the problem is it is illegal
the other problem is that even if i don't want to extract and study mescaline, i HAVE to extract mescaline out of the raw cactus when i extract other chemicals....and then again to get rid of it to clean up the other chemicals.....
perhaps a better example would be DMT and the hundreds, maybe thousands, of plants that contain it in small amounts....perhaps studying it without letting anyone know is easy enough, but what happens when you publish a paper???