Magic Mushrooms Aren’t Narcotics? India’s Court Says No!

Welcome back to The Drop In, DoubleBlind’s newsletter serving up news, culture, and independent journalism about the psychedelic underground straight to your inbox.

Today’s edition of The Drop In is packed! You’ll find a news piece on a high court in India ruling that psilocybin mushrooms are not a narcotic. Another is about why a Catholic rights group is livid at RFK and the prospect of psychedelic-assisted therapy becoming legal. Scroll past those two stories, and you’ll find a feature on Death Cafés (yes, you read that correctly), a piece on the “Viagra of the Himalayas,” and a breakdown explaining why psilocybin mushrooms turn blue.

Happy Monday ☀️.

Mary Carreón
Senior Editor

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Could India Change Its View on Psilocybin Mushrooms?

A Kerala court just cracked open a legal gray area for psychedelics in India. Is this the start of a shift, or will the legal fog linger?

The high court in Kerala, India, has declared that magic mushrooms are not "narcotics or psychotropic substances,“ despite the country’s stringent drug laws, according to the Hindustan Times.

The decision aligns with past rulings from the Karnataka and Madras High Courts, which found that psilocybin-containing mushrooms shouldn’t be classified as controlled substances under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), Law Live reports.

The case involved a person who was arrested in October 2024 for allegedly possessing different forms of cannabis, 226 grams of whole psilocybin mushrooms, and 50 grams of mushroom capsules. During the bail hearing, the defense argued that while psilocybin is a scheduled substance, authorities didn’t test for the exact amount contained within the mushrooms. The lawyer argued that the charges were based on the total weight of raw fungi, not the amount of magic they contained. The average psilocybin content in Psilocybe cubensis, the defense noted, hovers around one percent per gram — hardly what’s considered “large-scale narcotics trafficking.”

Justice P.V. Kunhikrishnan agreed, stating that psilocybin mushrooms are fungi, not man-made chemicals subject to NDPS restrictions. Without a specific determination of psilocybin content, he ruled, mushrooms can’t be lumped in with controlled substances.

While this ruling is a massive win for the defendant (and, honestly, the people of India), the country’s drug laws remain draconian. But the ruling raises thorny questions about enforcement: Where does the law draw its boundary if a mushroom can contain an illegal substance without being illegal itself?

At the very least, this decision opens up conversations about how mushrooms fit into the context of archaic drug laws, even if, for now, they remain illegal.

The Holy War Over RFK Jr.’s Stance on Psychedelics

The Catholic League is sounding the alarm over RFK Jr.’s openness to psychedelic therapy — but is this really what the church is worried about?

Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) has become something of a folk hero in certain corners of psychedelic culture. But outside these circles, his rise has triggered conservative Catholics, who see his views on psychedelics as a threat to morality and societal order.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights — a conservative watchdog organization (more or less) with a long history of policing perceived affronts to the Church — has set its sights on RFK. In a recent piece, the group lays out exactly why his views are a problem, zeroing in on his stance on psychedelic therapy.

“Kennedy not only wants to make marijuana legal nationwide, he wants to legalize some psychedelics,” writes Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League. “That would presumably include psilocybin (magic mushrooms), the most popular psychedelic in the nation…Here’s what we know about magic mushrooms. They can cause frightening hallucinations, distorted thinking, impaired concentration, unusual body sensations, nausea and vomiting, paranoia, confusion, and emotions ranging from bliss to terror…And now he thinks we need to make it easier for Americans to hallucinate.”

Forget the growing body of evidence showing psychedelics’ potential for mental health treatment or the religious traditions that have used them for centuries. Donaohue’s two-dimensional take is straightforward: Hallucinating bad. Jesus good.

But is this brand of paranoid drug propaganda a common stance among practicing Catholics? We did some digging, and the answer is — yes and no. Yes, in the sense that the Catholic Church sees the “body as a temple” and condemns illegal drugs as poisons that erode judgment and inevitably lead to sin. On top of that, the Bible instructs people to “obey the laws of the land.” By that logic, engaging with mushrooms at all is a SIN.

But, the laws of the land are changing when it comes to psychedelics, particularly those regarding psilocybin mushrooms. If legality determines morality, what happens when a substance is no longer illegal? Does it magically stop being sinful?

Some Catholics argue that mushrooms exist in a kind of religious grey area now.

“[Psychedelics] haven’t been explicitly dealt with [by the Church]… Generally, it hasn’t had to be, because something being illegal meant it was disallowed,” writes Redditor CheerfulErrand, in r/Catholicism. “But now that laws are changing, Church teaching hasn’t quite come around to addressing legal-but-mostly-recreational-drugs-that-might-also-have- medicinal-or-psychological-benefits…You’re going to have to use your best judgment and your pastor’s advice…Don’t break laws. Don’t damage your health. Don’t do things that impair your reason to the point where you’re more inclined to sin. Alcohol is the standard test here.”

And that’s where the hypocrisy becomes impossible to ignore. Alcohol, which the Church not only permits but incorporates into its most sacred ritual at Mass, is responsible for 178,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. Meanwhile, psychedelics have a drastically lower mortality rate, with mounting evidence pointing to their potential in treating everything from depression to PTSD. Of course, we maintain that more research must be done and that psychedelics are not for everyone. However, if the real concern is drugs clouding judgment or leading to harm, why does alcohol get a pass while psychedelics are treated as a gateway to sin?

As journalists, we remain skeptical of RFK’s rhetoric. Still, we’re even more wary of religious dogma that seeks to police the ways people find healing — or deepen their relationships with God. The Catholic League may be clutching its rosary beads over RFK’s stance on psychedelics, but let’s be honest here: What they’re really afraid of isn’t about the health and safety of “hallucinating Americans.”

It’s that people might start seeking transcendence outside the Catholic Church.

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