A growing number of online sellers of magic mushrooms have begun popping up in the United States and Canada in anticipation of drug law reform, echoing an early green rush. With so many posts on Instagram and TikTok — and some influencers even paying, issuing press releases, and hiring PR firms to get coverage in the media — drug advocates wonder how these pioneers will pave the way for a future psychedelic market and whether the authorities will care enough. to close it.
Some of the most brazen illegal clan dispensaries in the US and Canada may have had their storefronts raided by authorities in recent months, but the long arm of the law may struggle to reach the seemingly growing number of digital-only outlets. Especially since the drug has been decriminalized.
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The police must be determined to go after them, as it will be much more difficult than closing down storefront dispensaries, says attorney and entrepreneur John Dennis of Sagebrush Law. “It will be interesting to see how motivated the heroes of the drug war are. In decriminalized jurisdictions, conditions are created that help people do things somewhat boldly. [Customers] are able to get away with it, at least for a while.”
When culture changes, laws tend to shift eventually as governing bodies seek to avoid embarrassment and tax collection. So with a psychedelic mushroom church in Oakland selling mushrooms relatively cheap to tens of thousands of members that reopened last year (and recently announced they’d expand to San Francisco), plus a psilocybin cup to rank the city’s best strains, it seems like a logical next step for the brands to come online. And help with ordering service.
Bliss Mushrooms does exactly that, offering psilocybin mushroom chocolate bars which testimonials on the website say contain 3,500 mg of psilocybin mushroom. “We’ve been in the psychedelic industry for 20 years,” the company told DoubleBlind in an email. “We have the biggest voice in the underserved community. Bliss is the only psychedelic company bringing help directly to downtown Auckland, and we’re not going anywhere.” The company issued a press release earlier this year, describing itself as a “luxury dope company” that “offers extremely high-quality psilocybin products that are vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO, and fair trade.”
Another California company, Psilouette, has also stepped out of the shadows, with an online store offering a range of luxury products. “Technically nothing we’re doing is legal,” founder Derek Chase, who also runs a CBD company, told Leafly. “We know very well that this goes against what the DEA categorizes as legal… [but] from a constitutional perspective, drug scheduling is completely illegal.”
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He continued, “It’s not something that we think in the long run can penalize us for, but they can try and they can work.” “But we think the company’s mission keeps us in a less precarious state because many marketers out there are doing the same thing but in a less responsible way.”
This wave of brands speaking out about their products—seen largely in decriminalized jurisdictions—is relatively new in the U.S. For decades, of course, classic psychedelics have been available in the tunnels. However, in the past five years, there has been an exponential increase in the number of secret brands going professional by creating brand identities and seeking to differentiate themselves from other products through new delivery systems (such as a lozenge or electronic pen as opposed to a whole psilocybin mushroom). .) or unique formulations (such as infused mushrooms or other functional herbs). During this time, there have been at least a few dozen online stores and brands gaining traction in Canada, seemingly getting away with it, but not many gray market brands have gone public in the US — yet.
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“Just as when cannabis was converging with the mainstream, cannabis fans, and growers attempted to navigate a system of laws that was very complex, evolving, and soon to become obsolete,” says Ariel Clark, an attorney who worked with early cannabis companies. “We see a similar struggle here with therapists, therapists, physicians, treatment centers, churches, and other stakeholders in the drug ecosystem trying to navigate an evolving legal landscape and analyze their own risk tolerances in the process.”