At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get involved with this debate or not. But I’ll add a few words.
Many doctors believe that isolated drugs are healthier than herbal drugs. The main reason being that an isolated drug can be well studied, doses easily controlled, and the effects will be more consistent. Herbs contain many compounds other than the drug desired. Some of these other compounds are beneficial such as vitamins, minerals, etc., but some of the compounds present are toxic.
Most food contains toxic compounds that if taken in concentration would be dangerous. For example, acetone is present in a lot of fruit (found in bananas and others), but if isolated, and taken in sufficient quantities, it is toxic.
I’ve talked with herbalists who believe that whole plant drugs are healthier for you, saying that concentrated isolated drugs are more damaging to the liver, and that taking the drug in it’s natural state helps protect the liver.
There are lots of conflicting views here and most of them do make sense.
As far as cactus goes, long term regular Peyote use has been shown to produce no known health problems. It seems to be healthier than alcohol use.
I don’t know of studies done on long term Torch, Pedro, or Achuma use.
Mescaline extracted and isolated using xylene, if not properly cleaned up, is definitely unhealthy. Xylene is very toxic.
Mescaline extracted and isolated using d-limonene, if not properly cleaned up, should be just fine. D-limonene is edible and present in a lot of fruit in high quantities. It’s actually recommended by some to use 1 gram of d-limonene a day for some of it’s known health benefits.
Mescaline extracted via water and not isolated will be mixed with a ton of other compounds present in the cactus. That includes proteins, waxes, fats, oils, vitamins, minerals, all of it. So if all of it is healthy, then you’re fine. But if there’s something toxic present, then you’re better off doing a real extraction and isolating the mescaline.
There are no studies that I’m aware of that show that anything present in Torch, Pedro, or Achuma is toxic in the doses consumed for the mescaline effects.
Some people get stomach problems from whole cactus, but not from pure mescaline. Some people get stomach problems from mescaline, but not whole cactus. No one knows exactly why.
Natives have been using these cacti for hundreds of years and they appear to be just fine.
Until studies are done, we will not know one way or the other.
Mescaline has been studied as an isolated drug. It’s been studied longer than any other psychedelic. It was been shown to be relatively safe. This is known. The other alkaloids and other compounds present in the cactus have not been as extensively studied. We know very little about them.
Because of the long tradition of their use by natives who appear to be just as healthy as others, I think the health risk from using whole cactus is extremely small.
