The cactus is peyote, Lophophora williamsii, and it contains the powerful hallucinogen mescaline. For better or for worse, peyote grows nowhere in the world except an arid region that runs through northern Mexico and up into Starr and Webb counties. For 200,000 members of the Native American Church, many of them Navajos, peyote is a “medicine” taken legally as part of their religious ceremonies. Lopez is one of nine Texans—six in Rio Grande City, on the border, and three in the area around Oilton, Mirando City, and Bruni, about forty miles east of Laredo—who are licensed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the Texas Department of Public Safety to harvest and sell the plant to Indians. By the laws of nature and man, Texas is the only state with such an industry.
