Mescaline - Overview
Overview
Mescaline is considered the oldest known hallucinogenic drug. Its strange qualities were most likely discovered accidentally, by ancient people who were experimenting to find out which plants made good food. Mescaline was not a good food. In fact, it usually causes people to have intense stomachaches if they eat it.
The History of an Ancient Plant
Despite causing pain and vomiting, however, mescaline-containing plants rarely cause death. Intense, colorful, often terrifying
hallucinations follow consumption, lasting for many hours. These vivid pictures and sounds, which exist only in the user's mind, appear to be completely real to the mescaline user. The people who lived in regions where mescaline-producing plants grew believed that the hallucinations were messages from spirits and gods, so the plants became very important in their culture.
Archaeologists have discovered evidence suggesting that peyote was used in sacred rituals some 3,000 years ago. Archaeologists in Coahuila, Mexico, found a skeleton with a beaded necklace of dried peyote buttons that dates back 1,000 years. In Peru, a carving of a peyote cactus on a stone tablet dates back to 1300 BCE. One archaeological dig in Shumla Cave in Texas uncovered dried, mescaline-containing plant matter that appeared to date back to 5,000 BCE.
The earliest written information about mescaline use comes from Fray Bernardino Sahagun (1499–1590), a Spanish missionary who lived among the Indians of Mexico and studied their culture. He stated that the buttons of the peyote plant were sometimes eaten when fighting was likely, because it took away sensations of hunger, thirst, and fear. Dr. Francisco Hernandez, the personal doctor to King Phillip II of Spain, was the first to describe the peyote plant itself. He noted that in addition to peyote buttons being used for spiritual purposes, the root of the plant could be ground up and applied as a paste for the relief of pain in the joints.
When the Spanish began to take control of Mexico in the 1500s, they tried to stamp out the use of peyote and other mescaline-producing plants. Most Spanish people of that era were devout Catholics and regarded mescaline use as a pagan ritual. Paganism is used to describe non-Christian religions that worship many gods. The Spanish did not accept paganism and believed that those native peoples who used peyote and related plants were calling on evil spirits. By 1720, a law had been passed in Mexico outlawing the use of peyote. Still, followers of the peyote cults continued to conduct their ceremonies in secret.
Nineteenth-Century Uses
As European settlements spread across North America, so did the use of mescaline-producing cacti. The first recorded use of peyote in the United States was in 1760. By the time of the American Civil War (1861–1865), some Native American tribes were very familiar with the plants and had developed rituals around their use. The Kiowa and Comanche Indians drew attention for their peyote ceremonies around the year 1880. They had probably learned about peyote when they carried out raids on the Mescalero Indians of northern Mexico.
The Kiowa and Comanche Indians may have embraced the peyote rituals because such practices seemed to offer them some hope of holding on to their traditional way of life. During this era, the Indians' lifestyle was being drastically changed as the U.S. government began forcing the native peoples on to reservations. Quahadi Comanche chief Quanah Parker (c. 1845-1911) was one of the first people to mix elements of the Christian religion with traditional peyote ceremonies. Parker was the son of a Comanche man and a white woman who had been captured by the Indians as a child.
In 1918, the Native American Church (NAC) was founded, giving an official framework to the ritual use of peyote in religious ceremonies. At the same time, a long debate began about whether
or not it should be legal for certain churches to use substances that are normally illegal. The debate continues to unfold. For Native Americans, the issue is one of religious freedom.
During the late nineteenth century, the Western world began to take a scientific interest in hallucinogenic substances. In 1897, German chemist Arthur Heffter (1859–1925) became the first person to identify mescaline as the essential chemical in peyote that caused hallucinations. It was the first hallucinogenic compound to be synthesized, or removed from its parent plant in that way.
From Native Cultures to Modern Use
Shamans, or medicine men, in native cultures had long used peyote and other mescaline-producing plants to treat a variety of ailments, both physical and spiritual. Since the effects of these substances seemed to create states similar to insanity, Western scientists hoped that they might be somehow useful in treating mental illness. They also thought they might get a better understanding of mental illness if they could learn more about the ways in which hallucinogenic substances alter the brain's activity. For many years, serious research was done on mescaline and other hallucinogens, both natural and human-made. Even as research went on, some states passed laws to make the use of peyote and related substances illegal. In 1927, New Mexico was the first state to do so.
Mescaline was rarely used outside of native cultures until the mid-twentieth century, when British novelist Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) wrote a book called The Doors of Perception, which described his personal experiments with peyote. Huxley's book, published in 1953, was popular reading during the 1960s and 1970s, a period when experimentation with drugs was widespread. Timothy Leary (1920–1996), a professor at Harvard University, also undertook many personal experiments with mescaline and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), a human-made hallucinogen. Leary's writings further promoted interest in hallucinogens, especially on college campuses. Street use of these substances became more common at that time.
Many people believed that research on hallucinogenic drugs, or psychedelicsThe ability to produce hallucinations or other altered mental states. as they were also called, had gone on for long enough, and that no helpful information had been learned. However, the abuse of psychedelics was spreading, with dangerous results. Often users had what were called "bad trips," or experiences that were depressing or terrifying. It was also reported that users might have "flashbacks," or recurrences of their drug experiences even when they were not taking the drug. Organizations concerned with public health and safety warned that heavy use of hallucinogens, including any form of mescaline, could result in damage to blood vessels, convulsions, and permanent brain damage.
Laws Ban Hallucinogens
In 1967, the U.S. government passed a law that made hallucinogens illegal throughout the country. In 1970, the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act defined peyote, mescaline, and every other hallucinogen as a Schedule I drug, meaning that they have no known medical use. At that time, legal research on mescaline came to an end. Street use of peyote and other forms of mescaline declined sharply and was virtually nonexistent at the end of the twentieth century. Whether peyote and other hallucinogenic plants can be used legally as part of the religious ceremonies of Native Americans is still hotly debated.
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