‘White people shouldn’t mess with it’: Native American church laments psychedelic cactus shortage

Sandor Iron Rope, president of the Native American Church of South Dakota, looks for seeds from a peyote plant in Hebbronville, Texas. Photograph: Jessie Wardarski/AP

Aldous Huxley wrote about the spiritual visions he had while taking the drug mescaline in The Doors of Perception, while Hunter S Thompson wrote of driving at 100mph while under the influence of it in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

But now a growing number of western spiritual seekers dabbling in psychedelics are accused of causing a shortage of the plant that produces mescaline.