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San Pedro is the mescaline bearing cactus which grows throughout the Andes mountains, but primarily in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.  Indian Shamen have used it for thousands of years, as a diagnostic, a purgative and as a religious sacrament. There are several methods of preparation; the one described here is the simpliest and quickest.

  
  Here is a San Pedro cactus in its natural state.  Some older plants may reach 13 or 14 feet in height, with dozens of branches; enough mescaline for a football team!  
  These are the cacti we prepared at Joey's estate. If you get a good plant (which depends on age and location) the correct dose per person is a lenght of cactus equivalent to the distance from your elbow to your knuckles, for each person. The cactus in the picture was just perfect for three people.  
This picture shows a piece of cactus halfway prepared.  The first step is to remove the spines, which extend from the ridges of the cactus in groups of three.  Around the roots of the spines are tiny tufts containing strichnine, which you remember is not a good thing to eact.  Interestingly, strichnine also occurs in Peyote buttons, another mescaline-bearing cactus found in Mexico.  The spines must be carefully removed from the San Pedro, as seen in the rows on the left.
 

This is a nice shot of a piece of cactus with all the spines removed, with the river in the background.  It is always best to take San Pedro as close as possible to where the plant grew. Luckily, it grows in some of the most beautiful countryside anywhere.

  
Here is a cross-section of the cactus.  The light-green core is no good, as it contains little mescaline and must be discarded.  The skines and vinly-like skin must also be discarded.  It is the dark-green layer in-between that contains all the good stuff and which must be cooked down to a drrinkable form.
 

Here I am stripping off the transparent, vinyl-like skin of the cactus. Once the spines have been removed and the skin is slit from top to bottom along the top and trough of each ridge, it is easy and fun to strip it off!

  
 

 

 

 

If you do this right, each stip peels off like smooth skin after a sunburn.

  

 

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San Pedro in the pot. It must be boiled for 5-8 hours to concentrate the mescaline in a goopy green liquid.  If a good specimin was chosen, one glassful contains 1.5 to 2 grams of pure organic mescaline. One half gram is the medically recognized threshold dose (minimum for a real trip).
This is what the sun looked like, as we waited for the cactus to take effect.  A ring around the sun is an auspicious sign that things are about to get weird (in a good way).
The effects of San Pedro.  Do not try this at home, unless you live high in the Andes and have a good guide.
  Finally, here is a snapshot of Joey's dog Bronx getting his rocks off as a highly paid canine stud. Its a tough job but somebody has to do it.