San Miguel de Allende.- The Federal Procurator for Environmental Protection (Profepa) secured 16 peyote specimens (Lophophora williamsii) at a herbal stand inside the ‘Tosma’ public market in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato.
In response to a citizen complaint, Profepa carried out an inspection at the “mercado” where 16 specimens of the cactus commonly known as Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) were found, with variable dimensions ranging from three to nine centimeters in diameter , with stems up to ten centimeters long.
On the same site a glass bottle of four hundred milliliters with pieces of the same plant submerged in a liquid identified as ‘tincture of peyote’ was also seized.
When the inspectors requested the legal origin of the plants to the seller, he could not prove it, stating that the supplier is originally from the Municipality of San Luis de la Paz, Guanajuato.
Under this circumstance, Profepa inspectors provisionally secured the specimens and the bottle with pieces of peyote, initiating the administrative procedure to the seller who traded these plants.
The specimens were kept by Profepa, given their high environmental value.
The Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) is listed as a species subject to special protection by the official Mexican standard NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010, as a species at risk of extinction in our country, it is also included in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an international treaty of which Mexico is a member.
Source: Periodico Correo