New mescaline concentrations from 14 taxa/cultivars of Echinopsis spp. (Cactaceae) (“San Pedro”) and their relevance to shamanic practice
Journal of Ethnopharmacology July 15, 2010 Olabode Ogunbodede, Douglas Mccombs, Keeper Trout et al. 54 citations
Mescaline concentrations in stem tissue of 14 taxa/cultivars of Echinopsis (subgenus Trichocereus) ranged from 0.053% to 4.7% by dry weight, spanning two orders of magnitude. Consistent analytical procedures allowed ranking of species and cultivars, all of which contained mescaline. The findings largely support the hypothesis that plants with the highest mescaline concentrations—especially E. pachanoi from Peru—are most associated with documented shamanic use in traditional South American medicine.