This Is Your Mind on Plants

This hallucinogenic drug is produced naturally by a wide variety of plants and fungi. It can produce vivid hallucinations in the human brain.

This cactus grows in Texas and Mexico. It produces a psychoactive drug called mescaline, a hallucinogen sacred to Indigenous American tribes, who have developed ceremonial uses for it. After he gains an understanding of its sacredness to Indigenous Americans, Pollan chooses to forego an experience with peyote and instead uses a synthetic in pill form and eventually participates in a ceremony using Wachuma.

Pollan reports that this drug takes away pain, discomfort, and anxiety and can create a feeling of contentedness or euphoria. Used by many cultures throughout history for its pain-killing effects, opium tea can be easily produced from the seedheads of some poppy flowers. Pollan made some himself to explore its effect while also considering the plant's ever-changing reputation as a medical resource, decorative gardening plant, and illicit drug.