remediosvaro said:
it is said that the saguaro is a psychoactive cacti, though it is not mescaline based. people say only a tablespoon of dark green inner bark is needed. i do not recommend harvesting these cacti though. they are endangered and very hard to grow.... but does anybody have other information on this?
What I've read is that the famous saguaro common in the deserts of Arizona contains many alkaloids, but very little of it is mescaline. So there could well be something psychoactive going on, but if it isn't founded on mescaline, it may not be worthwhile....at least not if you don't know what the other alkaloids are all about.
Far more interesting is the "Argentinian saguaro", or Trichocereus terschekii, in an entirely different genus. I guess the word saguaro is applied to it because it too is big, ribby, and thorny. Reports you can readily find on the web - indeed, even here on the Nexus - refer to historical entheogenic use and plenty of our favorite alkaloid. But, the prep work, if you're a deskinner and dethorner like many of us are, would be considerable. If you lived in the deserts of Argentina and this is all there was, however, I guess you'd find a way. Obviously, they have.
I have friends growing T. terschekii ornamentally. They are strikingly beautiful, impressive plants. Huge, heavily ribbed, and mucho thorno. A sacrament is a sacrament, but some sacraments are easier than others.
