Are Magic Mushrooms Legal

[Khadaji]

I just received some spam mail to buy Magic Mushroom spores (no, I have no idea how I got on that list.) I can't believe that selling these are legal. So, my questions are:
A) Is it legal to sell Magic Mushroom Spores
B) If not, where should I report this?

[jaybee]

I remember them being legal in the early 80's. Hard to believe they haven't closed that loophole yet. It was at the time illegal to grow them into edible mushrooms. That's not to say that it was easy, you had to sterilize the growing enviroment and it was easily contaminated.

I would imagine if you ordered some now that the "proper" authorities would find out.

[Violet]

There are web sites about these spores. I don't know if they are illegal. One site claims they are legal in every state except Calif. & Georgia. If something is an illegal drug, you can check with the local police or the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). If it's illegal and sent thru the mails, other agencies like the U.S. Postal Inspection Service can get involved. But if it's a state law, then the locals seem to be the best contact.

[Apache]

Psilocybin is a Schedule I hallucinogenic substance.

In short, No F*K'N way!

[capybara]

Apache, spores are not mushrooms. Sort of like how one might buy bird-hempseed.
A couple of years ago (slighly tangent to the subject and some netherlands resident can correct me on the details) I was in Amsterdam and read about a big legal moment. Some "smart shop" was busted for dealing in mushrooms. To remedy the situation, they had to aquire a greengrocers licence-- fresh vegetables weren't in their permit. . .

[jb_farley]

psilocybin is sceduled, but the spores contain absolutely none of it.

now, not having read all of the scheduling legislation, i can't speak definitively, but this DEA site mentions only psilocybin and psilocyn (and as 'constituents' of magic mushrooms) as being scheduled.

and i know that a friend of mine ordered syringes filled with spores a few years back, got them, did all sorts of illegal stuff with them that i won't go into, and suffered no consequences (please note, this could simply mean that he didn't get caught).

my understanding is that since the spores contain no scheduled substances, they are completely legal to sell. however, cultivating the spores (and therefore producing scheduled substances) is highly illegal.

jb

[Mirage]

Most of the online stores echo what capybara said, as the spores contain no psilocybin, they are perfectly legal. A friend of mine got some syringes just a few months ago so they still must be shipping them.

[jaybee]

Correct capybara, spores contain no psilocybin and thus are not covered under federal law.

State laws can and do differ but it appears from my quick google search that only California outlaws the selling of spores. In Flordia the grow abundantly in nature and the cops will not bust you for having them growing on your property unless you are cultivating them or harvesting a wild crop.

As I stated above, I can't believe that they haven't shut down this loophole yet, guess it isn't a major source of irratation to the feds. Anyway, I still wouldn't want to be on a list of people ordering them thru the mail.

[Apache]

I stand corrected.
I am amazed that this loophole exists.

[Ringo]

They'll get around to the spores eventually. When I worked for UT's Chemistry Department, I remember much hullaballoo conerning who was acquiring the perfectly legal and non-psychoactive precursors for methamphetamine, and one of them, apparently key to the production process - I don't recall what; its jargon name was something like P2P - became one of those things thst you didn't want your name on a list of purchasers thereof.

[Sam Stone]

Hmmn... There was a woman who asked Clinton for a pardon last year who was busted for purchasing an intermediate chemical for methamphetamine manufacture. She bought it for her boyfriend, legally, from a chemical supply house. She was still busted for something like conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine. And since she had a prior juvenile conviction for pot posession, she got 20 years without parole. The scummy boyfriend, as I recall, got something like 5 years.

So while the sale of the spores may be legal, the purchase of them may not be. It seems to me that if you purchase them and the cops kick in your door and discover a nice bed of dirt with the spores in them, you may be busted for manufacturing a controlled substance. I certainly wouldn't take the risk. The jail terms for this kind of stuff are insane.

[Khadaji]

Originally posted by Sam Stone
So while the sale of the spores may be legal, the purchase of them may not be. It seems to me that if you purchase them and the cops kick in your door and discover a nice bed of dirt with the spores in them, you may be busted for manufacturing a controlled substance. I certainly wouldn't take the risk. The jail terms for this kind of stuff are insane.

LOL. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I wanted to buy any. I was surprised that it was legal to spam me offering to sell them. My life is surreal enough without adding that kind of magic.

[Milton De La Warre]

FWIW, even if I were a drug type person, I would not want anything to do with mushrooms.

("Sea Story" follows
My ex used to work with this guy who maintained that one got the best, tastiest culinary type mushrooms only by picking them directly from the wild. She asked the guy if this wasn't dangerous, as there are also many types of toxic mushroms and they are hard to tell from the safe kinds. The guy maintained that 15 or 20 years of his experience made it easy for him to tell the good from the bad. As you can imagine, one day he didn't show up for work and no one answered the telephone at his house. Eventually they sent the cops around to find him and his family all dead from mushroom poisoning.

So... someone gives you a semi-dessicated mushroom and tells you it's OK to eat. They got it from a field somewhere or other. It'll make you feel really weird, but don't worry, you won't die. Probably. Maybe. And you should take the word and trust the "expertise" and objectivity of someone who halluninates for a hobby?

[peasea]

So, how do the companies get the spores in the first place? If you grow mushrooms to produce the spores, you're breaking the law. Do they somehow mass-produce the spores without growing the shrooms? The spore companies I've seen claim not to ship outside the U.S., so presumably, they're inside the States, and are subject to psilocybin laws.