It is also reported to be found in small amounts in certain members of the bean family, Fabaceae, including Senegalia berlandieri (syn.

[10] As shown in the accompanying table, the concentration of mescaline in different specimens can vary largely within a single species.

[2][22] Europeans recorded use of peyote in Native American religious ceremonies upon early contact with the Huichol people in Mexico.

These religious practices, incorporated legally in the United States in 1920 as the Native American Church, have since spread as far as Saskatchewan, Canada.

[22] In traditional peyote preparations, the top of the cactus is cut off, leaving the large tap root along with a ring of green photosynthesizing area to grow new heads.

It appears that patients who receive traditional treatments with San Pedro ingest sub-psychoactive doses and do not experience psychedelic effects.

[2][33] In 1955, English politician Christopher Mayhew took part in an experiment for BBC's Panorama, in which he ingested 400 mg of mescaline under the supervision of psychiatrist Humphry Osmond.

Though the recording was deemed too controversial and ultimately omitted from the show, Mayhew praised the experience, calling it "the most interesting thing I ever did".

[5] Mescaline has a wide array of suggested medical usage, including treatment of depression, anxiety, PTSD,[35] and alcoholism.

[37][38][39] Mescaline induces a psychedelic state comparable to those produced by LSD and psilocybin, but with unique characteristics.

Recurring visual patterns observed during the mescaline experience include stripes, checkerboards, angular spikes, multicolor dots, and very simple fractals that turn very complex.

The English writer Aldous Huxley described these self-transforming amorphous shapes as like animated stained glass illuminated from light coming through the eyelids in his autobiographical book The Doors of Perception (1954).

Like LSD, mescaline induces distortions of form and kaleidoscopic experiences but they manifest more clearly with eyes closed and under low lighting conditions.

[44] Mescaline elicits a pattern of sympathetic arousal, with the peripheral nervous system being a major target for this substance.

In Lophophora williamsii (Peyote), dopamine converts into mescaline in a biosynthetic pathway involving m-O-methylation and aromatic hydroxylation.

[1] How activating the 5-HT2A receptor leads to psychedelic effects is still unknown, but it is likely that somehow it involves excitation of neurons in the prefrontal cortex.

[2][5] Other psychedelic phenethylamines, including the closely related 2C, DOx, and TMA drugs, are inactive as monoamine releasing agents and reuptake inhibitors.

[82][83] However, an exception is trimethoxyamphetamine (TMA), the amphetamine analogue of mescaline, which is a very low-potency serotonin releasing agent (EC50Tooltip half-maximal effective concentration = 16,000 nM).

[2] Mescaline is a relatively low-potency psychedelic, with active doses in the hundreds of milligrams and micromolar affinities for the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor.

[86][87] Escaline and proscaline are also both more potent than mescaline, showing the importance of the 4-position substituent with regard to receptor binding.

[7][76] The higher estimate is believed to be due to small sample numbers and collective measurement of mescaline metabolites.

[5][2] In the United States, mescaline was made illegal in 1970 by the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, categorized as a Schedule I hallucinogen.

In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Oregon could ban the use of mescaline in Native American religious ceremonies.

"[97] In Canada, France, The Netherlands and Germany, mescaline in raw form and dried mescaline-containing cacti are considered illegal drugs.