1972

The 1972 Vienna Convention on Psychotropic Drugs established frameworks for controlling international trade in psychedelic drugs while exempting indigenous communities using them for traditional religious purposes. This exemption suited U.S. law but conflicted with Mexico's view of peyotism as a vice akin to alcoholism. The treaty enabled activists and scholars to reframe peyotism as a right tied to indigenous self-determination. In Mexico, this shift emerged through concerns over peyotism, yet federal officials continued treating peyotists as incapable of self-governance. The tension peaked in 2009 when mining concessions threatened Wirikuta, the desert where peyote grows, with ecological damage.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The 1972 Vienna Convention on Psychotropic Drugs created frameworks both for an effort to control the international trade in psychedelic drugs and for an exemption for communities (imagined exclusively as indigenous) where those drugs were used for traditional religious purposes in a largely unadulterated state. The exemption was well suited to the legal environment in the United States but made little sense in Mexico, where peyotism had long been seen as a vice, much like alcoholism. The treaty, however, set the stage for a new generation of activists and scholars to reposition peyotism as a right within the larger right to indigenous self-determination. This chapter traces the emergence of that claim in Mexico, and in particular the role that concerns over peyotism played in this shift. Even as self-determination became the guiding ethos of the INI, federal officials continued to treat peyotists as children, incapable of governing their own affairs. This tension came into high relief in 2009, when the Mexican government issued a series of mining concessions that many believed would do irreparable ecological damage to Wirikuta, the desert where the peyote grows.