Mescaline Mescaline Mescaline (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic alkaloid of the phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin. It occurs naturally in the peyote cactus ("Lophophora williamsii"), the San Pedro cactus ("Echinopsis pachanoi"), the Peruvian torch ("Echinopsis peruviana"), and other members of the Cactaceae plant family. It is also found in small amounts in certain members of the Fabaceae (bean) family, including "Acacia berlandieri". However those claims concerning Acacia species have been challenged and have been unsupported in additional analysis. Peyote has been used for at least 5,700 years by Native Americans in
Alkaloid as psychoactive substances. Cocaine, caffeine, and cathinone are stimulants of the central nervous system. Mescaline and many of indole alkaloids (such as psilocybin, dimethyltryptamine and ibogaine) have hallucinogenic effect. Morphine and codeine are strong narcotic pain killers. There are alkaloids that do not have strong psychoactive effect themselves, but are precursors for semi-synthetic psychoactive drugs. For example, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine are used to produce methcathinone and methamphetamine. Thebaine is used in the synthesis of many painkillers such as oxycodone. Alkaloid Alkaloids are a class of naturally occurring organic compounds that mostly contain basic nitrogen atoms. This group also includes some