it grows. Best's this

828
00:52:05,199 --> 00:52:05,880
is there's.

829
00:52:05,679 --> 00:52:08,000
Speaker 2: So many layer there's so many layers of the ill

830
00:52:08,119 --> 00:52:10,360
logic that it's hard to get my mind around. And

831
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:13,320
I think about it all the time. Here's another goofy thing.

832
00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:18,199
For example, you can be a Mexican in South Texas

833
00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:23,880
and perfectly illegal, legally go and cut extremely certain threatened

834
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:27,199
plants and bring them back to the dude, and he

835
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:29,679
gives you money for them, and you go buy beer

836
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:33,480
and whatnot, and that's perfectly illegal. But you cannot eat

837
00:52:33,559 --> 00:52:37,320
one of those you can't. Oh, that is a federal offense,

838
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:38,920
so law offense.

839
00:52:39,039 --> 00:52:45,280
Speaker 1: So law also states that the payotos cannot consume what

840
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:48,480
they're harvesting, the Payotaro's and the dealers the license they.

841
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:51,280
Speaker 2: Can unless they can show what they call twenty five

842
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:54,760
percent Indian blood and be a member of the Native

843
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:58,559
American Church all at the same time. So that's three things.

844
00:52:58,599 --> 00:53:01,760
You're a Mexican, you're an Indian, and you're a member

845
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:05,280
of a Native American church. And that species doesn't exist

846
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,280
too much down there, at least not among the people

847
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:12,360
that are picking the plants themselves. So it's it's just

848
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:16,039
as weird. It's there's so many layers that don't make sense,

849
00:53:16,199 --> 00:53:17,840
is what we're kind of all talking about.

850
00:53:18,079 --> 00:53:20,719
Speaker 1: Right. So the law, the law, the law is is

851
00:53:21,559 --> 00:53:25,119
kind of putting the plant on track towards extinction, and

852
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:30,360
populations are rapidly declining. I've even heard, you know, botanists

853
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:35,119
in the state who possibly have some authority, you know,

854
00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:39,519
mumbling about it being listed as an endangered species, which

855
00:53:39,559 --> 00:53:41,599
I think is the worst, the worst thing you could

856
00:53:41,639 --> 00:53:45,119
do in a state like Texas, because if you make

857
00:53:45,159 --> 00:53:47,920
something an endangered species of plant in Texas, then it

858
00:53:48,039 --> 00:53:51,360
now it becomes targeted, you know, and people will actively,

859
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:54,840
if it's on their land, will actively destroy it and

860
00:53:54,880 --> 00:53:56,960
get rid of it because there's this fear that it

861
00:53:57,079 --> 00:53:58,960
means the federal government's going to come in and take

862
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:03,360
your land. I think putting this not just terrible idea, But.

863
00:54:03,840 --> 00:54:07,440
Speaker 2: There's not just that. There's also the element that if

864
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:10,559
you make it an endangered species, that directly conflicts with

865
00:54:10,639 --> 00:54:14,719
the legal trade. Right, nobody in the Native American church

866
00:54:14,800 --> 00:54:17,159
really wants to see all of a sudden that they

867
00:54:17,199 --> 00:54:19,519
can't order medicine for their prayer ceremony.

868
00:54:19,679 --> 00:54:24,599
Speaker 1: Right. There's this too. But then there's again the Native

869
00:54:24,599 --> 00:54:27,559
American groups that want to petition to keep it. They

870
00:54:27,559 --> 00:54:30,840
don't want it legalized, they don't want it decriminalized. And

871
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:32,960
this is what I wanted to get to. I think

872
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:36,360
it's I understand the motives, but I think it is

873
00:54:36,679 --> 00:54:40,840
completely short sighted and illogical and further endangers the plant.

874
00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:43,119
Can we talk about that a little bit? What's your

875
00:54:43,559 --> 00:54:45,360
what's your opinions on that? I mean there have been

876
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,719
you know, Navajo Nation wrote uh, I don't know the

877
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:52,800
exact details. They wrote the federal government and basically petitioning

878
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:57,079
it to keep it illegal. You know, I totally believe

879
00:54:57,119 --> 00:54:59,320
in cultural preservation, but this is not the way to

880
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:02,239
do it. This is not the way to do it.

881
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:05,639
I mean, And you brought up Canada, where it's legal

882
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:09,199
to grow, and let's talk about Canada. What's what's what's

883
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:12,360
the status of payote up there? It's totally illegal to grow,

884
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:14,639
but illegal to consume unless you're Native, right.

885
00:55:16,760 --> 00:55:20,800
Speaker 2: Right? They have Native American church groups in Canada. So

886
00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:25,079
people up there must purchase their medicine from Texas did

887
00:55:25,119 --> 00:55:29,559
it ship to them? At the same time, Canadian laws

888
00:55:29,639 --> 00:55:34,679
specifically states that you can grow, possess, share, sell the

889
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:37,440
plant itself. You're just not allowed to eat it for

890
00:55:37,519 --> 00:55:42,639
drug purposes. So this goes back to that question of safety.

891
00:55:43,960 --> 00:55:47,840
Does government have a compelling interest in regulating paote in

892
00:55:47,880 --> 00:55:52,440
Canada because of safety issues? No, there is no safety

893
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:55,760
issue with the legal possession of parity in Canada. This

894
00:55:55,840 --> 00:56:01,480
is this is just verified by time. And I actually, Joey,

895
00:56:01,519 --> 00:56:04,599
you love this story. But I know a fella who

896
00:56:04,679 --> 00:56:12,119
was arrested and put in prison in Canada for manufacture

897
00:56:12,159 --> 00:56:17,719
I guess possibly distribution of LSD. And he decided as

898
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:21,800
his prison project, asked permission to grow paoty in the

899
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:26,639
prison greenhouse and was allowed to do so so.

900
00:56:27,599 --> 00:56:28,039
Speaker 1: In jail.

901
00:56:29,159 --> 00:56:32,840
Speaker 2: Yes, And so I'm saying this is the status in Canada.

902
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:36,239
I am blessed to spend part of my time there

903
00:56:36,519 --> 00:56:39,719
with my Canadian wife and family. We have a home

904
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:43,360
there and we grow medicine there, and there's just no

905
00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:47,360
issue with it. There's no issue with it. There is,

906
00:56:47,599 --> 00:56:51,679
just isn't. And there's payoty growers and collectors just on

907
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:54,360
the west coast of Canada that I know personally that

908
00:56:54,440 --> 00:56:58,000
I've met over time. It's not an issue. It's not

909
00:56:58,079 --> 00:57:01,360
a drug issue, and nobody's getting stuff on peyote. There's

910
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:06,760
why through the mail you can you can buy the seed,

911
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:10,119
you can purchase a plant, grow it at home. And

912
00:57:10,159 --> 00:57:12,920
so I guess what I'm coming to with this, Joey,

913
00:57:13,079 --> 00:57:17,079
is that there's also no compelling interest in the United States.

914
00:57:18,320 --> 00:57:21,679
It's a myth and and this is like, so we've

915
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:26,079
bushwhacked our way down to what you're talking about, which

916
00:57:26,119 --> 00:57:30,000
is why there's a push to keep it illegal, and

917
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:35,440
why Native American church members themselves are oftentimes as individuals

918
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:42,599
and sometimes as organizations, making statements uh to keep it illegal.

919
00:57:43,039 --> 00:57:46,079
I mean because we had to bushwhack our way there.

920
00:57:46,519 --> 00:57:49,719
So there's all these layers, starting with the federal prejudices,

921
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:54,119
the cultural prejudices, the thing towards Christianization. I guess you

922
00:57:54,159 --> 00:57:58,440
could say, away from native traditions.

923
00:57:56,679 --> 00:58:03,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's obviously, you know, a partially a

924
00:58:03,719 --> 00:58:07,239
way to hide it from or to or to to

925
00:58:07,239 --> 00:58:10,400
to get it permitted among you know, the dominant culture

926
00:58:10,440 --> 00:58:13,400
that's trying to suppress you, which is Christian. You know,

927
00:58:13,480 --> 00:58:17,280
you inject the Christianity into it and at this point

928
00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:20,679
that's basically part of it now. But that totally makes

929
00:58:20,719 --> 00:58:22,760
sense too. But there's yeah, I mean, there's like, yeah,

930
00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:25,320
like you were saying, we bushwhacked here, it was. There's

931
00:58:25,519 --> 00:58:28,599
many layers. But the point is because we have a model.

932
00:58:29,039 --> 00:58:33,039
We have a model for how it is, what happens

933
00:58:33,039 --> 00:58:36,079
when it's legal someplace. We have a model in Canada.

934
00:58:36,239 --> 00:58:38,960
It's not it's not an issue of safety. No one's

935
00:58:39,000 --> 00:58:41,400
getting hurt by this. And also it's not an issue

936
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:45,239
of cultural disrespect because as far as I know, there's

937
00:58:45,320 --> 00:58:49,800
not some big cult of Caucasian drug bros who are

938
00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:53,679
engaging in the sale and trade of peyote for you know,

939
00:58:53,800 --> 00:58:57,480
for drug use for consumption. It's not some there's not

940
00:58:57,639 --> 00:58:59,960
been some rush as far as I know, by psychedelic

941
00:59:00,119 --> 00:59:06,159
entrepreneurs on Canadian populations of this plant and cultivation that

942
00:59:06,199 --> 00:59:10,760
would in any way disrespect you know, Native American churches

943
00:59:10,800 --> 00:59:11,039
of it.

944
00:59:11,119 --> 00:59:14,400
Speaker 2: So again, plant dorks, plant dorks are not your problem.

945
00:59:14,599 --> 00:59:18,440
You know, Cacti bros aren't even your problem. As far

946
00:59:18,480 --> 00:59:21,079
as I can tell. That's a good thing. Like let

947
00:59:21,119 --> 00:59:25,519
a person get in love with nature. Man, I mean yeah,

948
00:59:25,559 --> 00:59:29,159
I mean, how not dangerous can we possibly be talking

949
00:59:29,159 --> 00:59:32,639
about here? I mean, it's not an issue in cannabis.

950
00:59:32,639 --> 00:59:35,159
Speaker 1: Like the cannabis thing is an excellent example. I know

951
00:59:35,280 --> 00:59:39,039
so many people who've ridden me, who you know, said, oh,

952
00:59:39,079 --> 00:59:41,079
I got into your podcast because I was. I was

953
00:59:41,119 --> 00:59:44,519
initially into cannabis, and now I'm into all these other things,

954
00:59:44,599 --> 00:59:47,480
these other native plants. I'm you know, learning about science

955
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:51,079
and interested in all these elements of the natural world.

956
00:59:51,960 --> 00:59:55,960
It's a it's a gateway, it really is towards towards

957
00:59:56,000 --> 00:59:59,599
not just conservation and quote nature, but also towards science.

958
01:00:00,079 --> 01:00:03,800
So I don't understand why there's this, you know, repetitive

959
01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:09,559
and constant push to keep it illegal among among the

960
01:00:09,639 --> 01:00:12,239
native groups down here. It's I understand, it's like this

961
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:15,719
gatekeeping thing. It's it's an emotional issue, but it seems

962
01:00:16,440 --> 01:00:22,480
that directly conflicts with conservation of a plant who's becoming

963
01:00:22,679 --> 01:00:24,599
with every passing year more endangered.

964
01:00:25,760 --> 01:00:28,960
Speaker 2: Well, I have a lot of compassion for the emotion

965
01:00:29,079 --> 01:00:31,320
of it, you know, I have a lot of emotion

966
01:00:31,400 --> 01:00:35,360
about it. I confessed this to you earlier, Like I

967
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:39,079
do have a lot of emotion about it. And non

968
01:00:39,159 --> 01:00:42,760
tribal people might not be able to easily recognize what

969
01:00:42,840 --> 01:00:47,199
it feels like to have your traditions taken away within

970
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:53,519
your grandparents' generation. It feels different, you know, if you

971
01:00:53,559 --> 01:00:56,440
were raised at a boarding school, taken away from your

972
01:00:56,480 --> 01:00:59,679
family and tadd different ways to have a lot of

973
01:00:59,719 --> 01:01:08,079
them about it. And so I get that we still

974
01:01:08,119 --> 01:01:11,559
need to look for a logic in our arguments. So

975
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:20,119
you were at a ceremony with me in South Texas

976
01:01:20,159 --> 01:01:26,119
and we had one of the thirteen Indigenous Grandmother Council

977
01:01:26,199 --> 01:01:29,360
members there with us. We were so fortunate to have her.

978
01:01:30,599 --> 01:01:34,320
She was happy to share her thoughts with us, and

979
01:01:35,599 --> 01:01:39,159
I remember her in the morning and here we are

980
01:01:39,360 --> 01:01:45,679
in a very meditation filled space, you know, trying to

981
01:01:45,719 --> 01:01:48,320
have our minds and our hearts clear and be open

982
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:51,079
each other. And she went ahead and shared with us

983
01:01:51,079 --> 01:01:56,719
how she didn't really look around at her reservation in

984
01:01:56,760 --> 01:02:03,199
Oklahoma and see the problem could be with like other

985
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:08,719
than Native people trying to do something good. She even

986
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:12,440
cracked us up when she said something like, you know,

987
01:02:12,519 --> 01:02:15,199
I look around sometimes I see these white people taking

988
01:02:15,239 --> 01:02:18,440
care of things better than we do ourselves. She's like,

989
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:22,239
why can't we, you know, work together. Yeah, I remember saying,

990
01:02:23,199 --> 01:02:25,599
and that kind of clarity, you know, she had to

991
01:02:25,639 --> 01:02:29,800
cut through the emotion of it to like get this

992
01:02:29,880 --> 01:02:32,639
recognition that this is what we're praying about. That's what

993
01:02:32,679 --> 01:02:36,119
that ceremony was for, right, and so could we just

994
01:02:36,159 --> 01:02:39,920
get clear about this, like let's it was almost like

995
01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:42,239
she was saying, we needed the jettison some of our

996
01:02:43,519 --> 01:02:47,559
opinionated emotions. And I have to do the same thing.

997
01:02:48,639 --> 01:02:51,920
Like I get on the Instagram and you know, I

998
01:02:52,199 --> 01:02:55,960
see and I get contacted by different cact dibros and stuff,

999
01:02:55,960 --> 01:02:59,119
and sometimes I wonder, like, you know, it's beautiful what

1000
01:02:59,159 --> 01:03:02,679
you're doing, but you do have to realize that you

1001
01:03:02,760 --> 01:03:05,880
are kind of like a thorn in the side of

1002
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:10,079
some people when you're coming onto this like it's your

1003
01:03:10,119 --> 01:03:14,119
privilege somehow. Well, not everybody's had that privilege. Like a

1004
01:03:14,119 --> 01:03:18,079
lot of people, you know in inquisition days died about this.

1005
01:03:18,320 --> 01:03:22,320
You know a lot of people in our timeline went

1006
01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:26,440
to jail for this, or or got ostracized for this,

1007
01:03:26,599 --> 01:03:27,880
or lost their jobs for this.

1008
01:03:30,039 --> 01:03:34,360
Speaker 1: There's been a war against Peyote for five suspense got

1009
01:03:34,440 --> 01:03:36,679
here since the spear.

1010
01:03:36,840 --> 01:03:40,639
Speaker 2: Social pressure not to be one of those people. I

1011
01:03:40,639 --> 01:03:44,320
guess even in my own life, brother, I you know,

1012
01:03:44,639 --> 01:03:48,400
I've seen a couple of jails in a Mexican prison

1013
01:03:49,320 --> 01:03:53,480
over my own activities and beliefs. I was arrested with

1014
01:03:53,559 --> 01:03:56,920
a little film canisterer half full of seeds I had collected,

1015
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:00,920
and they told me and that ago it was popping

1016
01:04:00,920 --> 01:04:02,840
sceeds and I was going to do twenty seven years

1017
01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:03,679
in their whole prison.

1018
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:05,840
Speaker 1: You were in jail with the weechos, right.

1019
01:04:06,719 --> 01:04:11,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh, it's not uncommon. So I guess I'm

1020
01:04:11,599 --> 01:04:15,039
just saying like, yeah, there's a lot involved here on

1021
01:04:15,239 --> 01:04:18,719
personal levels, Like all of us, every one of us

1022
01:04:18,760 --> 01:04:22,760
that really believes somehow in the goodness of this plant.

1023
01:04:23,400 --> 01:04:26,400
We can tell our stories of how it's just not

1024
01:04:26,840 --> 01:04:32,079
like a game like your life is involved. I in

1025
01:04:33,199 --> 01:04:37,039
the United States, I was once charged with child endangerment

1026
01:04:37,719 --> 01:04:41,480
for having a peety planter a garden in my living

1027
01:04:41,559 --> 01:04:44,400
room in front of the sun window that my kids

1028
01:04:44,400 --> 01:04:46,039
grew up with, and I grew.

1029
01:04:45,880 --> 01:04:47,920
Speaker 1: Up this was it. I mean, this is an and

1030
01:04:48,000 --> 01:04:49,679
your native American.

1031
01:04:49,760 --> 01:04:53,000
Speaker 2: And they were still, well, I'm a Mexican, brother, I'm

1032
01:04:53,119 --> 01:04:59,960
a I'm a Native American manufactured with parts made in my.

1033
01:05:01,559 --> 01:05:04,800
Speaker 1: It look pretty indigenous to me. I mean, and I

1034
01:05:04,800 --> 01:05:08,719
don't know, I I'm kind of surprised, well that surprise,

1035
01:05:08,840 --> 01:05:11,039
but still, I mean, this is nineties, right, This was

1036
01:05:11,079 --> 01:05:13,559
a big deal. Was this nineties or late eighties? You

1037
01:05:13,639 --> 01:05:15,159
remember you tell me about this before? This was an

1038
01:05:15,199 --> 01:05:17,960
Arizona right, oh, in the early nineties.

1039
01:05:18,239 --> 01:05:21,639
Speaker 2: And I just point that out because like my kids

1040
01:05:21,639 --> 01:05:25,199
were raising the desert with rattlesnakes outside. I used to

1041
01:05:25,280 --> 01:05:27,320
have to haul them off, you know, keep them away

1042
01:05:27,320 --> 01:05:30,880
from the place, and you know, learning about which how

1043
01:05:31,079 --> 01:05:33,559
walk in the desert without getting hurt. And here they

1044
01:05:33,639 --> 01:05:35,920
were telling me I was endareting my kids by having

1045
01:05:35,960 --> 01:05:38,840
this beautiful garden with flowers you know that we could

1046
01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:42,199
see every morning. So what I did was at that time.

1047
01:05:42,679 --> 01:05:44,639
You know, I'm a bit of a maniac when I

1048
01:05:44,719 --> 01:05:48,599
have to be. I got a hold of the Department

1049
01:05:48,960 --> 01:05:54,400
of Poison Control in Texas specifically, you know, started in

1050
01:05:54,440 --> 01:05:56,599
South Texas but ended up with somebody I think in

1051
01:05:56,679 --> 01:06:00,519
Austin somewhere, and they were like, what, that's ridiculous charging

1052
01:06:00,559 --> 01:06:05,760
with child endangerment. They maintained that they had no record

1053
01:06:05,880 --> 01:06:09,719
ever of anybody in South Tape, Texas, any child ever

1054
01:06:09,800 --> 01:06:13,320
being poisoned by the peoty that grows around there, you know,

1055
01:06:14,079 --> 01:06:17,199
and and it is kind of omnipresent in a lot

1056
01:06:17,239 --> 01:06:22,239
of people's world when you live out there. And I'm

1057
01:06:22,239 --> 01:06:25,559
just pointing that out, and I was like, this has

1058
01:06:25,719 --> 01:06:28,400
never been this thing to where we're like, hey man,

1059
01:06:28,519 --> 01:06:32,119
this this is awesome. Everybody gets some payoty and la

1060
01:06:32,199 --> 01:06:35,039
la la lah No. We we have a personal relationship

1061
01:06:35,039 --> 01:06:38,880
with the plant that is important to us. And I

1062
01:06:38,880 --> 01:06:41,679
guess so I'm just trying to explain that the emotion

1063
01:06:41,840 --> 01:06:45,079
that goes with it is very understandable, and that's why

1064
01:06:45,119 --> 01:06:53,800
the squeeze comes. Like politically, there's certain organizations that the

1065
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:57,679
file briefs to whatever you might call it, with these

1066
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:01,119
jurisdictional bodies that are trying to pass and D crime law,

1067
01:07:01,199 --> 01:07:08,440
saying please don't decriminalized peuty. We're very sensitive about this,

1068
01:07:10,400 --> 01:07:13,480
you know, we haven't been consulted, whatever it might be.

1069
01:07:14,280 --> 01:07:17,559
And then one time I saw something that really did

1070
01:07:17,639 --> 01:07:20,320
kind of make sense about this to me, and that

1071
01:07:20,639 --> 01:07:26,480
was that I believe it's probably still somewhere in their

1072
01:07:26,559 --> 01:07:32,920
website and their documents that the Indigenous Peoty Conservation UH

1073
01:07:33,400 --> 01:07:39,960
Protection Initiative, the IPCI asked a certain jurisdiction I can't

1074
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:43,280
remember which to just not use the word peuty in

1075
01:07:43,320 --> 01:07:46,320
their D crime laws. Now, that kind of made sense

1076
01:07:46,360 --> 01:07:48,639
to me, like, let's not bring that up.

1077
01:07:48,960 --> 01:07:51,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get on board with that.

1078
01:07:52,159 --> 01:07:55,280
Speaker 2: I can get on board with that. That makes sense

1079
01:07:55,320 --> 01:08:00,960
to me. Somehow. You're not waving a flag it, you're

1080
01:08:01,000 --> 01:08:03,320
not saying we don't care how you feel about it.

1081
01:08:04,119 --> 01:08:06,760
If you're going to make plants legal, make plants legal,

1082
01:08:06,800 --> 01:08:10,039
but let's not get into all this hair splitting, because

1083
01:08:10,039 --> 01:08:13,280
it's not going to make it any better realistically.

1084
01:08:14,039 --> 01:08:22,079
Speaker 1: So there's this very understandable emotional certainly urged to protect this,

1085
01:08:22,960 --> 01:08:25,840
and I think anybody with any sense about them can

1086
01:08:25,920 --> 01:08:30,079
understand that. How do you think you convince people that

1087
01:08:30,199 --> 01:08:33,439
want to but at the same time, before we even

1088
01:08:33,439 --> 01:08:36,479
get into that, but at the same time, this urge

1089
01:08:36,479 --> 01:08:39,840
to protect it might be might have adverse effects that

1090
01:08:39,920 --> 01:08:44,119
actually affect physical populations of the plant and effect negatively

1091
01:08:44,159 --> 01:08:48,680
affect its conservation. How do you convince people that want

1092
01:08:48,720 --> 01:08:52,840
to keep it illegal for cultural reasons to see that

1093
01:08:52,920 --> 01:08:55,600
one there's a different there's another way to protect their

1094
01:08:55,600 --> 01:08:59,760
culturally that doesn't include, you know, making it illegal to

1095
01:08:59,760 --> 01:09:05,640
grow or work with for restoration and conservation, and at

1096
01:09:05,680 --> 01:09:10,399
the same time get them to see the conservation does

1097
01:09:10,479 --> 01:09:13,880
need to happen. In order for it to happen, some

1098
01:09:13,960 --> 01:09:16,880
of these roadblocks have to be removed.

1099
01:09:19,199 --> 01:09:23,880
Speaker 2: Well, I've considered it a lot. How do you convince

1100
01:09:23,920 --> 01:09:31,960
some I think, honestly, there's really one way, and it

1101
01:09:32,039 --> 01:09:34,520
takes a little bit of time. And the way it

1102
01:09:34,640 --> 01:09:39,000
is is that you set an example that you actually

1103
01:09:39,079 --> 01:09:44,840
are able to provide beautiful, healthy plants for sacramental use

1104
01:09:45,840 --> 01:09:50,640
through conservation. I believe that the day that you can

1105
01:09:50,680 --> 01:09:55,680
have a peety ceremony, which that day or that night specifically,

1106
01:09:55,800 --> 01:09:59,479
is not that far away. Really, that you can have

1107
01:09:59,520 --> 01:10:04,039
a peuty ceremony with plants that were not moved sideways

1108
01:10:04,159 --> 01:10:07,600
from somewhere else, in other words, transplanted from somewhere, grown

1109
01:10:07,640 --> 01:10:11,800
somewhere else, and harvested. But we're actually grown from seeds.

1110
01:10:12,479 --> 01:10:14,319
The day you can in the night that you can

1111
01:10:14,439 --> 01:10:18,239
have a paety ceremony with plants grown from seeds that

1112
01:10:18,359 --> 01:10:22,239
didn't have to deplete the population in Texas by law,

1113
01:10:23,000 --> 01:10:29,239
it's like a force depletion. Then you start showing how

1114
01:10:29,279 --> 01:10:33,039
to do it right. I don't really see any other

1115
01:10:33,159 --> 01:10:38,279
alternative way of explaining it. Fully, it actually has to

1116
01:10:38,319 --> 01:10:39,279
be exemplified.

1117
01:10:39,399 --> 01:10:41,159
Speaker 1: I think it would have to be. It have to

1118
01:10:41,159 --> 01:10:43,319
be a native led organization too. You're not going to

1119
01:10:43,359 --> 01:10:45,279
get a bunch of you know, pasties, You're not going

1120
01:10:45,319 --> 01:10:47,119
to get a bunch of Anglos doing it. I mean

1121
01:10:47,279 --> 01:10:48,960
that goes without saying.

1122
01:10:48,760 --> 01:10:53,640
Speaker 2: There are there are some people of all colors trying

1123
01:10:53,680 --> 01:10:54,039
to help.

1124
01:10:54,279 --> 01:10:56,159
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody should be trying to help. But in

1125
01:10:56,239 --> 01:10:59,279
terms of convincing the people who need convincing, it's going

1126
01:10:59,359 --> 01:11:01,159
to have to be some one from within. It's going

1127
01:11:01,239 --> 01:11:04,960
to have to be a cadre of people from within.

1128
01:11:05,239 --> 01:11:09,159
Speaker 2: You know, well that that is probably true, that is

1129
01:11:09,199 --> 01:11:13,960
the reality, and that's why we're a native led organization.

1130
01:11:15,920 --> 01:11:20,159
Myself personally, I'll start with that I'm doing it for

1131
01:11:20,199 --> 01:11:25,359
the plant's sake, But our organization has this other consideration

1132
01:11:25,520 --> 01:11:29,159
in that the Native American Church depends on a supply

1133
01:11:29,239 --> 01:11:32,159
of payety to continue. So we just have to be

1134
01:11:32,199 --> 01:11:37,319
realistic and say, okay, as members of the Native American Church,

1135
01:11:38,239 --> 01:11:40,760
we can at least plant the seed to set the

1136
01:11:40,840 --> 01:11:44,359
example that it doesn't have to be called from a

1137
01:11:44,399 --> 01:11:48,800
threatened population. It can be regenerated from seed and then

1138
01:11:48,960 --> 01:11:52,720
harvested sustainably, so you don't always have to have more

1139
01:11:52,880 --> 01:11:55,640
and more. You don't always have to be opening up

1140
01:11:55,680 --> 01:11:58,680
a new ranch to go in and pick the few

1141
01:11:58,720 --> 01:12:02,159
that are left there. It doesn't have to be an

1142
01:12:02,199 --> 01:12:07,359
extracted process, is the point. It can be a regenerative harvest.

1143
01:12:07,439 --> 01:12:11,720
I almost, Joey, don't really see any alternative. If you

1144
01:12:11,840 --> 01:12:15,319
run up the timetable twenty twenty five years, Yeah, what

1145
01:12:15,439 --> 01:12:18,279
are we going to do? Then? I really don't see it.

1146
01:12:18,319 --> 01:12:20,000
I don't see anybody that does.

1147
01:12:20,479 --> 01:12:23,399
Speaker 1: With a few exceptions, and I think I think, I

1148
01:12:23,439 --> 01:12:26,079
think place. I think location is important too. And this

1149
01:12:26,199 --> 01:12:28,399
is going to end up sounding like a damn promotional

1150
01:12:28,479 --> 01:12:31,159
for Morning Star, which I did not which I did

1151
01:12:31,199 --> 01:12:33,800
not mean to do, but you guys are the only

1152
01:12:33,840 --> 01:12:36,479
one doing this. I mean location. What I was gonna

1153
01:12:36,479 --> 01:12:39,680
say is location is important, and and there's so many

1154
01:12:39,720 --> 01:12:45,319
impediments in Texas where where payote's legal, where payote grows,

1155
01:12:45,640 --> 01:12:49,000
there's so many impediments towards doing something like that here.

1156
01:12:49,760 --> 01:12:54,159
But a few states over in a somewhat similar climate,

1157
01:12:55,279 --> 01:12:57,960
the impediments are far less. And so it makes things

1158
01:12:58,039 --> 01:13:02,640
like X sit to conservation, you know, conserving things out

1159
01:13:02,760 --> 01:13:06,359
of their native range, but as a means of growing

1160
01:13:06,399 --> 01:13:12,000
their population. The situation in Arizona is more amenable to that,

1161
01:13:12,520 --> 01:13:12,840
and so.

1162
01:13:13,199 --> 01:13:16,039
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and not only that, but if you think

1163
01:13:16,079 --> 01:13:21,000
about the farm to fort concept, there's no exact percentage,

1164
01:13:21,079 --> 01:13:24,880
but a large percentage of the peuty that is distributed

1165
01:13:24,880 --> 01:13:28,720
from South Texas for Native American church use is consumed

1166
01:13:28,720 --> 01:13:32,239
in Arizona. I mean it's a pretty hefty percentage of it.

1167
01:13:33,239 --> 01:13:37,039
I have literally thumbed through the receipt books down there,

1168
01:13:38,760 --> 01:13:45,840
and you can see like lots of Northern Arizona Navajo Reservation,

1169
01:13:46,399 --> 01:13:50,239
southern Arizona. You know, I'm just saying it makes sense

1170
01:13:50,399 --> 01:13:56,880
on other levels as well, that you would have a

1171
01:13:57,079 --> 01:14:02,319
source where the medicine is being consumed. That doesn't require

1172
01:14:02,560 --> 01:14:08,199
you to literally be poaching payote from populations that are

1173
01:14:08,199 --> 01:14:13,199
already extremely minimized. It just doesn't make sense.

1174
01:14:13,239 --> 01:14:16,039
Speaker 1: Payote can be grown in the ground in southern Arizona

1175
01:14:16,479 --> 01:14:19,039
as well. I mean, it doesn't occur in the United

1176
01:14:19,039 --> 01:14:21,239
States anywhere but Texas. I hear people say I saw

1177
01:14:21,279 --> 01:14:23,319
some in New Mexico. It's no, no, you didn't. You

1178
01:14:23,319 --> 01:14:25,039
didn't see it there. It does. It's not native. I

1179
01:14:25,039 --> 01:14:26,880
saw some in Arizona. You know you didn't, not unless

1180
01:14:26,880 --> 01:14:30,439
it was planted. But it will grow fine in the

1181
01:14:30,520 --> 01:14:35,239
volcanic soils. Even though it's only native to limestone in Texas.

1182
01:14:35,880 --> 01:14:37,760
It will grow fine on the volcanic soils in the

1183
01:14:37,800 --> 01:14:41,560
ground in southern Arizona. So that's another thing. I'm like,

1184
01:14:41,600 --> 01:14:45,880
why was nobody doing this until now? But that's what

1185
01:14:45,960 --> 01:14:47,479
you guys are hoping to do.

1186
01:14:48,840 --> 01:14:51,680
Speaker 2: Well, we've kind of been doing it. You and I

1187
01:14:51,760 --> 01:14:55,079
both visited a something like a twenty seven year old

1188
01:14:55,159 --> 01:15:02,800
garden together down here. It's been being done on I guess,

1189
01:15:02,840 --> 01:15:07,039
like a kind of micro level. I think I would

1190
01:15:07,079 --> 01:15:12,560
be the exemption to that. At some point I had

1191
01:15:12,760 --> 01:15:18,359
an outdoor garden of many thousand plants just just thriving

1192
01:15:18,720 --> 01:15:21,680
under the mesquite trees out here. It does quite well

1193
01:15:21,800 --> 01:15:22,399
in Tucson.

1194
01:15:22,600 --> 01:15:25,039
Speaker 1: Where was it, Oh.

1195
01:15:24,840 --> 01:15:27,119
Speaker 2: Just north of Tucson and the heel of River Valley.

1196
01:15:27,840 --> 01:15:31,680
There's a lot of limestone ground out there, you know,

1197
01:15:31,880 --> 01:15:36,239
along the river. And yeah, the medicine tends to thrive

1198
01:15:36,399 --> 01:15:39,119
just planted in the ground. I call it natural culture

1199
01:15:40,239 --> 01:15:45,039
because it's totally natural. It's with the desert rains. We

1200
01:15:45,079 --> 01:15:48,279
get a very similar average rainfall. Well actually a little

1201
01:15:48,279 --> 01:15:52,239
bit more rainfall than the pearity populations of West Texas

1202
01:15:52,319 --> 01:15:56,239
do out here. Yeah, most years we get like two

1203
01:15:56,359 --> 01:15:59,800
or three more annual inches, you know than like Presidio

1204
01:16:00,279 --> 01:16:00,760
for example.

1205
01:16:00,960 --> 01:16:04,239
Speaker 1: The population that that you and I saw in southern

1206
01:16:04,239 --> 01:16:08,840
Arizona was on a reservation and that was I mean,

1207
01:16:08,920 --> 01:16:12,359
those were incredibly healthy plants. I was so surprised that

1208
01:16:12,359 --> 01:16:15,000
it was such an eye opener for me, and it

1209
01:16:15,119 --> 01:16:18,000
kind of hit home harder too. I was like, why

1210
01:16:18,960 --> 01:16:21,479
what someone needs to be doing this? I mean, they

1211
01:16:21,479 --> 01:16:24,399
this is amazing, Like this is they don't They're they're fine.

1212
01:16:24,960 --> 01:16:27,840
Like it's a different climate, you guys get. I mean

1213
01:16:27,880 --> 01:16:30,119
it's more similar to West Texas again, but still I

1214
01:16:30,119 --> 01:16:33,039
mean it's from South Texas. It's totally different. I mean,

1215
01:16:33,319 --> 01:16:35,800
it's chili. It doesn't really get that chili down here.

1216
01:16:36,399 --> 01:16:38,960
Uh you know. But these plants were thriving, they were fine.

1217
01:16:39,000 --> 01:16:41,760
They were massive clumps. I mean they looked like some

1218
01:16:41,800 --> 01:16:44,279
of the populations you see in Mexico. And it was

1219
01:16:44,319 --> 01:16:47,319
only thirty years old. Could you tell us about that

1220
01:16:47,560 --> 01:16:51,159
garden without naming who it was? Obviously, but but you

1221
01:16:51,199 --> 01:16:54,399
know it was a someone who's permitted to use it

1222
01:16:54,479 --> 01:16:58,039
and grow it. But how how did that start? I mean,

1223
01:16:58,159 --> 01:17:01,640
you you what's the history of that garden? Because it's

1224
01:17:01,680 --> 01:17:05,079
it's a real great example of what can be done

1225
01:17:05,279 --> 01:17:07,760
for anybody living in southern Arizona. I advise you to

1226
01:17:07,840 --> 01:17:10,159
I advise you to do it. But these I mean,

1227
01:17:10,199 --> 01:17:12,800
how what do those plants look like when it started.

1228
01:17:14,119 --> 01:17:17,359
Speaker 2: Well, it was a small handful of medium sized plants,

1229
01:17:17,399 --> 01:17:22,000
probably nothing more than silver dollar size, honestly, probably still

1230
01:17:22,000 --> 01:17:24,159
had some underground stem attached to it.

1231
01:17:24,279 --> 01:17:27,199
Speaker 1: They're like grapefruit size. Now that's crazy, and there's huge

1232
01:17:27,239 --> 01:17:29,520
clumps of like twenty grapefruits.

1233
01:17:30,039 --> 01:17:32,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I could go back to the year, but

1234
01:17:32,600 --> 01:17:36,000
it was probably something like the late eighties. I believe

1235
01:17:36,039 --> 01:17:38,680
it was now like twenty nine, almost thirty years ago, so,

1236
01:17:41,159 --> 01:17:45,239
and I've been involved in beauty conservation since nineteen eighty two.

1237
01:17:46,800 --> 01:17:51,000
So through the years I've made a lot of relations

1238
01:17:51,840 --> 01:17:58,199
amongst the local tribal people. And back in the day,

1239
01:17:58,279 --> 01:18:01,560
the concept was just a little bit out there, like

1240
01:18:01,760 --> 01:18:05,079
all they knew me as was like this plant dork,

1241
01:18:05,680 --> 01:18:09,680
kind of stoner looking Chicano dude. Right, But I loved

1242
01:18:09,720 --> 01:18:13,239
this plant so much that I would go around giving

1243
01:18:13,279 --> 01:18:16,319
my plants away to native people who wanted to take

1244
01:18:16,359 --> 01:18:19,840
care of it. And you know, I'm not saying every

1245
01:18:20,000 --> 01:18:23,720
garden succeeded. I put in a few on certain reservations

1246
01:18:23,720 --> 01:18:27,560
in myself at the request of the of the people,

1247
01:18:28,359 --> 01:18:31,920
and not all of them really took kind of depends

1248
01:18:32,119 --> 01:18:36,720
a little bit on the particular environment. But this one

1249
01:18:36,880 --> 01:18:43,760
in southern Arizona, this man took the plants. We talked

1250
01:18:43,800 --> 01:18:47,079
about where to put him, We set the few in

1251
01:18:47,119 --> 01:18:50,760
the ground, and that started his collection. And since then,

1252
01:18:50,920 --> 01:18:54,800
every time he'd go to Texas and purchased more plants,

1253
01:18:54,960 --> 01:18:57,920
he'd put a few more in. So that garden expanded

1254
01:18:57,960 --> 01:19:01,319
and they were like, weren't they like just about the

1255
01:19:01,359 --> 01:19:05,319
bigger ones almost grapefruit size at that point. Definitely naval org.

1256
01:19:05,560 --> 01:19:07,560
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I've got photos.

1257
01:19:07,600 --> 01:19:07,880
Speaker 2: I was.

1258
01:19:07,960 --> 01:19:11,119
Speaker 1: I mean, I see peyote all the time at our

1259
01:19:11,199 --> 01:19:15,680
conservation property when I'm out doing surveys. It's not you know,

1260
01:19:16,000 --> 01:19:18,800
it's nothing new to me. And I was impressed. I

1261
01:19:18,840 --> 01:19:20,880
mean I remember seeing like these look like some of

1262
01:19:20,920 --> 01:19:24,159
the wild populations you see in West Texas, you know,

1263
01:19:24,279 --> 01:19:28,199
or southern Mexico or Central Mexico and northern Mexico. I

1264
01:19:28,239 --> 01:19:31,159
guess where it's you know, you see large clumps of these.

1265
01:19:31,199 --> 01:19:33,760
I mean it was impressive. I mean, especially only being

1266
01:19:33,800 --> 01:19:36,439
thirty years old, and so he was just I mean,

1267
01:19:36,600 --> 01:19:39,600
and this man is not a botanist, he's not a horticulturalist.

1268
01:19:39,760 --> 01:19:42,560
He just was he could, but he was still able

1269
01:19:42,560 --> 01:19:44,479
to do this. He would just take what was he doing,

1270
01:19:44,560 --> 01:19:47,960
taking you know, cut buttons, rooting them and then putting

1271
01:19:47,960 --> 01:19:49,199
them in the ground, or what was he doing.

1272
01:19:50,079 --> 01:19:52,680
Speaker 2: I think he was just rooting them in the ground.

1273
01:19:52,479 --> 01:19:55,920
Speaker 1: Just putting the buttons in the ground and letting right right.

1274
01:19:56,079 --> 01:19:59,479
Speaker 2: That's what I've done here. I've brought him back from

1275
01:19:59,479 --> 01:20:02,359
Texas and just stuck them in the ground with no

1276
01:20:02,680 --> 01:20:06,680
actual roots. You've got the stem right, but you don't

1277
01:20:06,720 --> 01:20:09,239
have like the finer roots on them anymore. They just

1278
01:20:09,399 --> 01:20:13,560
dry and fall off and transport, right. So you just

1279
01:20:13,600 --> 01:20:16,079
stick them in the ground and with the desert rains,

1280
01:20:16,079 --> 01:20:19,199
they root all on their own and thrive. They're very adaptable.

1281
01:20:19,760 --> 01:20:25,159
After two or three years of our chili winter mornings,

1282
01:20:25,760 --> 01:20:28,119
you know, I can see like their their look even

1283
01:20:28,199 --> 01:20:31,359
changes a little bit. They get that grayer green look.

1284
01:20:31,920 --> 01:20:34,479
Speaker 1: Wax and that wax on the on the epidermis.

1285
01:20:34,800 --> 01:20:37,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, they get a little bit tougher looking, and they

1286
01:20:37,600 --> 01:20:40,680
start to handle the cold winter mornings just fine. I

1287
01:20:40,680 --> 01:20:45,239
mean I have actually seen them under the mesquites flowering

1288
01:20:45,359 --> 01:20:49,680
in the month of December for example. Wow, So they're

1289
01:20:49,720 --> 01:20:51,960
not suffering out here at all.

1290
01:20:52,399 --> 01:20:54,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was. It was cool at that at that

1291
01:20:54,960 --> 01:20:58,800
at that gentleman's house, they were growing under kreosode, I mean,

1292
01:21:00,199 --> 01:21:05,359
clumps just thriving under kreosode. And the look is much

1293
01:21:05,399 --> 01:21:07,640
different than you know, like the plants that morning Star

1294
01:21:07,720 --> 01:21:10,199
has in the greenhouse there that you're growing. How many

1295
01:21:10,239 --> 01:21:11,880
which we should talk about to how many plants do

1296
01:21:11,920 --> 01:21:13,119
you have in that greenhouse? Now?

1297
01:21:14,560 --> 01:21:18,960
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, it's not a small number.

1298
01:21:19,680 --> 01:21:23,079
Speaker 1: Five thousand Oh no, it's more than that.

1299
01:21:23,279 --> 01:21:30,079
Speaker 2: It's between that and you know, honestly, it might be

1300
01:21:30,560 --> 01:21:33,880
up to thirty thousand when you include all the seedlings

1301
01:21:33,920 --> 01:21:39,479
and thirty we have mother plants and seedlings and everything

1302
01:21:39,520 --> 01:21:45,159
in between. I have some sprouting probably today. So a

1303
01:21:45,159 --> 01:21:46,319
specific number.

1304
01:21:46,159 --> 01:21:49,800
Speaker 1: All the time your Instagram, which is peyoti lorex everybody

1305
01:21:50,359 --> 01:21:54,520
on Instagram, and uh, and you're always collecting seed. You're

1306
01:21:54,520 --> 01:21:58,039
always collecting fruits. And each fruit is what like a

1307
01:21:58,079 --> 01:21:59,800
five to ten seeds in it? What do you think

1308
01:22:00,119 --> 01:22:01,119
or seeds? How many?

1309
01:22:02,239 --> 01:22:05,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, the smaller fruits on the smaller plants will give

1310
01:22:05,640 --> 01:22:08,880
like five, but you know a lot of the larger

1311
01:22:08,880 --> 01:22:11,960
plants will give twenty per fruit, sometimes a little more

1312
01:22:12,000 --> 01:22:12,439
than twenty.

1313
01:22:13,279 --> 01:22:15,239
Speaker 1: So you, guys, so there's a green You guys have

1314
01:22:15,279 --> 01:22:20,479
a greenhouse with upwards of potentially thirty thousand plants you're

1315
01:22:20,520 --> 01:22:24,000
growing from seed. You've got the seed starting room, and

1316
01:22:24,039 --> 01:22:27,159
then you've got an actual greenhouse where you're you're growing

1317
01:22:27,199 --> 01:22:30,000
these in the original like what's the eventional plant the

1318
01:22:30,000 --> 01:22:33,399
eventual plan for all of these plants to put them

1319
01:22:33,439 --> 01:22:35,439
back in the ground somewhere, to get to have some

1320
01:22:35,479 --> 01:22:40,319
sort of established garden or what Yeah.

1321
01:22:40,359 --> 01:22:43,039
Speaker 2: So the collection that we have is a mixed collection

1322
01:22:43,359 --> 01:22:48,920
from different localities, right, seed from different areas, something like

1323
01:22:49,119 --> 01:22:54,239
seven different Mexican states and I think five Texas counties.

1324
01:22:55,479 --> 01:23:01,159
So we're not looking at trying to necessary early repatriate

1325
01:23:01,239 --> 01:23:10,039
or rematriate ah natural environments with this collection as a collection.

1326
01:23:11,279 --> 01:23:14,920
Like let's just say there was a repatriation program in

1327
01:23:14,960 --> 01:23:20,159
South Texas. Yeah, we've got seeds from Star County. Let's

1328
01:23:20,239 --> 01:23:24,159
just say there was one somewhere in San Luis. Yeah,

1329
01:23:24,199 --> 01:23:27,159
we've got some seeds from those locales. You mean, really,

1330
01:23:27,199 --> 01:23:27,600
when you.

1331
01:23:27,479 --> 01:23:30,079
Speaker 1: Say repatriation of it, you mean you're getting You're just

1332
01:23:30,159 --> 01:23:32,920
getting seeds from these areas or what I'm saying.

1333
01:23:32,960 --> 01:23:36,600
Speaker 2: If plants ever go back to the wild, that's not

1334
01:23:36,680 --> 01:23:40,279
necessarily the value. The main value, it's the election we

1335
01:23:40,319 --> 01:23:40,680
have here.

1336
01:23:40,720 --> 01:23:43,560
Speaker 1: It's not legally possible. And also, I mean we've already

1337
01:23:43,680 --> 01:23:45,720
established that the plants aren't safe in Texas.

1338
01:23:45,800 --> 01:23:48,760
Speaker 2: Basically who knows when you could do it. So the

1339
01:23:48,800 --> 01:23:51,760
real value of this collection is that it is a

1340
01:23:51,840 --> 01:23:57,840
genetic repository of different localities of Lafafa, and so I

1341
01:23:57,920 --> 01:24:02,680
see the future potential of it being this that it

1342
01:24:02,760 --> 01:24:08,479
continues to grow in the USDA Zone nine, you know,

1343
01:24:09,520 --> 01:24:15,560
warmer desert of southern Arizona as a collection. And yeah,

1344
01:24:15,640 --> 01:24:21,600
there's separation between varieties just physically on outdoor land, but

1345
01:24:23,920 --> 01:24:28,960
we're not trying to maintain genetic purity. What we're trying

1346
01:24:29,000 --> 01:24:34,880
to do is supplement the Native American Church needs in

1347
01:24:34,960 --> 01:24:35,800
southern Arizona.

1348
01:24:35,840 --> 01:24:38,920
Speaker 1: You're trying to turn this more in the bathtub.

1349
01:24:39,520 --> 01:24:42,359
Speaker 2: So that less has to be harvested in South Texas.

1350
01:24:42,800 --> 01:24:44,000
That's the short of it.

1351
01:24:44,720 --> 01:24:46,439
Speaker 1: But the plant is I mean the plan for you

1352
01:24:46,479 --> 01:24:48,319
guys to get them in the ground eventually, right, because

1353
01:24:48,319 --> 01:24:50,600
I mean they just the plants. Just do any plant

1354
01:24:50,600 --> 01:24:53,439
that's so much better in the ground post.

1355
01:24:54,319 --> 01:24:56,439
Speaker 2: Some of them are already in the ground, but we're looking

1356
01:24:56,479 --> 01:25:02,239
for a larger, more permanent location to do that perpetually. Yes, Uh,

1357
01:25:03,199 --> 01:25:09,039
we're looking. We're actively looking also raising funds and uh,

1358
01:25:09,439 --> 01:25:13,079
we see this collection as a very valuable asset to

1359
01:25:13,119 --> 01:25:18,920
the Native American Church in southern Arizona. And so that

1360
01:25:19,239 --> 01:25:22,920
is the plan. And and how you do that has

1361
01:25:22,960 --> 01:25:28,079
been the question. Like we're not licensed distributors as such,

1362
01:25:28,520 --> 01:25:33,199
we're just conservationists. So what I'm looking at is setting

1363
01:25:33,319 --> 01:25:37,680
up a prototype of what we're calling a sacramental sponsorship.

1364
01:25:37,760 --> 01:25:39,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask I was going to

1365
01:25:39,720 --> 01:25:41,239
ask you if this is so, if these are being

1366
01:25:41,319 --> 01:25:44,159
grown next sit do for for native use? Yeah? How

1367
01:25:44,199 --> 01:25:46,159
do you? How do you get them out there to natives?

1368
01:25:47,279 --> 01:25:51,760
Speaker 2: So we want it to be their own project in

1369
01:25:51,800 --> 01:25:57,680
a sense, although not every teepee ground or reservation has

1370
01:25:57,680 --> 01:26:01,880
a desire or capacity to up their own situation, what

1371
01:26:02,000 --> 01:26:05,560
they can do is sponsor the plants that already exist.

1372
01:26:06,159 --> 01:26:13,119
In other words, they join a program where we maintain

1373
01:26:13,199 --> 01:26:18,279
a set of a thousand plants for them. The idea

1374
01:26:18,399 --> 01:26:23,079
is that over a ten year period, you'll be able

1375
01:26:23,079 --> 01:26:28,319
to harvest from those thousand plants for them. That's the

1376
01:26:28,439 --> 01:26:32,039
term of the program. It's in ten year segments really,

1377
01:26:32,399 --> 01:26:35,199
and the reason it's ten years is because we're giving

1378
01:26:35,680 --> 01:26:38,239
the plants a minimum of five years to grow from

1379
01:26:38,279 --> 01:26:42,920
seed before they ever get harvested. Most of them will

1380
01:26:42,920 --> 01:26:47,560
be older than that when harvested. But it's a sponsorship

1381
01:26:47,560 --> 01:26:53,039
program that Native American church chapters can join, and it's

1382
01:26:53,079 --> 01:26:56,199
almost like a friend of mine called it pearity insurance

1383
01:26:57,439 --> 01:27:00,720
to where as a sponsor, you know that over a

1384
01:27:00,760 --> 01:27:04,399
period of five years, you're going to get two hundred

1385
01:27:04,600 --> 01:27:09,600
large Payote crowns per a year for your ceremonial use.

1386
01:27:10,239 --> 01:27:14,680
So I'm looking at this as something of a math problem.

1387
01:27:15,399 --> 01:27:19,199
If we don't have a realistic plant and we don't

1388
01:27:19,239 --> 01:27:21,640
know where future parody is going to come from, we

1389
01:27:21,760 --> 01:27:25,680
better start doing some math. So the way we're looking

1390
01:27:25,720 --> 01:27:30,279
at it, one thousand plants that are properly cut instead

1391
01:27:30,319 --> 01:27:34,439
of one thousand plants less being in the world. At

1392
01:27:34,439 --> 01:27:38,119
the end of that, there's going to be at least

1393
01:27:38,279 --> 01:27:44,279
one thousand plants more created because when you properly cut paoty,

1394
01:27:44,920 --> 01:27:50,359
it creates more. So this is the idea behind sponsorship,

1395
01:27:51,039 --> 01:27:55,319
that you sponsor one thousand plants that are ethically harvested,

1396
01:27:56,199 --> 01:28:01,960
sustainably grown, and at the end of that there's actually

1397
01:28:02,039 --> 01:28:05,359
more and you can re up for another ten years.

1398
01:28:05,359 --> 01:28:10,319
So this is kind of a realistic, somewhat long term

1399
01:28:10,359 --> 01:28:14,279
investment in parity's future that we can see that makes sense.

1400
01:28:14,399 --> 01:28:19,279
It's what we can do. We can't save the ecology

1401
01:28:19,279 --> 01:28:23,439
of South Texas. We can't make it okay, we can't

1402
01:28:23,520 --> 01:28:28,079
change the laws necessarily, especially not right away. But if

1403
01:28:28,119 --> 01:28:30,960
we don't start planting seeds for the future now, there

1404
01:28:31,039 --> 01:28:34,600
is no future. That's the crux of the matter. We're

1405
01:28:34,640 --> 01:28:38,840
stuck between time and scarcity, so we can't do nothing.

1406
01:28:39,920 --> 01:28:43,399
Speaker 1: So that's again it's ext to do conservation. It's the

1407
01:28:43,439 --> 01:28:46,720
same thing that was done with the California condors and

1408
01:28:47,119 --> 01:28:51,520
is actively occurring with many other endangered plants and animals.

1409
01:28:51,960 --> 01:28:54,279
It's a way of growing the population and trying to

1410
01:28:54,319 --> 01:28:59,640
stem the tide of population decline that's hitting the species,

1411
01:28:59,720 --> 01:29:02,520
both in the US and in Mexico. And I wanted

1412
01:29:02,560 --> 01:29:04,760
to mention too that I think the thing that's interesting,

1413
01:29:05,520 --> 01:29:08,479
and I see this with all the native plants anywhere

1414
01:29:08,520 --> 01:29:13,119
I go, is that, especially in extreme climates like you

1415
01:29:13,159 --> 01:29:15,399
see in Texas or in the American Southwest, is that

1416
01:29:15,439 --> 01:29:20,359
the native plants and cultivation many times look much healthier

1417
01:29:21,039 --> 01:29:23,960
and more robust than some of the plants you might

1418
01:29:24,000 --> 01:29:27,680
see in habitat you know, where they're in habitat where

1419
01:29:27,319 --> 01:29:33,479
they're getting hit by prolonged drought, climate change related weather issues,

1420
01:29:33,840 --> 01:29:37,239
howter summers, I mean, you know, the climate change I mean,

1421
01:29:37,479 --> 01:29:40,000
christ Man, Like I was just in Chicago, they don't

1422
01:29:40,000 --> 01:29:44,520
even really get harsh winters anymore. And so but in

1423
01:29:44,560 --> 01:29:48,600
a cultivated setting, the native plants can be cared for.

1424
01:29:48,680 --> 01:29:51,199
They can be stewarded, They can be attended to if

1425
01:29:51,199 --> 01:29:53,960
something looks like something's being hit. You know, if plants

1426
01:29:54,000 --> 01:29:56,119
look like they're being hit by a fungal infection, or

1427
01:29:56,119 --> 01:30:00,079
there's an insect or or there's a rabbits or something,

1428
01:30:00,119 --> 01:30:02,399
they can be you know, measures can then be taken

1429
01:30:02,399 --> 01:30:04,560
to protect them against that. They can also be watered.

1430
01:30:04,600 --> 01:30:08,840
They can be given supplemental watering if needed if it's

1431
01:30:08,399 --> 01:30:12,399
an especially long drought, because I mean, Payot's really really

1432
01:30:12,600 --> 01:30:15,199
drought resists, and obviously it's a cactus. But they can

1433
01:30:15,239 --> 01:30:18,000
still I mean, it can still take a toll on them.

1434
01:30:18,000 --> 01:30:20,520
It can slow growth rate, it can set them back,

1435
01:30:20,800 --> 01:30:24,439
it can make the plants more prone to diseases, to

1436
01:30:24,520 --> 01:30:27,760
insect their fungal pests. So, I mean there's a lot

1437
01:30:27,800 --> 01:30:31,159
to be said there for crew. But at the same time,

1438
01:30:31,199 --> 01:30:32,880
it's in the ground, so there's a lot to be

1439
01:30:32,920 --> 01:30:37,279
said there for this method you're proposing of preserving it

1440
01:30:37,439 --> 01:30:39,720
exit to putting it in the ground and also being

1441
01:30:39,720 --> 01:30:42,319
able to stewart it, nurture it and care for it

1442
01:30:42,520 --> 01:30:43,680
and pay attention to it.

1443
01:30:45,119 --> 01:30:47,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think it's just a good idea. I

1444
01:30:47,279 --> 01:30:51,159
think it's necessary. That's where I get emotional about it.

1445
01:30:51,960 --> 01:30:56,640
I'm not just playing around like sixty some years old.

1446
01:30:56,720 --> 01:31:00,119
I'd really like to see something positive happen here. I

1447
01:31:00,119 --> 01:31:04,640
think it's so blessed throughout my life by this little plant. Yeah,

1448
01:31:04,680 --> 01:31:06,920
and my love for it. It's just I can't even

1449
01:31:06,960 --> 01:31:07,680
describe it.

1450
01:31:07,800 --> 01:31:11,279
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's necessarily. It's like like the way.

1451
01:31:11,119 --> 01:31:13,640
Speaker 2: You feel about the way you feel about a child,

1452
01:31:13,840 --> 01:31:17,319
or your your favorite dog or from your childhood. You know,

1453
01:31:17,479 --> 01:31:19,560
that's kind of like the relationship I have with this

1454
01:31:19,600 --> 01:31:25,319
little plant. So it puts this whole weight on it

1455
01:31:25,319 --> 01:31:28,119
for me where I just want to see something could happen.

1456
01:31:28,920 --> 01:31:30,920
And the only way I know how to do it is,

1457
01:31:30,960 --> 01:31:33,960
like I say, to do what we can do. It's

1458
01:31:34,079 --> 01:31:36,800
very limited, but you can do what's in front of you.

1459
01:31:37,159 --> 01:31:39,399
And what I can do is I can handpullin eight

1460
01:31:39,439 --> 01:31:42,800
flowers every day, I can collect the seeds, I can

1461
01:31:42,840 --> 01:31:47,920
replant those seeds and at least something's happening, so you know,

1462
01:31:48,039 --> 01:31:50,960
and like you say, it's straight up conservation at that point,

1463
01:31:51,399 --> 01:31:55,239
based out of love, you know, built with prayer. There's

1464
01:31:55,279 --> 01:31:59,239
been a lot of prayers about this, so it's weird

1465
01:31:59,319 --> 01:32:03,279
that with these other plants like that, or species like

1466
01:32:03,319 --> 01:32:09,439
the condor or bison, or any endangered species very rarely.

1467
01:32:09,479 --> 01:32:12,680
I'm trying to think of an exception to this. Is

1468
01:32:12,720 --> 01:32:16,239
there a legal trade in the species at the same time.

1469
01:32:17,239 --> 01:32:22,399
So that's the weird thing about the multiple impact of

1470
01:32:22,520 --> 01:32:27,119
pressure on this spe Yeah, yeah, you're selling it at

1471
01:32:27,119 --> 01:32:29,399
the same time. You know. The last time they kept

1472
01:32:29,479 --> 01:32:35,439
records I think was in twenty sixteen, and the quantity

1473
01:32:35,600 --> 01:32:40,760
of payote, or at least that they made records available publicly,

1474
01:32:41,119 --> 01:32:43,079
was twenty sixteen. That was the last year, I believe,

1475
01:32:43,560 --> 01:32:47,960
and the number at that year was still around a

1476
01:32:48,039 --> 01:32:52,720
million plants per year being sold legally, right, and it

1477
01:32:52,800 --> 01:32:55,399
had peaked at just under two million for a few

1478
01:32:55,479 --> 01:33:00,279
years when that could still be done. I imagine that

1479
01:33:00,319 --> 01:33:02,319
if you look at the graph now, it would be

1480
01:33:02,359 --> 01:33:07,000
a downslide because there's just yeah, I've seen that available.

1481
01:33:07,079 --> 01:33:10,199
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen that graph based on Texas Department of

1482
01:33:10,199 --> 01:33:13,199
Public Safety records, and you can already see I mean again,

1483
01:33:13,199 --> 01:33:17,199
they stop they stopped taking take collecting data in twenty sixteen,

1484
01:33:17,239 --> 01:33:20,720
but even then, prior to that, you could see a

1485
01:33:21,359 --> 01:33:26,079
you know, a very visible and ridiculous downward trend. Yeah.

1486
01:33:26,520 --> 01:33:31,479
Speaker 2: Right, And so I'm just saying most other species, unless

1487
01:33:31,479 --> 01:33:34,319
it's like hunting or something else killing it off, it

1488
01:33:34,359 --> 01:33:39,199
doesn't have that artificial pressure on it. It probably does

1489
01:33:39,279 --> 01:33:42,880
have some artificial pressures, but not a commercial trade of

1490
01:33:42,920 --> 01:33:45,119
a million of those poor guys every year.

1491
01:33:45,600 --> 01:33:49,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that's crazy. It's like a I mean, it's

1492
01:33:49,520 --> 01:33:51,840
a it's like a crop demand. It is. It's a

1493
01:33:51,840 --> 01:33:53,880
crop demand, but there's nobody farming it.

1494
01:33:54,600 --> 01:33:58,439
Speaker 2: So that's what people don't really always recognize about the

1495
01:33:58,479 --> 01:34:01,920
whole payudia issue. Yeah, it's a schedule on drug. Hippies

1496
01:34:02,000 --> 01:34:04,600
used to try to have it and blah blah blah,

1497
01:34:04,640 --> 01:34:07,239
Beavis and Butt had found it in their big venture

1498
01:34:07,319 --> 01:34:10,079
or whatever it is. It's like a cultural thing, but

1499
01:34:10,119 --> 01:34:13,800
the reality of it is even weirder than any of

1500
01:34:13,840 --> 01:34:18,199
our cultural war like just the craziness of it. Like,

1501
01:34:19,479 --> 01:34:21,920
let me just say this, because again we're not even

1502
01:34:22,680 --> 01:34:24,600
you got to look at all the squares on the

1503
01:34:24,680 --> 01:34:29,600
chess board sometimes just get perspective, right, So this whole

1504
01:34:29,600 --> 01:34:34,159
thing of how like anybody pretty much like myself, we

1505
01:34:34,199 --> 01:34:36,319
can go down there and get a little card from

1506
01:34:36,319 --> 01:34:40,239
the distributor who's license and that makes us license to

1507
01:34:40,279 --> 01:34:42,800
go out on this land that the man has bought

1508
01:34:42,840 --> 01:34:45,760
a lease for. You go out there and you pick

1509
01:34:45,760 --> 01:34:47,960
it all day long. You find as many as you can,

1510
01:34:48,840 --> 01:34:51,439
you bring it back. He gives you money, cash money,

1511
01:34:53,119 --> 01:34:56,760
but you better not have eaten one that day. Another

1512
01:34:57,119 --> 01:35:02,479
tangent to that is that that whole thing about can

1513
01:35:02,520 --> 01:35:06,600
we just openly talk about, for like at least a minute,

1514
01:35:06,680 --> 01:35:10,760
about how weird it is that the federal government can

1515
01:35:10,800 --> 01:35:15,560
tell you what race you have to be or what

1516
01:35:15,680 --> 01:35:20,199
church you have to be a member of to do anything.

1517
01:35:22,159 --> 01:35:25,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I think that is a really it's weird.

1518
01:35:25,880 --> 01:35:28,479
Speaker 2: I just want to say that we're not looking at

1519
01:35:28,520 --> 01:35:31,119
everything if we don't look at how weird that is too.

1520
01:35:31,880 --> 01:35:34,880
So there's so much weirdness about it that you almost

1521
01:35:35,279 --> 01:35:37,359
it's hard to get in there and talk about it.

1522
01:35:37,399 --> 01:35:39,039
And that's what you and I have been trying to

1523
01:35:39,079 --> 01:35:41,840
do here write like I say, doing some weed wacket. Well,

1524
01:35:41,840 --> 01:35:44,359
I think you get to like what really is going on?

1525
01:35:44,439 --> 01:35:46,079
Speaker 1: I think, well, yeah, and I think it's hard to

1526
01:35:46,239 --> 01:35:49,840
because it's I mean, it took me years to understand

1527
01:35:50,479 --> 01:35:54,079
the situation down here with Peyotero's with who's is there

1528
01:35:54,119 --> 01:35:57,119
actually poaching going on? How much of how much of

1529
01:35:57,159 --> 01:35:59,640
it is like you know, drug bro meat heads on Facebook,

1530
01:35:59,680 --> 01:36:02,800
market place, how much of it? You know, what's going

1531
01:36:02,800 --> 01:36:06,359
on with the native element of it. I mean, you know,

1532
01:36:06,439 --> 01:36:11,800
people like families will come down to purchase medicine. Some

1533
01:36:11,920 --> 01:36:15,479
might go poaching too sometimes, you know, hoping fences with

1534
01:36:15,560 --> 01:36:20,600
buckets and cutting you know, where does this It took

1535
01:36:20,640 --> 01:36:24,840
me a while to understand it's so it's not there's

1536
01:36:24,960 --> 01:36:27,920
not a lot of knowledge out there, and again it's

1537
01:36:27,960 --> 01:36:30,119
all tainted by the drug war aspect. I mean, I

1538
01:36:30,119 --> 01:36:33,520
think you make something taboo and you increase demand for

1539
01:36:33,600 --> 01:36:36,840
it when you make it illegal. Sam Pedro, I mean,

1540
01:36:36,880 --> 01:36:40,199
there's so many plants that are psychoactive that are illegal,

1541
01:36:40,279 --> 01:36:43,239
and there's not a lot of people outside of a

1542
01:36:43,359 --> 01:36:45,640
very very small minority who learned about it on the

1543
01:36:45,640 --> 01:36:49,359
internet and also have the desire to use them, who

1544
01:36:49,439 --> 01:36:51,600
are out using them. And I think would be the

1545
01:36:51,600 --> 01:36:54,439
same way with peyote, Like it's it tastes like hell,

1546
01:36:55,039 --> 01:36:58,680
it's no offense of the plants. It causes stomach upset,

1547
01:36:58,720 --> 01:37:01,680
it causes vomiting, and a lot of people it's but it,

1548
01:37:01,800 --> 01:37:04,399
you know, but mushrooms are very easy to get for

1549
01:37:04,479 --> 01:37:07,039
a somewhat similar effect. I don't think, you know, if

1550
01:37:07,039 --> 01:37:09,800
it were legal or decriminalized, there's going to be this

1551
01:37:10,000 --> 01:37:15,399
massive rush by non native users to descend on this

1552
01:37:15,520 --> 01:37:18,319
plant and try to ingest it or try it out

1553
01:37:18,359 --> 01:37:20,520
or use it. I just don't think that's the reality.

1554
01:37:21,880 --> 01:37:26,000
Speaker 2: Well, oh man, it's so weird, Like, hang on, one

1555
01:37:26,079 --> 01:37:30,439
more weirdness. So in the state of Texas, let's say

1556
01:37:30,640 --> 01:37:33,239
you're a Native American church member, but you're not a

1557
01:37:33,319 --> 01:37:38,640
federally registered Indian as the law says. That means all

1558
01:37:38,640 --> 01:37:43,239
of a sudden, your use paity is illegal. Or if

1559
01:37:43,279 --> 01:37:46,199
you're a Native American who's not a member of the

1560
01:37:46,279 --> 01:37:50,600
Native American Church, your use is also illegal. Like when

1561
01:37:50,600 --> 01:37:54,960
you start splitting hairs on the logic here, it's almost infinite.

1562
01:37:55,880 --> 01:37:59,880
And then the other aspect of this is, so we've

1563
01:38:00,079 --> 01:38:04,720
out like what heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, all these things on

1564
01:38:04,800 --> 01:38:09,840
scheduled one that are highly illegal, right, federal crimes. How

1565
01:38:09,920 --> 01:38:14,000
well have we eliminated these things by doing that? If

1566
01:38:14,000 --> 01:38:16,319
we don't look at that part of it. How what

1567
01:38:16,399 --> 01:38:21,000
you just mentioned, Joe, that we make all these laws

1568
01:38:21,239 --> 01:38:25,840
and it almost increases intrigues. I think a variation of

1569
01:38:25,880 --> 01:38:28,520
what they call the streisand effect, you know.

1570
01:38:29,800 --> 01:38:32,039
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and then there's the black market effect too,

1571
01:38:32,079 --> 01:38:33,399
of course, I mean there's.

1572
01:38:33,439 --> 01:38:38,359
Speaker 2: So the demand increases at that point, distribution will follow.

1573
01:38:39,199 --> 01:38:41,760
And you just look at the urban streets and you

1574
01:38:41,880 --> 01:38:48,359
see the amount of opiates that are afflicting our society. Dude,

1575
01:38:49,119 --> 01:38:49,840
oh my god.

1576
01:38:50,239 --> 01:38:53,560
Speaker 1: Wild. And at the same time, you know, people law

1577
01:38:53,600 --> 01:38:56,680
abiding citizens and posizens are otherwise law abiding, like some

1578
01:38:56,760 --> 01:38:59,479
old lady who wants to grow a because she collects cactus,

1579
01:39:00,039 --> 01:39:02,479
and this is an actual thing. I mean, I've seen this.

1580
01:39:02,560 --> 01:39:06,359
I've seen a number of just like old like three

1581
01:39:06,479 --> 01:39:08,720
or four of people I know that are women in

1582
01:39:08,720 --> 01:39:11,279
their sixties seventies who just grow a ton of cactus

1583
01:39:11,319 --> 01:39:15,600
but are afraid to grow peyote because it's illegal to

1584
01:39:15,640 --> 01:39:17,960
possess and they have no interest in using it. They're

1585
01:39:17,960 --> 01:39:20,640
not they don't use any drugs, they're not drug people,

1586
01:39:21,840 --> 01:39:25,640
but they don't they can't grow it, and if they could,

1587
01:39:25,880 --> 01:39:27,359
they could be growing a ton of it, you know,

1588
01:39:27,359 --> 01:39:30,680
they grow a ton of other rare cactus species and

1589
01:39:30,720 --> 01:39:35,920
do really well by it, you know, and increase the population,

1590
01:39:35,960 --> 01:39:40,399
but they can't do that with lafafa because it's illegal.

1591
01:39:40,479 --> 01:39:44,600
I mean, it's just it's it's a wild it's wild

1592
01:39:44,600 --> 01:39:47,279
that it's still illegal, and it's wild that there's still

1593
01:39:47,279 --> 01:39:50,039
a push to keep it that way when it's it's

1594
01:39:50,039 --> 01:39:50,760
still threatened.

1595
01:39:52,119 --> 01:39:55,600
Speaker 2: Well, i'd like to say that, like regarding that whole

1596
01:39:55,600 --> 01:39:59,720
Fennel thing two, Like, the reason we have that problem

1597
01:40:00,359 --> 01:40:07,399
is because of the Controlled Substances Act. Because we squose

1598
01:40:07,520 --> 01:40:11,399
out all the you know, whatever you want to call it,

1599
01:40:12,079 --> 01:40:17,039
former opium trade and drove it down to this highly

1600
01:40:17,239 --> 01:40:22,399
lethal substance which now contaminates most classes of recreational drugs, and.

1601
01:40:22,399 --> 01:40:25,239
Speaker 1: It is easier to transport because it's so much impotent too.

1602
01:40:26,039 --> 01:40:28,640
Speaker 2: In other words, the Act itself made the problem worse.

1603
01:40:29,920 --> 01:40:30,920
You've got to look at that.

1604
01:40:31,279 --> 01:40:34,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, and it's I think that's I mean, that's

1605
01:40:34,279 --> 01:40:37,199
what the drug work does. That's why it that's why

1606
01:40:37,239 --> 01:40:39,560
it's failed. I was on the cultural aspect, though, I

1607
01:40:39,560 --> 01:40:40,920
do want to mention, you know, I was at the

1608
01:40:41,439 --> 01:40:43,600
the I got invited to speak at the Oklahoma City

1609
01:40:43,600 --> 01:40:46,920
Fungus Fair last fall, and I I have a you know,

1610
01:40:46,960 --> 01:40:49,560
a drawing of Payoty I did that. I was selling

1611
01:40:49,720 --> 01:40:54,840
for for Thorn Scrubs Sanctuary for our conservation property or nonprofit.

1612
01:40:55,560 --> 01:40:57,520
And you know, I had a number of people come

1613
01:40:57,600 --> 01:40:59,720
up to me who are Native who said, oh, I

1614
01:40:59,720 --> 01:41:01,319
know it that plant is. Do you have any more

1615
01:41:01,359 --> 01:41:03,960
of this this drawing or do you have a you know,

1616
01:41:04,000 --> 01:41:06,520
any other sizes of this shirt available with the shirt

1617
01:41:06,560 --> 01:41:07,720
with the peyote image on it?

1618
01:41:08,079 --> 01:41:08,279
Speaker 2: You know?

1619
01:41:08,359 --> 01:41:10,279
Speaker 1: I said no, I'm sorry, I don't, But you know,

1620
01:41:10,359 --> 01:41:13,279
how do you Obviously you go to South Texas, like

1621
01:41:13,319 --> 01:41:15,800
you've gone to meetings and ceremonies, and they were all

1622
01:41:15,800 --> 01:41:18,520
because they were native, and they were all like, yes,

1623
01:41:18,600 --> 01:41:20,520
you know, I've we go to Miranda City, we go

1624
01:41:20,560 --> 01:41:24,640
to wherever. And for me, that especially was you know,

1625
01:41:24,680 --> 01:41:29,239
I mean, I'm I'm seven hundred miles away from the

1626
01:41:29,279 --> 01:41:31,800
wild habitat of this species, and I could see It's

1627
01:41:31,960 --> 01:41:34,920
obvious to me how important it is to people all

1628
01:41:34,960 --> 01:41:37,399
over the United States, I mean all over the world.

1629
01:41:37,479 --> 01:41:41,920
Really yeah, and it's it's nuts. And at the same time,

1630
01:41:41,960 --> 01:41:43,960
I know how endangered it is. I mean, I've seen

1631
01:41:44,039 --> 01:41:48,439
populations of it bulldozed and destroyed. I've seen areas where

1632
01:41:48,479 --> 01:41:51,560
I know it grows leveled to make way for solar

1633
01:41:51,600 --> 01:41:55,119
farms and border walls, and it's it is. It's like

1634
01:41:55,319 --> 01:41:58,520
washing a bucket drain when no one's turning on the

1635
01:41:58,520 --> 01:41:59,800
spigot above it.

1636
01:42:00,720 --> 01:42:02,600
Speaker 2: And at the same time, there's a lot of hope.

1637
01:42:02,640 --> 01:42:06,479
You know. I've been in New York City, walked into

1638
01:42:06,560 --> 01:42:12,960
a commercial establishment and found a beautiful pot of flowering

1639
01:42:13,039 --> 01:42:15,680
pot growing in their windows.

1640
01:42:16,720 --> 01:42:16,920
Speaker 1: You know.

1641
01:42:19,000 --> 01:42:24,640
Speaker 2: Where I live. I'm a very short desert hike away

1642
01:42:25,319 --> 01:42:29,079
from an airbnb, which is really nice set up in

1643
01:42:29,119 --> 01:42:31,960
the desert, And when you get there, the first thing

1644
01:42:32,039 --> 01:42:37,680
that you don't notice is about fifty beautiful payoti plants

1645
01:42:37,800 --> 01:42:42,359
mixed among you know, the desert cacti that they've landscaped

1646
01:42:42,399 --> 01:42:43,600
with at the airbnb.

1647
01:42:45,520 --> 01:42:48,720
Speaker 1: Wow, that's cool. It's pretty nice. And nobody gangs them.

1648
01:42:48,840 --> 01:42:53,920
Speaker 2: Nobody takes obviously somebody there's a lot, but nobody cares

1649
01:42:54,359 --> 01:42:59,399
at the same time. Yeah, and so this is like

1650
01:42:59,479 --> 01:43:02,800
the iron because everything we've talked about all this bs

1651
01:43:02,880 --> 01:43:10,880
like politics, legislation and like legal bias towards extinction and

1652
01:43:10,960 --> 01:43:17,640
like really like fearful. The only word is fuckery. That

1653
01:43:17,840 --> 01:43:21,399
happened from the War on drugs, you know, and the

1654
01:43:21,880 --> 01:43:27,119
hippie craze and the ramifications of the acid age, when

1655
01:43:27,119 --> 01:43:30,319
everything was about you know, tune in, turn on, and

1656
01:43:30,439 --> 01:43:33,119
drop out. You know, we had a natural reaction to that.

1657
01:43:33,239 --> 01:43:36,159
But you know what, Peuty, it doesn't care. It's just

1658
01:43:36,199 --> 01:43:40,479
this beautiful little plant that wants to grow. So it's

1659
01:43:40,479 --> 01:43:44,039
almost like I look at it and I'm like, is

1660
01:43:44,079 --> 01:43:48,439
everybody not seeing what I'm seeing? I'm out of my

1661
01:43:48,560 --> 01:43:52,000
greenhouse hours of day, Joey, when I can't be just

1662
01:43:52,359 --> 01:43:57,720
looking at the plans. For God's sake. People have asked me.

1663
01:43:58,079 --> 01:44:02,520
They've actually asked me this, Hey, how much do I

1664
01:44:02,600 --> 01:44:09,800
need to eat? I'm like, eat, do you really need

1665
01:44:09,840 --> 01:44:13,399
to eat any of this? Hands off? You know, I mean,

1666
01:44:13,439 --> 01:44:14,199
you're fine, right.

1667
01:44:14,640 --> 01:44:17,079
Speaker 1: And that's the thing too, is would they be asking

1668
01:44:17,119 --> 01:44:20,279
that question if it wasn't a schedule one, if there

1669
01:44:20,359 --> 01:44:24,720
wasn't this whole, this this gestalt around it being taboo,

1670
01:44:25,159 --> 01:44:28,560
of it being illegal, of it being a drug. I mean,

1671
01:44:28,600 --> 01:44:30,680
there would be no I think there would be such

1672
01:44:30,680 --> 01:44:35,239
a smaller population of people that was trying to abuse it.

1673
01:44:36,319 --> 01:44:42,000
Speaker 2: There's like a salacious, salacious, like sexy mystos about it, right,

1674
01:44:43,119 --> 01:44:45,479
instead of just being oh, yeah, it's a beautiful plant,

1675
01:44:45,520 --> 01:44:47,640
good for you, because that's like I say, how it

1676
01:44:47,680 --> 01:44:48,399
is in Canada.

1677
01:44:48,840 --> 01:44:51,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, that's the example, right

1678
01:44:51,399 --> 01:44:54,640
there is Canada. Look at Canada. What's going on? Nothing? Nothing,

1679
01:44:54,640 --> 01:44:57,560
It's fine, it's legal, and it's fine. Who you know.

1680
01:44:58,680 --> 01:45:01,600
I just but at the same time, the very negative

1681
01:45:01,600 --> 01:45:04,439
effects of keeping it illegal are that it becomes further

1682
01:45:04,439 --> 01:45:06,920
in danger. I mean, I've repeated this like five times,

1683
01:45:06,920 --> 01:45:09,720
and I apologize, but it's there's a lot of a

1684
01:45:09,720 --> 01:45:14,640
lot of cons and not many pros. So again I.

1685
01:45:14,760 --> 01:45:18,640
Speaker 2: Well then and I question whether there's any solution, right,

1686
01:45:18,880 --> 01:45:22,199
just you know, pragmatically speaking, And so that's why I

1687
01:45:22,239 --> 01:45:25,840
bring up this sponsorship program, because we're really serious about

1688
01:45:26,479 --> 01:45:30,600
the fact that we're stewarding already the basis of this

1689
01:45:30,680 --> 01:45:31,479
kind of concept.

1690
01:45:31,479 --> 01:45:35,600
Speaker 3: Well, that's that is not yothetical, it's a solution pathetical

1691
01:45:35,720 --> 01:45:36,199
we need.

1692
01:45:36,359 --> 01:45:39,760
Speaker 1: I mean, well, the plant needs, you know, one hundred

1693
01:45:39,760 --> 01:45:44,720
more organizations doing that around the United States and in Canada.

1694
01:45:44,720 --> 01:45:47,319
Speaker 2: I mean it's well, it needs at least one, you know.

1695
01:45:47,560 --> 01:45:49,920
Speaker 1: It does at least one at least well, that's all

1696
01:45:49,960 --> 01:45:52,119
there is right now, and thank God for that. So

1697
01:45:52,640 --> 01:45:56,119
sacramental sponsorship program. I'll put a link to the PDF

1698
01:45:56,239 --> 01:46:00,000
that you prepared in the podcast episodes, so people can

1699
01:46:00,039 --> 01:46:02,119
and see it for themselves. It's got air and force,

1700
01:46:02,199 --> 01:46:02,880
its painting.

1701
01:46:03,880 --> 01:46:07,600
Speaker 2: It's not an answer, but it's a it's the genesis

1702
01:46:07,600 --> 01:46:10,479
of a solution, right, So, like you got to start

1703
01:46:10,479 --> 01:46:12,960
with a C and I'm just like looking at it

1704
01:46:13,000 --> 01:46:14,760
like that. I'm like, well, unless you come up with

1705
01:46:14,840 --> 01:46:20,479
it at least one reasonable proposal that works both ethically,

1706
01:46:21,800 --> 01:46:27,640
horticulturally and I guess chronologically right, and even financially. By

1707
01:46:27,680 --> 01:46:31,399
the way, because you know that that chart we discussed

1708
01:46:31,479 --> 01:46:35,880
about the decline of Payot's availability, that same chart shows

1709
01:46:35,920 --> 01:46:40,000
you the price. So there's like an X and the

1710
01:46:40,079 --> 01:46:47,039
trending upward tangent is the price goes up correspondingly. And

1711
01:46:47,079 --> 01:46:49,920
so I'm looking at what are we doing in twenty years?

1712
01:46:50,000 --> 01:46:54,640
How many of us can even afford it now? If

1713
01:46:54,640 --> 01:46:57,079
it's a matter of money, and it shouldn't just be

1714
01:46:57,199 --> 01:46:59,680
a matter of money, that's what we're trying to say.

1715
01:47:00,439 --> 01:47:04,119
So it's going to cost us to make that happen,

1716
01:47:04,840 --> 01:47:08,199
but it can't just be a commodity. So yeah, that's

1717
01:47:08,279 --> 01:47:09,000
partly what's.

1718
01:47:09,119 --> 01:47:11,520
Speaker 1: So you guys, really, I mean, what you need now

1719
01:47:11,640 --> 01:47:14,039
is to get you know, to get land, to get

1720
01:47:14,079 --> 01:47:18,399
a place to plant, and then Meanwhile, you're just keeping

1721
01:47:18,760 --> 01:47:20,920
growing ceilings. What I mean, I guess you can take

1722
01:47:21,399 --> 01:47:24,399
some of those plants out of the greenhouse, you know,

1723
01:47:24,560 --> 01:47:29,119
as spring approaches in southern Arizona. What's the plan? I mean,

1724
01:47:29,159 --> 01:47:31,119
you guys running you guys running out of space in

1725
01:47:31,159 --> 01:47:32,039
the greenhouse yet or what?

1726
01:47:33,600 --> 01:47:37,560
Speaker 2: Well? Fortunately we're very close to that, yes, yeah, and

1727
01:47:37,640 --> 01:47:44,279
I'm happy that that's the case. Yeah, we're really in

1728
01:47:44,359 --> 01:47:46,640
need of funding because we need to move on to

1729
01:47:46,680 --> 01:47:50,439
Phase B. Phase A has been a success, and that

1730
01:47:50,760 --> 01:47:56,239
was that we increase the supply and the foot space

1731
01:47:56,279 --> 01:47:59,720
for that. Fortunately right now is fifty by one hundred feet.

1732
01:48:00,439 --> 01:48:04,000
Speaker 1: And Phase B is planting. Phase A, Phase B is

1733
01:48:04,000 --> 01:48:05,960
planting right.

1734
01:48:06,159 --> 01:48:09,840
Speaker 2: Phase is getting them to where they exist. Phase B

1735
01:48:10,039 --> 01:48:12,840
is making sure they can continue to exist because at

1736
01:48:12,840 --> 01:48:17,119
that point you harvest them properly, and there's always more,

1737
01:48:17,439 --> 01:48:20,560
so you're always making more. So even what we have

1738
01:48:20,840 --> 01:48:23,840
is a good start because the math works in our

1739
01:48:23,920 --> 01:48:25,720
favorite toward the future.

1740
01:48:25,920 --> 01:48:28,920
Speaker 1: And so it's what can people do if they want

1741
01:48:28,920 --> 01:48:31,119
to help out? They can donate. You guys are a

1742
01:48:31,119 --> 01:48:35,079
five oh one c three nonprofit. What can they do?

1743
01:48:35,239 --> 01:48:39,960
Morningstar Conservancy dot org? What else? Follow you on Instagram?

1744
01:48:40,079 --> 01:48:42,560
Speaker 2: A lot of people. A lot of people are helping.

1745
01:48:43,359 --> 01:48:46,760
If you're a multimillionaire, just god a morning Star Conservancy

1746
01:48:46,840 --> 01:48:50,479
dot org, and it's pretty easy to find out how

1747
01:48:50,520 --> 01:48:57,199
to help us. But just regular people, uh are also

1748
01:48:57,319 --> 01:48:59,880
able to help us monthly. A lot of people choose

1749
01:48:59,920 --> 01:49:02,720
to do that and that does keep the lights on

1750
01:49:02,800 --> 01:49:06,319
here and it keeps the fan on in the greenhouse temporarily.

1751
01:49:06,359 --> 01:49:09,399
But we do need a boost to get from phase

1752
01:49:09,439 --> 01:49:12,079
A to Phase B. Like I say, there's a lot

1753
01:49:12,119 --> 01:49:14,840
of little babies that are ready to live on their own.

1754
01:49:14,920 --> 01:49:16,840
Speaker 1: Do you guys have a go fundme? Like? Is there

1755
01:49:16,880 --> 01:49:19,560
a way that people can donate strictly for land purchase,

1756
01:49:19,600 --> 01:49:21,319
Like they can throw twenty bucks in the pot and

1757
01:49:21,439 --> 01:49:24,560
you know know that this is going to go strictly

1758
01:49:24,640 --> 01:49:26,199
for purchasing land.

1759
01:49:27,399 --> 01:49:29,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're in the process of setting up a separate

1760
01:49:29,920 --> 01:49:35,800
account strictly for land. Right now, we're just operating from

1761
01:49:35,800 --> 01:49:39,720
a general budget. But there's definitely ways to donate on

1762
01:49:40,000 --> 01:49:45,239
Morningstarconservancy dot org for sure. I think there's multiple ways

1763
01:49:46,439 --> 01:49:49,279
we're happy to help. There's contacts there. We're always happy

1764
01:49:49,279 --> 01:49:53,640
to talk. I myself talk to people half today about

1765
01:49:53,640 --> 01:49:55,840
such things so we can really use the help. It's

1766
01:49:55,880 --> 01:49:59,640
not because we want to save the world. We just

1767
01:49:59,720 --> 01:50:03,319
want to make sure that something gets done that can

1768
01:50:03,680 --> 01:50:08,279
be learned from, can be some benefit to the Native

1769
01:50:08,279 --> 01:50:11,319
American Church and to the species itself, and then can

1770
01:50:11,359 --> 01:50:15,359
be replicated for reels and maybe our children will do that. Now.

1771
01:50:15,399 --> 01:50:17,680
Speaker 1: You guys are all about teaching people too. I mean,

1772
01:50:18,319 --> 01:50:20,760
you know, yeah, we have workshops here knowledge.

1773
01:50:20,880 --> 01:50:24,000
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, we got stuff going on. We share our

1774
01:50:24,119 --> 01:50:28,159
knowledge as much as we can. And there are several

1775
01:50:28,239 --> 01:50:33,239
new Native American Church gardens around the country based from

1776
01:50:33,279 --> 01:50:38,079
what they've learned here quite literally physically being here for

1777
01:50:38,319 --> 01:50:41,640
a workshop and learning to plant their own seeds and

1778
01:50:41,640 --> 01:50:42,640
what to do from there.

1779
01:50:42,720 --> 01:50:45,960
Speaker 1: And you guys have news like announcements of workshops you'll

1780
01:50:45,960 --> 01:50:49,800
be holding on the website, like if people end up

1781
01:50:49,800 --> 01:50:52,479
passing through Tucson, I want to attend one.

1782
01:50:53,439 --> 01:50:57,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, staying in touch with us. We always make arrangements

1783
01:50:57,039 --> 01:51:02,760
for people, whether it's a officially scheduled or not, we

1784
01:51:02,800 --> 01:51:06,079
always make arrangements for people who want to help. And

1785
01:51:06,640 --> 01:51:09,520
you know, obviously I'm happy to blah blah blah about it.

1786
01:51:09,560 --> 01:51:12,680
I do all the time, but you know, it's a passion,

1787
01:51:12,800 --> 01:51:13,800
it's hard to shut off.

1788
01:51:14,079 --> 01:51:19,239
Speaker 1: We should talk about the sponsor, the sponsor membership, the

1789
01:51:19,239 --> 01:51:22,479
Sacramento Sponsorship program. So it's the price for that for

1790
01:51:22,560 --> 01:51:26,039
Native American church members. One thousand dollars donation at entry

1791
01:51:26,039 --> 01:51:29,159
into the program, which covers ten years sponsorship. First five

1792
01:51:29,239 --> 01:51:33,439
years the plants are growing. Last five years, they can

1793
01:51:33,560 --> 01:51:37,279
have an annual harvest. A sponsor can receive an annual harvest.

1794
01:51:38,279 --> 01:51:39,680
Anything else you want to throw in there or.

1795
01:51:39,640 --> 01:51:42,960
Speaker 2: What, Yeah, we got what I guess you might call

1796
01:51:43,079 --> 01:51:47,960
two tier sponsorship program. One is if you're a Native

1797
01:51:48,000 --> 01:51:53,560
American church chapter proper, then the medicine goes directly to

1798
01:51:53,600 --> 01:51:57,319
your chapter. Everything's all covered that way. If you're not

1799
01:51:58,119 --> 01:52:01,279
a Native American church chapter, we have an associate membership,

1800
01:52:01,760 --> 01:52:07,399
which is where you sponsor a thousand plants for a

1801
01:52:07,479 --> 01:52:11,840
Native American church chapter. And you need to know that

1802
01:52:14,159 --> 01:52:18,640
I've never seen a rich Native American church chapter. We're

1803
01:52:18,680 --> 01:52:21,960
all struggling. We all have a tiny budget that comes

1804
01:52:22,000 --> 01:52:26,399
in from membership donations to buy medicine, to buy a tepee,

1805
01:52:27,079 --> 01:52:32,640
to keep the place up. It's not easy. So somebody

1806
01:52:32,680 --> 01:52:36,119
who's not even a Native American church member or even

1807
01:52:36,199 --> 01:52:40,079
living in this country can go ahead and do their

1808
01:52:40,119 --> 01:52:43,560
own associate sponsorship that way, and then we agree to

1809
01:52:43,600 --> 01:52:47,840
a designated Native American Church chapter which becomes the beneficiary

1810
01:52:48,159 --> 01:52:51,439
of the program. So, like I say, it's a little

1811
01:52:51,479 --> 01:52:54,439
like paeoty insurance for an NAC group.

1812
01:52:54,560 --> 01:52:57,239
Speaker 1: But the money is also going directly towards growing more

1813
01:52:57,279 --> 01:53:03,760
plants and protecting cultural sacrament and protecting Native American culture

1814
01:53:04,359 --> 01:53:09,119
and fostering and nurturing Native American culture. And uh and

1815
01:53:09,239 --> 01:53:12,199
I mean again, the plants get harvested, but they're still alive,

1816
01:53:12,239 --> 01:53:15,000
and we'll just regrow new heads. So all this money

1817
01:53:15,039 --> 01:53:19,720
is going towards active conservation, conservation and propagation as well

1818
01:53:19,800 --> 01:53:22,520
as you know, the cultural benefits of it as well.

1819
01:53:22,600 --> 01:53:24,239
It seems like a pretty wonderful.

1820
01:53:23,960 --> 01:53:31,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, the contributions go directly towards sanctuary keeping, then that's it.

1821
01:53:32,119 --> 01:53:34,520
Uh So, yeah, it's a direct benefit.

1822
01:53:34,800 --> 01:53:36,439
Speaker 1: And I've seen you, I've.

1823
01:53:36,239 --> 01:53:40,000
Speaker 2: Seen every donation that comes in. I am literally so

1824
01:53:40,159 --> 01:53:42,760
you know, putting into cultivation supplies.

1825
01:53:43,119 --> 01:53:46,079
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I was gonna say, I know you, Leo,

1826
01:53:46,159 --> 01:53:48,520
and I know I know how you live. You live

1827
01:53:48,640 --> 01:53:51,439
very frugally. You're not out there, You're not out there

1828
01:53:51,479 --> 01:53:54,640
like buying Gucci sunglasses. You're not going to be, you know,

1829
01:53:54,880 --> 01:53:56,760
enriching yourself. But I've seen how you live.

1830
01:53:56,800 --> 01:53:59,880
Speaker 2: You know, you like wa an since over here.

1831
01:54:00,039 --> 01:54:03,800
Speaker 1: It around in sandals with a satchel, you know, driving

1832
01:54:03,840 --> 01:54:07,800
a driving a very small car whose tire we had

1833
01:54:07,840 --> 01:54:10,600
to repair. I don't know how we did that either.

1834
01:54:11,000 --> 01:54:14,880
We were coming. Oh that was the Watermen mountains, wasn't it.

1835
01:54:15,479 --> 01:54:18,760
Speaker 2: It was so much fun hunting that elephant tree with you.

1836
01:54:18,720 --> 01:54:20,840
Speaker 1: All right, But the tire got destroyed. I do remember that.

1837
01:54:20,840 --> 01:54:22,039
I was gonna say, I don't know how the tire

1838
01:54:22,079 --> 01:54:23,600
got shredded, but then I.

1839
01:54:23,319 --> 01:54:26,600
Speaker 2: Ah, it was I needed you tires. Let's just face.

1840
01:54:26,479 --> 01:54:29,840
Speaker 1: Well, it was the ballast that rough limestone of that

1841
01:54:30,000 --> 01:54:30,800
mountain range too.

1842
01:54:30,800 --> 01:54:33,840
Speaker 2: But anyway, limestone will put a hole in your shoes.

1843
01:54:34,039 --> 01:54:37,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll put a I'll put the Sacramento sponsorship link

1844
01:54:37,399 --> 01:54:42,039
up into uh into the podcast description, and and then

1845
01:54:42,079 --> 01:54:44,800
of course people can check out your Instagram, which is

1846
01:54:45,199 --> 01:54:49,159
the Peyoti Lorex and and then the morning Star website

1847
01:54:49,159 --> 01:54:50,800
Morningstar conservancy dot org.

1848
01:54:50,920 --> 01:54:54,680
Speaker 2: Is that correct, Yeah, buddy, And I just got to

1849
01:54:54,720 --> 01:54:58,840
tell you I appreciate that you care about this, because

1850
01:54:59,640 --> 01:55:02,000
you know there's not a lot of people that I

1851
01:55:02,039 --> 01:55:06,079
can talk to you about the details and emote and

1852
01:55:06,119 --> 01:55:09,800
then be myself when we're not recording so much. You know,

1853
01:55:10,640 --> 01:55:13,359
like it's therapeutic for me to talk to you about

1854
01:55:13,399 --> 01:55:13,880
these things.

1855
01:55:13,960 --> 01:55:16,239
Speaker 1: No, I agree. I mean I've I've called you many

1856
01:55:16,279 --> 01:55:18,479
times and you've you've played therapist for me.

1857
01:55:18,560 --> 01:55:20,920
Speaker 2: So yeah, we're coviding.

1858
01:55:20,960 --> 01:55:23,640
Speaker 1: It's a reciprocal thing. I I mean, my thing with

1859
01:55:23,720 --> 01:55:26,479
Payote is you get people caring about Payote and then

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01:55:26,479 --> 01:55:28,560
you get them that's the way to get them caring

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01:55:28,600 --> 01:55:30,520
about the habitat and all the other plants.

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01:55:30,560 --> 01:55:33,239
Speaker 2: Hey, you know what, I started carrying about paoty and

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01:55:33,279 --> 01:55:37,159
it led directly to me caring about my freaking life. Man.

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01:55:37,640 --> 01:55:39,560
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I think that's.

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01:55:39,359 --> 01:55:41,279
Speaker 2: Why I'm That's why I'm into this.

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01:55:41,520 --> 01:55:43,079
Speaker 1: That's a common theory.

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01:55:44,000 --> 01:55:47,479
Speaker 2: I'm healthy, I'm still alive, I got a family, and honestly,

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01:55:47,720 --> 01:55:50,600
you know me, I could tell you the details of

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01:55:50,640 --> 01:55:53,039
how it all came from my love of this plant.

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01:55:53,119 --> 01:55:56,000
I mean, I hate to get all mystical here, but

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01:55:56,119 --> 01:55:57,079
I am half.

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01:55:56,840 --> 01:56:01,560
Speaker 1: A hippie though. That's you know, plants. Plants make us

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01:56:01,560 --> 01:56:06,279
better people that they are teachers. They are teachers.

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01:56:07,279 --> 01:56:09,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, I owe something back, I guess, is what I'm saying.

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01:56:09,840 --> 01:56:13,159
So I appreciate you letting me, you know, talk about it.

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01:56:13,239 --> 01:56:15,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I appreciate you coming on and hopefully I

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01:56:15,920 --> 01:56:18,359
get to see it this year. So everybody else, have

1878
01:56:18,479 --> 01:56:21,439
a good rest of your day. Check out Morningstar Conservancy

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01:56:21,479 --> 01:56:23,760
dot org, and you know, go fuck yourself back.