from Tuesday, Dec 14 The Guardian:

Trip over?

Magic mushrooms have never been more popular. More than 400 apparently legal ‘shroom’ shops have sprung up in the past two years, and growing kits have become a must-have Christmas present. So why has the government suddenly turned tough on sellers? Stephen Moss investigates

Tuesday December 14, 2004
The Guardian

Six months ago, when the NME described 2004 as “the third summer of love”, it put the benign mood down to one thing – the return of magic mushrooms. The drug idolised by cult author and psychologist Timothy Leary in the 1960s – he said that his first experience of mushrooms in Mexico in 1960 taught him more than all his years of study – was back. According to the NME, which produced a “top tips for top trips” guide, mushrooms were a safe alternative to ecstasy, and what’s more – they were legal. It was time to “turn on, tune in, drop out” all over again.

Except that nobody told the Home Office and the police, which have now declared war on magic mushrooms. In Gloucester, two local men have been charged with supplying a class A drug by selling them. It promises to be the start of a long and complicated legal battle to determine the status of Britain’s latest drug of choice. Other cases are pending in Birmingham and Canterbury – cases which the Home Office hopes will establish once and for all whether magic mushrooms are innocent, hippy-dippy playthings, or a menace to be stamped on.

The nation’s mushroom sellers are confused. Two years ago, a more easy-going Home Office sent out a letter advising them that “the growing of psilocybe mushrooms” and their “gathering and possession” did not contravene the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. It was not illegal, the letter went on, to sell or give away a growing kit, or to sell or give away a freshly picked mushroom, “provided that it has not been prepared in any way”. Recipients of the letter took it as a green light to sell fresh mushrooms, and there are now an estimated 400 “shroom” shops in the UK.

This distinction – between a fresh mushroom and one that has been “prepared” – is crucial. It is not an offence to possess or consume a mushroom, because it occurs naturally, but a psilocybe mushroom contains the hallucinogen psilocin and its byproduct psilocybin, both of which are deemed to be class A drugs under the 1971 Act. Any “preparation” or any attempt to turn the mushroom into a “product” (the Gloucester case and others like it may hinge on the definition of those words) could constitute the supply of a class A drug. Maximum sentence: life imprisonment.