Acute Mescaline Intoxication Followed by Catatonia

Abstract

The paper deals with a case report of a 41-year-old man who in search of the meaning of life in a so-called “shamanic ritual” drank tea made from the San Pedro cactus as well as paste made of the same plant. The hallucinations were post poned and started after 9.5 hours caracterised by a psychotic reaction with symptoms of catatonia. He was admitted to our Department of Psychiatry where he was administered a second generation antipsychotic. The clinical presentation disappeared about 60 hours after the ingestion of mescaline mainly because of the antagonistic effect the antipsychotic has on the serotoninergic 5-HT2A receptors.