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No harm in Navajos’ peyote use, study finds
Religion News ^ | Nov 3rd, 2005

Posted on 11/04/2005 9:57:30 AM PST by laney

BOSTON – A study of the effects of peyote on American Indians found no evidence that the hallucinogenic cactus caused brain damage or psychological problems among people who used it frequently in religious ceremonies.

In fact, researchers from Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital found that members of the Native American Church performed better on some psychological tests than other Navajos who did not regularly use peyote.

A 1994 federal law allows roughly 300,000 members of the Native American Church to use peyote as a religious sacrament. The five-year study set out to find scientific proof for the Navajos’ belief that the substance, which contains the hallucinogen mescaline, is not hazardous to their health even when used frequently.

The study was conducted among Navajos in the Southwest by McLean psychiatrist John Halpern.

It compared test results for 60 church members who have used peyote at least 100 times against those for 79 Navajos who do not regularly use peyote and 36 tribe members with a history of alcohol abuse but minimal peyote use.

Those who had abused alcohol fared worse on the tests than the church members, according to the study.

Church members believe peyote offers spiritual and physical healing, but the researchers could not say with any certainty that peyote’s pharmacological effects were responsible for their test results.

“It’s hard to know how much of it is the sense of community they get” from the religion “and how much of it is the actual experience of using the medication itself,” said Harrison Pope, the study’s senior author and director of the biological psychology laboratory at the hospital.

“We find no evidence that a history of peyote use would compromise the psychological or cognitive abilities of these individuals,” the researchers wrote in their paper published today in Biological Psychiatry.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Education; Health/Medicine; Humor; Local News; Miscellaneous; Outdoors; Religion; Science; Society; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: americanindians; peyote
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To: laney
Had some - Wooooooooo.
21 posted on 11/05/2005 4:43:27 PM PST by Mike Darancette (Mesocons for Rice '08)
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To: Jaysun

"Is peyote safe for whites too?"No,we're not in touch with the spirit world:)


22 posted on 11/07/2005 8:44:19 AM PST by Thombo2
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To: laney


Young Guns..." did you see the size of that CHICKEN!!!!


23 posted on 11/07/2005 5:46:27 PM PST by SouthernFreebird
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To: Thombo2
Q: Is peyote safe for whites too?
A: No,we're not in touch with the spirit world :)


Drinking an entire bottle of NyQuil works for whites (at least it did for me). I had the plague last year and I think my wife tried to kill me by giving me 40 times the recommended dose.

Anyway, it knocked me the hell out. By the time I woke up I had a full grown beard, I'd lost 70 pounds, we had two more children, and I had to ask some streetwalker who the President was.

But I didn't see any Indians while on my "journey" through the spirit world, so it's possible that I was just in a coma. Who knows?
24 posted on 11/08/2005 2:15:32 AM PST by Jaysun (Democrats: We must become more effective at fooling people.)
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To: Jaysun

"Drinking an entire bottle of NyQuil works for whites."If you drank an entire bottle,you probably did get buzzed.If your interested,look up a drug called DXM(cough suppresent,in high enough quantities is a hallucinagenic).I believe NyQuil uses that as an ingredient.Now about those 2 new kids?You were out of it:)


25 posted on 11/08/2005 7:32:41 AM PST by Thombo2
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To: Thombo2
"Drinking an entire bottle of NyQuil works for whites."If you drank an entire bottle,you probably did get buzzed.If your interested,look up a drug called DXM(cough suppresent,in high enough quantities is a hallucinagenic).I believe NyQuil uses that as an ingredient.Now about those 2 new kids?You were out of it:)

Ha! That explains the naked viking that kept walking around my bed.....and why I was found in the street wearing nothing but a pair of coconut tits and a propeller hat, covered in animal bites, and screaming, "Eureka!, Eureka!" as loud as my lungs could muster.
26 posted on 11/08/2005 11:18:43 AM PST by Jaysun (Democrats: We must become more effective at fooling people.)
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