Peyote, also known as Lophophora williamsii, is a small, spineless cactus which contains psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline. is a Spanish word derived from the Nahuatl , meaning "caterpillar cocoon", from a root , "to glisten".Other sources, apparently incorrectly, translate the Nahuatl word as "divine messenger". p. 396. p. 246. See peyotl in Wiktionary.
It is native to southern North America, primarily found in desert scrub and limestone-rich areas of northern Mexico and south Texas, particularly in the Chihuahuan Desert at elevations of . It flowers from March to May, and sometimes as late as September. Its flowers are pink or white, with thigmotactic anthers (like Opuntia). It is a small, spineless cactus that grows in clusters, produces edible fruits, and contains psychoactive alkaloids—primarily mescaline—at concentrations of about 0.4% when fresh and up to 6% when dried.
Peyote is a slow-growing cactus that can be cultivated more rapidly through techniques such as grafting. While wild populations in regions like south Texas have declined due to harvesting, cultivation and the use of alternatives like San Pedro are being explored as potential conservation approaches.
It has been used for over 5,000 years by Indigenous peoples of the Americas for ceremonial, spiritual, and folk medicine purposes. Its effects last up to 12 hours. The Native American Church considers ingestion of peyote a sacrament and uses it in all-night healing ceremonies to connect with the spiritual world. Native American Church members often personify peyote as a divine spirit akin to Jesus. In Wixarika (Huichol) culture, peyote is considered the soul of their religion and a visionary sacrament that connects them to their principal deities—corn, deer, peyote, and the eagle. Peyote and its psychoactive component mescaline are generally controlled substances worldwide, but many laws—including in Canada and the United States—exempt its use in authentic Native American religious ceremonies, with U.S. federal law and some states allowing such ceremonial use regardless of race.
Description
The various species of the genus Lophophora grow low to the ground and they often form groups with numerous, crowded shoots. The blue-green, yellow-green or sometimes reddish-green shoots are mostly flattened spheres with sunken shoot tips. They can reach heights of and diameters of . There are often significant, vertical ribs consisting of low and rounded or hump-like bumps. From the cusp areoles arises a tuft of soft, yellowish or whitish woolly hairs. Spines are absent. Flowers are pink or white to slightly yellowish, sometimes reddish. They open during the day, are from long, and reach a diameter from .
The cactus produces flowers sporadically; these are followed by small edible pink fruit. The club-shaped to elongated, fleshy fruits are bare and more or less rosy colored. At maturity, they are brownish-white and dry. The fruits do not burst open on their own and they are between long. They contain black, pear-shaped seeds that are 1 to 1.5 mm long and 1 mm wide. The seeds require hot and humid conditions to germinate. Peyote contains a large spectrum of phenethylamine alkaloids. The principal one is mescaline for which the content of Lophophora williamsii is about 0.4% fresh (undried) and 3–6% dried.
Taxonomy French botanist Charles Antoine Lemaire described the species as Echinocactus williamsii in 1845. It was placed in the new genus Lophophora in 1894 by American botanist John Merle Coulter.
Distribution and habitat
L. williamsii is native to southern North America, mainly distributed in Mexico. In the United States, it grows in southern Texas. A 1970 field study described a population about south of Shafter, in Presidio County, as the northernmost and westernmost known occurrence. A later survey treated the Shafter population as the northwestern limit of the documented range and recorded vouchers in three herbaria. In Mexico, it grows in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas in the north to San Luis Potosí and Zacatecas. It is primarily found at elevations of and exceptionally up to in the Chihuahuan Desert, but is also present in the milder climate of Tamaulipas. Its habitat is primarily in desert scrub, particularly thorn scrub in Tamaulipas. It is common on or near limestone hills.
In Tamaulipas, peyote commonly grows beneath other plants. A 2022 field study found 97.7% of sampled individuals under the foliage of facilitator species, with honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) among the principal associated species.
Constituents
Peyote contains a variety of alkaloids including mescaline, pellotine, anhalonidine, anhalamine, hordenine, lophophorine, and anhalonine, among others. In terms of total alkaloid content, mescaline makes up 30%, pellotine 17%, anhalonidine 14%, anhalamine 8%, hordenine 8%, lophophorine 5%, and anhalonine 3%. Other major alkaloids include anhalidine, anhalinine, and O-methylanhalonidine. Peyophorine is a minor constituent, while isoanhalamine, isoanhalidine, isoanhalonidine, and isopellotine are trace constituents. Tyramine and N-methyltyramine are also present in peyote. More than 50different alkaloids have been isolated from peyote, but many of them in only minor or trace amounts.
Of peyote's major alkaloids, only mescaline is definitely known to be hallucinogenic, and is thought to be responsible for the psychedelic effects of the cactus. However, pellotine is a sedative and hypnotic and can produce marked sleepiness at sufficiently high doses. In addition, pellotine was reported to produce hallucinations at very high doses in one study.https://isomerdesign.com/bitnest/external/TCA/190-193 "Robles & Gomez Robleda 1931 using doses of up to 300 mg observed disorientation and reported hallucinations were experienced by their subjects." Pellotine is present in peyote in sufficient amounts to potentially cause sedation.
Cultivation Peyote grows slowly and can take up to ten years to mature. Grafting can accelerate growth and crown production and can be performed on both seedlings and mature plants. Growers commonly use Pereskiopsis for seedlings, while larger plants can be grafted onto columnar cacti such as San Pedro, Peruvian torch, and Bolivian torch. When grafted to Pereskiopsis, seedlings can flower and produce seed within two years. Wild peyote experiences long periods of drought and heat stress. In one experiment, six months of drought stress increased the mescaline concentration of cultivated plants; the review authors noted that potency may depend on growing conditions rather than simply on whether a plant is wild or cultivated. The top of the above-ground part of the cactus, the crown, consists of disc-shaped buttons. These are cut above the roots and sometimes dried. When done properly, the top of the root forms a callus and the root does not rot. When poor harvesting techniques are used, however, the entire plant dies. Peyote grows naturally in South Texas but has been over-harvested, to the point that the state has listed it as an endangered species. Cultivation is an important conservation tool for this particular species. Promoting San Pedro as a Peyote substitute may act as an intervention to reduce Peyote consumption.
Use and effects Psychoactivity and folk medicine
When used for its psychoactive properties, common doses for pure mescaline range from roughly 200 to 400 mg. This translates to a dose of roughly 10 to 20 g of dried peyote buttons of average potency; however, potency varies considerably between samples, making it difficult to measure doses accurately without first extracting the mescaline. The concentration of mescaline is typically highest at the sides of the peyote button. The effects last about 10 to 12 hours. Peyote is reported to trigger rich visual or auditory effects (see synesthesia) and spiritual or philosophical insights.
In addition to psychoactive use, some Native American tribes use the plant in folk medicine. They employ peyote for varied ailments. Although uncommon, use of peyote and mescaline has been associated with poisoning. Peyote also contains other alkaloids such as hordenine.
Adverse effects A study published in 2007 found no evidence of long-term cognitive problems related to peyote use in Native American Church ceremonies, but researchers stressed their results may not apply to those who use peyote in other contexts.Halpern JH, Sherwood AR, Hudson JI, Yurgelun-Todd D, Pope HG Jr. "Psychological and cognitive effects of long-term peyote use among Native Americans." Biol Psychiatry. 2005;58(8):624–631. A four-year large-scale study of Navajo who regularly ingested peyote found only one case where peyote was associated with a psychotic break in an otherwise healthy person; other psychotic episodes were attributed to peyote use in conjunction with pre-existing substance abuse or mental health problems.Bergman RL (1971). "Navajo peyote use: its apparent safety," Amer J Psychiat 128(6):695–699[51–55]. Later research found that those with pre-existing mental health issues are more likely to have adverse reactions to peyote.Inaba, D.S. & Cohen, W.E. (2004). Uppers, Downers, All Arounders. (pp. 229–230, 232). Oregon: CNS Publications, Inc. Peyote use does not appear to be associated with hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (a.k.a. "flashbacks") after religious use.Halpern, J. H. (1996). "The use of hallucinogens in the treatment of addiction." Addiction Research, 4(2);177–189. Peyote also does not seem to be associated with physical dependence, but some users may experience psychological dependence.Hyman, S. E. & Malenka, R. C. (2001). "Addiction and the brain: The neurobiology of compulsion and its persistence." Neuroscience. 2;696
Peyote can have strong emetic effects, and one death has been attributed to esophageal bleeding caused by vomiting after peyote ingestion in a Native American patient with a history of alcohol abuse.K B Nolte and R E Zumwalt. "Fatal peyote ingestion associated with Mallory-Weiss lacerations." West J Med. 1999 Jun; 170(6): 328. Peyote is also known to cause potentially serious variations in heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and pupillary dilation.Nole and Zumwalt 1999
Research into the Huichol natives of central-western Mexico, who have taken peyote regularly for an estimated 1,500 years or more, found no evidence of chromosome damage in either men or women.Dorrance; Janiger; and Teplitz (1975), "Effect of peyote on human chromosomes: Cytogenic study of the Huichol Indians of northern Mexico." JAMA 234:299–302.
According to a statement made by Gertrude Bonnin in 1916, a member of the Sioux tribe, the use of Peyote had been the direct cause of death among 25 Utes in a two year period.
History In 2005, researchers used radiocarbon dating and alkaloid analysis to study two specimens of peyote buttons found in archaeological digs from a site called Shumla Cave No. 5 on the Rio Grande in Texas. The results dated the specimens to between 3780 and 3660 BCE. Alkaloid extraction yielded approximately 2% of the alkaloids including mescaline in both samples. This indicates that native North Americans were likely to have used peyote since at least 5500 years ago. Specimens from a burial cave in west central Coahuila, Mexico have been similarly analyzed and dated to 810 to 1070 CE.