Once converted, it follows the same pathway as described above. Phenylalanine serves as a precursor by first being converted to L-tyrosine by L-amino acid hydroxylase. This final methylation step results in the production of mescaline. The product, methylated at the two meta positions with respect to the alkyl substituent, experiences a final methylation at the 4 carbon by a guaiacol-O-methyltransferase, which also operates by a SAM-dependent mechanism.

The resulting intermediate is then oxidized again by a hydroxylase enzyme, likely monophenol hydroxylase again, at carbon 5, and methylated by COMT. These create dopamine, which then experiences methylation by a catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) by an S-adenosyl methionine (SAM)-dependent mechanism. Tyrosine can either undergo a decarboxylation via tyrosine decarboxylase to generate tyramine and subsequently undergo an oxidation at carbon 3 by a monophenol hydroxylase or first be hydroxylated by tyrosine hydroxylase to form L-DOPA and decarboxylated by DOPA decarboxylase. Tyrosine and phenylalanine serve as the metabolic precursors to synthesis of mescaline. In Lophophora williamsii ( Peyote), dopamine converts into mescaline in a biosynthetic pathway involving m- O-methylation and aromatic hydroxylation. Mescaline is biosynthesized from tyrosine which, in turn, is derived from phenylalanine by the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase. Because of this, very few studies concerning mescaline's activity and potential therapeutic effects in humans have been conducted since the early 1970s. However, its status as a Schedule I controlled substance in the Convention on Psychotropic Substances limits availability of the drug to researchers. Mescaline has a wide array of suggested medical usage, including treatment of alcoholism and depression, due to these disorders having links to serotonin deficiencies. Though the recording was deemed too controversial and ultimately omitted from the show, Mayhew praised the experience, calling it 'the most interesting thing I ever did'. In 1955, English politician Christopher Mayhew took part in an experiment for BBC's Panorama, in which he ingested 400В mg of mescaline under the supervision of psychiatrist Humphry Osmond. Mescaline was first isolated and identified in 1897 by the German chemist Arthur Heffter and first synthesized in 1918 by Ernst SpГ¤th. The average 76В mm (3.0В in) button contains about 25В mg mescaline. The usual human dosage is 200вЂ“400 milligrams of mescaline sulfate or 178вЂ“356 milligrams of mescaline hydrochloride. However, the taste of the cactus is bitter, so contemporary users will often grind it into a powder and pour it into capsules to avoid having to taste it. Buttons are chewed to produce the effects or soaked in water to drink.

These heads are then dried to make disc-shaped buttons. In traditional peyote preparations, the top of the cactus is cut off, leaving the large tap root along with a ring of green photosynthesizing area to grow new heads.

These religious practices, incorporated legally in the United States in 1920 as the Native American Church, has since spread as far as Saskatchewan, Canada. However, by 1880, peyote use began to spread north of South-Central America with 'a new kind of peyote ceremony' inaugurated by the Kiowa and Comanche people. While religious and ceremonial peyote use was widespread in the Aztec empire and northern Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest, religious persecution confined it to areas near the Pacific coast and up to southwest Texas. Other mescaline-containing cacti such as the San Pedro have a long history of use in South America, from Peru to Ecuador. Europeans noted use of peyote in Native American religious ceremonies upon early contact, notably by the Huichols in Mexico. Peyote has been used for at least 5,700 years by Native Americans in Mexico.

5 Behavioral and non-behavioral effects.

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