Peyote harvesters face supply-side problem : Scarce cropland and rising demand from Native Americans pits Texas ranchers against those looking to gather ‘the flesh of God.’

Against a backdrop of rolling desert spiked with thornbush and mesquite, Salvador Johnson used a shovel to scoop up a mind-bending cactus that pops out of the ground like biscuits in this part of West Texas.

“Mira no mas! (Just look!). Here’s a whole family of them,” Johnson said as he filled a bucket with cactus tops lopped off at ground level to protect their turnip-like root. “Save the root and in a month, with a good rain, they’ll be knockin’ on the door to be harvested again.”

The cactus is peyote, Lophophora williamsii , a plant revered by some Native Americans as “the flesh of God.”

Johnson is one of eight people in the United States--all of them in West Texas--permitted to harvest the spineless, blue-green peyote buttons and sell them to Native Americans, who ingest them in religious ceremonies.

To get permission, an applicant must submit notarized letters of referral from local police to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the Texas Department of Public Safety. The federal permit costs $438, and the state charges $5; both are renewable annually. Before that, applicants must have a place to harvest peyote, which is getting harder and harder to find.

The Rio Grande Valley and northern Mexico are the only places in the world where peyote grows wild. And the peyoteros who collect it in hot and dry hills where everything seems to bite, sting or stick have a lock on an industry unique to Webb and Starr counties in Texas.

Last year, they sold 1,978,646 peyote buttons for $210,247.60 under a cooperative agreement with state and federal law enforcement officials.

For an estimated 250,000 members of the Native American Church in the United States and Canada--the only group authorized by federal authorities to ingest the substance--peyote is a divine gift, a sacrament consumed to focus worshipers’ prayers to the Creator.

For the mostly Latino peyoteros , the ground-hugging plant containing the hallucinogen mescaline is a commerce by which the Native Americans’ religious goals can be obtained at a cost of about 15 cents a button, or about $150 per 1,000.

Now, there are fears that years of harvesting on the same plots--coupled with increasing demand--is tapping out available supplies, tempting peyoteros to expand their harvests beyond traditional gathering grounds long ago hemmed in by cattle ranches operated by often unsympathetic landowners.

In reaction, cattle ranchers are asking for beefed up law enforcement to arrest trespassing peyoteros and their hired hands. In 1987, Johnson became the first dealer to have his license suspended when one of his pickers was caught trespassing on a ranch.

“They caught some people on my land just two weeks ago,” said ranch owner Robert East. “I don’t want them here. That’s all there is to it. I think it’s a dope business, that peyote.”

Rancher Rick Walker says he is also fed up with trespassers. But he suggested another reason for guarding the peyote gardens on his land. Peyote, he said, may one day become a hot commodity--for ranchers.

Some other ranchers in the region, however, have started leasing portions of their property to peyote pickers on a monthly basis.

What all of this means for Native Americans is higher prices for their “medicine,” which years ago virtually carpeted the desert floor in some regions here.

Johnson predicted that prices will double--to $300 per 1,000 buttons--by the end of the decade.

Isabel Lopez, a 72-year-old competitor in the peyote business who lives a few miles down the road in Oilton, agreed that “everything costs more today, and the Indians complain about this.”

“My prices are cheap, but if there was more land, it would be even cheaper,” said Lopez, surveying thousands of buttons spread out on drying tables in her back yard like so many potato chips.

The strong feelings stirred by the increasing scarcity of the drug may intensify this month when Congress is scheduled to debate pending legislation to overhaul the laws governing the use of peyote by Native Americans.

For Native American Church members, peyote use is not a federal crime. But a crazy quilt of state interpretations makes its use permissible in 28 states and illegal in 22 others.

As a result, Native Americans who travel thousands of miles to legally acquire their sacrament risk prosecution and imprisonment on their way home if they pass through a state that lists peyote as an illegal substance.

The proposed legislation would assure uniform protection of the religious use of peyote by Native Americans in every state and, in the process, possibly would place even greater demands on dealers.

“There is a possibility of shortage,” said John Emhoolah, a Kiowa/Arapaho “road man,” or leader of peyote ceremonies. “We need to think about buying land in Texas to harvest our own peyote . . . or reach an agreement with the Mexican government so that American Indians can cross the border and harvest it there.”

Peyote flourishes in northern Mexico, but the Mexican government strictly forbids its possession or exportation.

Meanwhile, Johnson, who grossed about $43,000 last year, says he is just trying to keep up with demand and make ends meet.

“I love what I do, enjoy the hell out of it,” Johnson said, hoisting a bucket full of peyote buttons into the back of his pickup. “But, hey, you don’t get rich picking peyote. Just pay the bills, buy groceries.”

Rumbling home along a red dirt road with Mexican music blaring from the radio, Johnson added: “A peyotero’s life ain’t easy, and it’s gettin’ harder all the time.”