Magic Mushrooms were legal in Ireland[0] for a brief stint, then someone jumped over a balcony and died from the fall after taking them, presumably after experiencing a really bad trip. It could happen again in DC. Someone just gets the set and setting wrong and decides they can't take the mental turmoil and ends their life.
I am unsure if this is the incident that they are referring to, however a teenager died in 2007 after jumping off a bridge while under influence[0]. As per the article, that was the catalyst for getting hallucinogenic mushrooms banned.
Sensible Move - Magic Mushrooms are a truly wonderful very safe natural drug which does not harm others, like violence inducing Alcohol. Some suffer bad trips especially Women, but like a bad dream soon passes, with no harm done. One positive of the damp weather in Wales UK is abundant Magic Mushrooms in the Welsh Valleys in September to October. I took tens of thousands age 17 to 21 then grew out of them, fond memories though. The most I laughed in my entire life was watching Airplane on MM literally rolling on the floor creased up, Steve Martin films like the Jerk were also good on MM. Idiotic UK government made them an illegal Class I drug.
TIL style subject. Read how somebody wanted to throw people out of America for mushroom use, and became curious where it was legal. Surprisingly, Washington, DC has nearly legal magic mushrooms (and mescaline). Since 2020.
Technically "entheogenic plant and fungus" means any plant or fungus of any species in which there is naturally occurring any of: ibogaine, dimethyltryptamine, mescaline, psilocybin, or psilocyn.
> The Metropolitan Police Department shall make the investigation and arrest of persons 18 years of age or older for non-commercial planting, cultivating, purchasing, transporting, distributing, engaging in practices with, and/or possessing entheogenic plants and fungi [...] among its lowest enforcement priorities.
> Effective: Mar. 16, 2021 "after a 30-day period of Congressional review"
>Nevertheless, medical intervention was needed for 149 incidents involving mushrooms in 2007, an increase of 19 percent over the previous year. In 2005 there were 70 incidents. Among the high-profile cases was an incident in which a Danish tourist raced his car across a crowded camping. Several tourists jumped or fell from hotel windows.
>In the case that led Ab Klink to propose the ban in October 2007, a 17-year-old French girl committed suicide by jumping from a bridge into busy traffic. It was later revealed that the girl, not old enough to legally enter a smart shop herself, had asked a friend to buy her some mushrooms.
I'm from Amsterdam and every year or so a tourist dies or gets injured from jumping out of a hotel window while under the influence of mushrooms. Probably less than a promille of all users but I would say that the conclusion that support is needed is definitely warranted.
So I have a family member that suffers from depression. At some point at a party we convinced her to drink some mushroom tea. She was amazingly together for 6 months after. Magic mushrooms should be legal.
The deeper insanity is that physically speaking, magic mushrooms are one of the safest known drugs to man. Nobody's dying from magic mushroom overdose, flying into violent rages, dancing until they pass out from dehydration, or robbing stores to pay for their next mushroom fix. Along any metric you'd care to name, psilocybin is a much safer drug than, say, alcohol.
It's worth pointing out that if you're in the UK, for reasons that I'm sure make sense to someone, magic mushrooms are very illegal. Courtesy of the Basement Project [1]:
* The 2005 Drugs Act amended the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to clarify that both fresh and prepared (e.g. dried or stewed) magic mushrooms that contain psilocin or psilocybin (such as the ‘liberty cap’) are Class A drugs. This means it’s illegal to have this type of ‘magic mushrooms’ for yourself, to give away or to sell
* Possession is illegal and can get you up to seven years in jail and/or an unlimited fine.
* Supplying someone else, even your friends, can get you up to life imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.
People legit do die from mushrooms though. We had an incident locally a few months ago involving a restaurant that served a kind of mushroom that needs to be cooked, but didn't cook them (allegedly).
Right, of people who die from mushroom poisoning, they are almost all either immigrants eating things that look like edible mushrooms where they come from, or else children who are randomly eating things they see in their lawn. Cases like this where you have someone who has been foraging for decades and eats something deadly poisonous happen maybe once every ten years, and I suspect it's mostly people with early onset Parkinson's or something that's causing them to act impulsively. This isn't an identification mistake, there's clearly some kind of neurological issue here.
Magic mushrooms were a freely available crop of sorts when I was a student. I went picking them one day with a bunch of friends. This was enlightening.
First of all there is being outside in the countryside with a group of friends, roaming the hillside. If the pressures of assignments are getting to you this is a welcome change of scene. Particularly if there is some 'rave style' party that this expedition is in preparation for.
Next there was the challenge to one's perceptions about finding the things. Initially it looks like a hopeless task. But you find one, then you find another and soon you get to be very good at seeing the things.
From a very small age we get told that wild mushrooms are going to kill you. So how do you know that you are picking the magic ones and not the ones that will be as deadly as getting bitten by a snake?
But, you don't end up picking the wrong ones, they are all good.
Coupled with that is the other things that can get you - creepy crawlies, bugs that you can't see, that sort of stuff. Again, not a problem in reality.
There is obviously proof in the pudding, however, before getting as far as tasting some slimy mushroom brew heavily flavoured with something like Ribena you have accomplished at least three things that you can feel good about - physical exercise, having a laugh with friends and doing something that you thought was beyond you in just collecting the things.
So I think that this legalisation thing should insist on a 'trip' each time, a trip outdoors to do all of the prep. No commercialisation of the product (selling the things to people who don't do the outdoors bit). A great time can be had, and going outdoors to pick some other herbs, e.g. some rosemary or some chives, is never going to be anywhere near as fun.
Keep it recreational and spirits will be lifted. This privately - non sociable, non-recreational - partaking of the active ingredient on one's lonesome just isn't going to hit the mark in quite the same way. Might as well micro-dose alcohol at home alone (half bottle of wine with a meal, every night) if that is the approach. This is alcoholism, which contrasts with alcohol enjoyed out and about in socially engaging experiences.
I fear Denver are well meaning but going to get this wrong.
The risk would be consuming something that is not Psilocybe semilanceata, but poisonous enough to be lethal. Statistically, that wouldn't count as a fatality from it, but from whatever mushroom was consumed instead.
[0] https://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/how-tragedy-led-...
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