Truth about peyote in eye of beholders

High in the mountains of northern Mexico, a cactus grows.

Its round green buttons are sliced from the root, dried in the sun and ingested as a sacrament by the natives, who believe the buttons are hoof prints left by a god.

The first time Paul Larsen took the buttons, commonly called peyote, he hoped they would make him feel closer to a higher power. Instead, they made him vomit.

"Of all the drugs out there, it's not a recreational drug," said Larsen, a University of Utah film professor who made a documentary on peyote. "It has a horrendous taste. Think of the worst thing you've ever tasted and multiply it by 10."

Much has been written about peyote, a mind-altering drug, since James "Flaming Eagle" Mooney was arrested four years ago in Spanish Fork for distributing it to members of his church, but there is little understanding outside of American Indian circles of what the drug is, what it does, and what it means to members of the Native American Church.

Last month, in a landmark decision with sweeping implications, the Utah Supreme Court ruled Mooney could give peyote to members of his church, regardless of race. The ruling contradicted a 1994 law that made peyote use legal only among members of federally recognized tribes.

Peyote only grows in Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental and north of the border near Laredo, Texas. It contains a small amount of mescaline, a hallucinogen, but is said to be about 1,000 times less powerful than LSD. The buttons are consumed whole, crushed into a powder, or brewed as a tea. They are not smoked.

Peyote originated as a drug, or medicine, among Mexican natives some 10,000 years ago, according to archaeological evidence.

Today, the drug is used in religious ceremonies by some branches of the Native American Church, which has around 250,000 members. Church members say it doesn't make them feel high (pharmacologists say hallucinations are uncommon); instead, most report a feeling of wrenching introspection.

Mooney calls the drug a "truth serum" because he says it forces users to recognize who they really are and confront buried secrets. For this reason, he found it an especially effective tool for recovering drug addicts and sex offenders.

Nick Stark, an Ogden resident and member of Mooney's Oklevueha Native American Church, was first given peyote by friends who discovered it on a trip to Peru. Soon, Stark was living for months at a time in a Peruvian jungle with a shaman, drinking the "magic medicine." When he came back he considered himself a medicine man.