Starr County gardener finds peyote patches, looks towards legal path for the ... - Monitor
As she poked around a prickly pear cactus, rattlesnake skin lay on the ground nearby as she scooped out barrel cactus, “lady-finger” cactus, and even tried to uproot a full-grown yucca. Garcia runs a cactus and petrified wood garden business and often visits her hometown to collect raw materials, but there’s one cactus she can’t touch right now — peyote. As a young girl, Garcia said she remembers watching Native Americans from the Navajo tribe visit her ranch and pluck peyote cactus buttons for use in religious ceremonies. One of her relatives owns another ranch of more than 2,000 acres that serves as a native habitat for peyote. BUTTONS DOWN, SALES UP. Starr County is one of the few places in the nation where peyote grows naturally. While it’s abundant in northern Mexico, peyote use is illegal there and peyote cannot be exported to the United States right now. Sales and inventory figures tracked by the Texas Department of Public Safety found that approximately $1. 5 million of peyote buttons were sold in Texas in 2011 — down from its peak of more than $2. 25 million in 1997. But recorded wholesale sales... Source: www.themonitor.com
