Cactaceae
Lophophora williamsii
Peyote · Hikuri
- Part used
- whole
- Native range
- The Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico and a small area of southern Texas
- Morphology
- A small spineless button cactus, blue-green and ribbed, growing almost flush with the ground over a long taproot. Extremely slow: a plant may take a decade or more to reach flowering size.
What is in it
Evidence
No controlled clinical trials. Mescaline is studied as a psychedelic compound; that research is not about the cactus and not about the ceremony.
Safety
Mescaline produces prolonged and intense alterations of perception. Contraindicated in personal or family history of psychosis, and dangerous with serotonergic medication. Severe nausea and vomiting are ordinary rather than exceptional. This entry gives no preparation and no quantity of any kind.
Interactions: Serotonin syndrome risk with SSRIs, SNRIs and MAO inhibitors
Regulatory: Mescaline is a controlled substance in Australia and most jurisdictions. In the United States, sacramental use is protected for members of the Native American Church under federal law.
Historical use
A sacrament of Huichol (Wixarika) and other northern Mexican peoples, and of the Native American Church, whose members have used it ceremonially since the late nineteenth century. Archaeological specimens from Texas rock shelters have been dated to roughly 5,700 years ago.
Recorded as history and attributed where possible. Long use establishes that a plant was widely used, not that it worked, and not that it was safe.
Worth knowing
Peyote is the entry in this collection where the clearest instruction is to leave it alone, and that instruction comes from the people whose sacrament it is rather than from a regulator.
Native American Church representatives and Wixarika communities have asked outsiders directly not to harvest or use it. The reasons are practical as well as religious: the cactus takes a decade or more to reach size, its Texas range is small and largely on private land, and demand from outside the tradition is measurably depleting wild populations. Conservation-minded members of the NAC have been explicit that non-Indigenous interest is a threat to the practice itself.
That is a straightforward request from a living tradition, and this entry treats it as one.
Nomenclature verified against GBIF backbone taxonomy.