https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n01/emily-witt/the-unpredictable-cactus

A review of a book about mescaline and the cacti from which comes, and it’s ancient and recent history.

I think it’s pretty interesting that we got a book about mescaline in 2020. I remember being fascinated by Hunter S. Thompson’s descriptions of the drug in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; nowadays, adoration and abuse of psychedelics seems almost quaint, and the world is full of things that are worse for your mind while holding little or no stigma. Mescaline seems like a wild predator that may have frightened our primitive ancestors but that is entirely irrelevant to a modern city-dweller.

But maybe I’m out of the loop. Maybe mescaline is big now. I wouldn’t know one way or the other; I don’t keep track of these things. Still, I’ve never even tried mescaline, and the fact there’s a whole book about it only makes me more intrigued.