Three uses not to be confused
Power plants are often discussed in recreational or magico-religious terms, but there is a third, much less discussed category: the strictly medicinal, comparable to any other apothecary plant. In many cultures, these domains are deliberately kept separate. Among some indigenous Mexican peoples, for example, the visionary use of mushrooms and cacti is reserved for healers and shamans, while their curative use—at low, non-psychedelic doses, or via external application—is open to anyone.
This distinction matters because it organizes knowledge and limits risk: the everyday remedy rarely seeks a visionary effect. Below, we review the most documented cases, grouped by the type of effect they pursue. This is not a recipe book; it is a historical and ethnobotanical map to understand where the idea that these plants heal comes from, and where the pitfalls lie.
Sedatives and anxiolytics: hops and frankincense
Hops (Humulus lupulus) is the closest botanical relative of hemp: both belong to the Cannabaceae family, and it was once even called Cannabis lupulus. Its reputation as a mild sedative is old and reasonably solid; German health authorities have endorsed hop infusions for anxiety and insomnia, and the folk tradition of northern Spain—it grows wild, for example, on the slopes of Mount Urgull in Donostia—also attributes diuretic and digestive effects to it. In the past, pillows were stuffed with its flowers to combat insomnia and nightmares. Lupulone, responsible for the bitterness of beer, has antibiotic properties.
Frankincense, the resin of Boswellia carteri, is the primordial incense, the smoke of temples. Here, popular science meets research: Raphael Mechoulam’s team at the University of Jerusalem described how incensole acetate, one of its components, reduced anxiety in animal models. Mechoulam himself qualified the finding—the effect was far inferior to pharmaceutical anxiolytics, and only a more potent derivative validated in humans would have clinical potential—a prudence worth keeping in mind against easy headlines about “incense that cures depression.” In Ethiopia, it has been burned as a febrifuge and tranquilizing fumigant, and in the nineties, there were trials using standardized Boswellia serrata extract for rheumatoid arthritis.
The Solanaceae: belladonna, henbane, and jimsonweed
Here we enter dangerous territory. Belladonna (Atropa belladonna), henbane (Hyoscyamus niger), and jimsonweed (Datura stramonium) share tropane alkaloids—hyoscyamine, scopolamine, atropine—and a common denominator that no honest report should hide: the margin between an active dose and a lethal dose is narrow, and severe poisoning is a real risk.
Belladonna, the “queen of the Solanaceae,” was used since ancient times as an analgesic and for conditions we would today call depressive or psychotic; some of that use persists in North Africa, where it is attributed with effects on mood and cognition. In the 19th century, its extracts were prescribed for an almost endless catalog of ailments, from jaundice to eye inflammation. It is best to read all this with historical distance: overdose is lethal, and the fact that a belladonna ointment was sold in Spain for five pesetas in the first third of the 20th century says more about the regulatory laxity of the time than its safety. Today, it only persists, highly diluted, in homeopathic preparations.
Henbane had similar virtues: analgesic and antispasmodic against toothaches, coughs, neuralgias, and, when smoked, against asthma. In traditional Chinese medicine, its seeds have been used; in some countries, henbane patches are placed behind the ear for motion sickness. Jimsonweed was smoked well into the 20th century as a remedy for asthma—dried leaf cigarettes were sold in Spanish herbal shops—until modern pharmacology replaced it. That these same plants appear in old witchcraft accusations and today survive in a motion sickness patch is one of those ironies that the history of drugs often provides.
Stimulants: coca and ephedra
The coca leaf (Erythroxylum coca) is the “aspirin of the Andes”: in its traditional use, chewed or in infusion, it has been used against various pains, digestive problems, exhaustion, and, above all, altitude sickness, where its preventive efficacy enjoys wide popular recognition. It is important to separate the leaf—food and remedy integrated into Andean cultures, legal in countries like Peru or Bolivia—from isolated cocaine. That Merck cocaine was sold in pharmacies in 1920s Spain, or tonics with kola nut and coca leaf advertised as restoratives, belongs to a closed chapter of pharmaceutical regulation. The leaf, on its own, provides vitamins and minerals in significant amounts, according to classic works like those of J. A. Duke.
Ephedra (Ephedra, the ma-huang of Chinese medicine) has been boiled in the Ayurvedic tradition against colds, coughs, bronchitis, and asthma, and an Iberian species, Ephedra fragilis, enjoyed prestige in folk medicine as an antiasthmatic. Its recent history is, above all, a warning: ephedrine is a potent cardiovascular stimulant, and the “herbal ecstasy” products that popularized it in the nineties were eventually withdrawn after health scandals. Today it survives in controlled pharmaceutical presentations, and its availability fluctuates with the rhythm of abuse—a reminder that “natural” does not equal “harmless.”
Visionaries as an apothecary: Amanita, yopo, and peyote
Amanita muscaria, the red mushroom with white spots, has a curious medicinal history. Siberian peoples like the Khanty have used it against fatigue; in rural Russia and Ukraine, it was applied externally to painful joints. Its most striking episode is European: in Italy at the end of the 19th century, when phylloxera devastated the vineyards, the physician Grassi even proposed it as a substitute for wine, describing a “non-toxic intoxication.” In the 19th century, it also appeared as a home remedy for fever and epilepsy. Today it persists as a homeopathic tincture (Agaricus muscarius). Despite that past, it remains a mushroom with real toxins: uncontrolled consumption causes unpleasant and, occasionally, serious symptoms.
Yopo (Anadenanthera colubrina), a South American tree with tryptamine-containing seeds used ritually by the Mataco, has more prosaic popular applications: infusions for digestive discomfort, or added to local beer against fever and melancholy. Here a contradiction emerges that the original already pointed out with honesty: the same seeds are attributed with boosting female fertility and, at the same time, having an abortifacient effect. When a plant is both “remedy” and “risk” according to a dose that no one specifies, it is prudent to read it as folklore, not as a medical indication.
Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) is, for many peoples of northern Mexico and North America, the medicine par excellence: its name in Dakota, pejuta, literally means “medicine.” Tradition attributes a huge range of uses to it—from ointments for pain and rheumatic conditions to antiseptic effects—almost always via methods that do not seek the visionary effect. The most solid data comes from contemporary research: work such as that of Dr. John Halpern at Harvard documented that the ritual and periodic use of the cactus in community contexts was associated with a lower incidence of alcoholism among native users. It is an important finding, but it should be read in its context—ceremonial, communal, and culturally rooted—not as an exportable recipe.
Critical reading
Three cautions to conclude. First: traditional use is not proof of efficacy or safety. Many of these indications come from folk medicine or texts from the 19th and early 20th centuries, predating any controlled trials; successes coexist with unsupported beliefs. Second: risk is not distributed equally. Hops and coca leaf have wide margins; the Solanaceae and ephedra do not. Speaking of all of them as “medicinal plants” in a block erases that decisive difference. Third: this article is historical education, not a guide for preparation or consumption. We have deliberately avoided recipes, doses, and methods, precisely because in several of these species the line between remedy and intoxication is too fine to entrust to a text.
The classic ethnobotanical sources from which this review draws—the works of Jonathan Ott, Christian Rätsch, or Pius Font Quer, among others—remain recommended reading for those who want to go into detail, always with a critical spirit and without taking a curious fact as medical advice.
