The Most Dangerous Thing About Psilocybin Mushrooms?

Imagine what your life looked like in the spring of 2021. Even if you didn’t consider yourself a psychonaut, you likely caught wind of the many stories extolling the virtues of psychedelics: stories about magic mushrooms have the ability to “reset depressed brains,” or how food-writer-turned-psychonaut Michael Pollan beautifully documented his experiences on LSD, magic mushrooms, and ayahuasca in his 2018 book How To Change Your Mind. You might have even watched that Netflix documentary where comedians, musicians, and other artists extoll the virtues of psychedelics and laughed at their crazy trip stories.

You might have thought, with all this scientific research and famous people talking about how wonderful psychedelics are, that you’d like to try some yourself. A bit of research tells you how easy it is to grow magic mushrooms, and how you should maybe grow a little extra in case you lose your harvest to contamination — a perpetual problem even for the most experienced cultivators. You go out and buy a few easily sourced materials, obtain some spores, and start growing.

A few weeks later, you’ve finally nursed your growth to a stage of almost-completion. You come down one morning to your 11 hopeful trays of bulk substrate to find only about 15 small but wonderful mushrooms poking up through the surface. It’s not an impressive haul for your effort, but the feeling of having grown them yourself fills you with pride. Maybe you’ll have enough for you and your partner to have a decent trip together.

In the middle of that thought, you hear a loud bang and the shattering of glass as your front door violently bursts free from its hinges. Before you’ve figured out what’s happened, you’re being pushed to the floor by an armoured police officer, as their colleagues search your home and arrest your partner. You’re both taken into custody, and your modest mushroom grow is seized and ultimately destroyed.

When you read the Facebook post shared by the police who busted you, you’ll see that they’re proudly claiming that your 15 measly mushrooms are evidence of their district’s “first known magic mushroom factory.” You read the hundreds of comments from people decrying the utter waste of police resources for such a small haul, and referring to the same studies and stories you read, promoting the benefits of magic mushrooms. None of the community commentary matters, however, as you live in a country where your actions carry the charges of possession of an illegal drug, with intent to distribute. In your particular part of the world, this offence carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

In mainstream media, psilocybin mushrooms and other psychedelics are often sold as the cure to a great deal of societal ills. With celebrities and other public figures sharing profound and heartfelt experiences or joking about their trips, the real and ever-present risk of possession or cultivation of magic mushrooms is not something that people seem keen to talk about. Data from the UK showed that 260,000 people openly admitted to taking magic mushrooms in 2023, 100,000 higher than previous data from 2020. Data from the US for hallucinogens more generally shows a similar upward trend, over a similar time period.

In the UK in 2005, magic mushrooms went from being openly sold in “head shops” to having the highest possible illegal drug status overnight. Though psilocybin decriminalization has been creeping its way across the US, magic mushrooms are still illegal at the federal level. This means that every single person who takes the risk to grow or otherwise procure mushrooms faces arrests, fines, and harsh prison sentences. Even if those arrested for psilocybin don’t face jail time, at the very minimum, the mark on their criminal record may limit their access to employment, travel, education, and housing.

This reality, and similar legal issues surrounding magic mushrooms in many countries, are less often talked about than their amazing mind-manifesting properties in the mainstream media. Slick documentaries like Fantastic Fungi, How To Change Your Mind, and Have A Good Trip enthusiastically praise the benefits of psilocybin for personal growth and just having a blast, but spend little to no time covering the consequences for those caught in possession of magic mushrooms. As one judge said in a UK possession trial:

Over the last few years, we as writers have been growing increasingly uncomfortable with a psychedelic hype-train that appears to give little regard to the very real risk of criminal incarceration. Add to this the real issue of the drug war being weaponized as a way to further overpolice and brutalize communities of color, and the situation gets even more dire.

So what happens in a future situation where we relax the laws around psilocybin, or dare we say it, all drugs? If we examine how pardons for historic crimes — which were later legalized — have been applied, those previously deemed as offenders don’t always receive a completely clean slate. Biden’s cannabis possession pardons didn’t fully expunge a person’s criminal record, for instance, leaving the pardoned crime still visible. This allows individual gatekeepers of education and housing, who might not be comfortable with progressive drug reforms, to unfairly find “other” reasons to deny applicants’ access to such services. The UK, lagging relatively far behind its US counterparts, only expanded its pardon program for homosexuality to include women in June 2023, but allows for such convictions to be fully wiped and non-disclosable on a person’s criminal record. Despite this, stricter UK drug laws relative to our US counterparts mean that even discussing a similar move for cannabis is a long way away, even in the face of majority support for a regulated cannabis market in the UK.

Regardless of where you live, pardons may only apply to possession, and those accused of having the “intent to distribute” may have such charges brought against them on fairly questionable evidence. If you prefer to grow only once every few years (because actively growing small amounts can be legally riskier), then your personal long-term stash may be deemed “too much” for your own consumption, and a charge of intent to supply may be sought.

Maybe, like this arrestee, you didn’t realize how easy mushrooms were to grow, and now you have way too many on your hands. Maybe you’re microdosing and are trying to accurately measure your dosage with an electronic scale; this could be taken as evidence that you’re weighing out baggies to sell to others. Intent to distribute doesn’t mean that money has to change hands, and those sharing their abundance with close friends can be enough to apply the charge. The point is, if you’re unlucky to have your personal use deemed as “intent to supply,” then pardons might not help you.

Those who don’t have a keen grasp on the legislation around psychedelics could almost be forgiven for thinking they’re harmless. If you hold this view, you’re mostly correct — both psilocybin and LSD have been shown to have low harm potential to both users and society. Though consuming any drug is not without its risks, many societies freely accept that the choice to consume alcohol or tobacco should be left up to each and every individual, despite proven health risks and a far higher death toll from both substances. In the case of psychedelics, it seems the biggest harm from these substances comes from the violent raids, overzealous cops, and the loss of personal freedom and future opportunity.

So, how do we as individuals or communities address these harms? Harm reduction is a compassionate approach that respects the autonomy of individuals choosing to consume drugs, while aiming to mitigate the negative social and health effects of those drugs. Those practicing harm reduction approaches will often state they “neither condemn nor condone” drug use, and intend to meet people wherever their personal choices have landed them. If you’ve heard of needle exchanges, safe injection sites, or naloxone, you’ve heard of harm reduction.

In the context of psychedelics, most harm reduction takes the form of safe spaces at festivals or people to talk to (in person or on the phone) during difficult trips. Given the risks of arrest and the consequences of obtaining a criminal record if you choose to use psychedelics, we’ve put together some harm reduction tips that go a little further than comfy beanbags and a kind, non-judgmental ear:

1. Minimize the number of people who know about your current or future planned psychedelic use. Every single person you talk to might accidentally or intentionally let slip to others that you’re into that sort of thing. Even if this doesn’t lead to the police darkening your doorstep, due to the stigma still associated with psychedelics (despite what the hype merchants would have you believe), it’s something you might not want widely known, especially depending on where you live.

2. Only trip with those you trust and have an agreement between you all on how to handle difficult experiences, should they arise. Any bad trips will pass, and there’s no reason to involve police — though definitely call a psychedelic crisis line, or medic if you’re in genuine medical need! Some of the unfortunate people we’ve discussed were incriminated when people tripping with them thought they’d been poisoned and called the cops. In that case, not only are the police on their way to your house, but they’ve got proof of “intent to supply,” which typically carries a higher penalty.

3. If growing, source as much as you can without a paper trail. Have you ever noticed that if you start buying a few innocuous mushroom-growing supplies on Amazon, your suggestions are suddenly populated with everything else you might need? If Amazon’s algorithm knows, law enforcement agencies can also use a series of purchase histories to narrow down their search to potential magic mushroom growers.

4. If foraging, don’t carry your whole stash with you as you go. A backpack full of magic mushrooms is a cop’s ticket to bust you, so minimize this window of time as much as you can. Stash your picks around your foraging spot until you’re ready to leave, then grab them all and get out of the area.

5. Avoid intent to distribute charges if you can. If the cops ask, scales are for precise dosing, not weighing out baggies. Your large stash is from an unexpected bounty, and you’re planning on consuming it all by yourself for years. No officer, I’ve never shared these mushrooms with anyone…

Depending on your personal situation, not all of these tips may be feasible, but consider as many as you can to minimize the risk of becoming another arrest statistic.

Join us this Sunday for a workshop with entheogenic death companion and trauma-informed ceremonialist Ellen Wong, where we’ll explore how breathwork can be a powerful tool for accessing non-ordinary states and how to skillfully hold space for others as they journey through psychedelics. Learn more.

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