What do magic mushrooms look like?

‘Magic mushrooms’ grow wild in the UK and can be easily picked if you know where to find them. If you buy them, they can cost up to £5 for a handful. As you’d expect with something that grows naturally, the strength varies depending on the freshness, the season and where they grow.

• Liberty caps (Psilocybe Semilanceata), are small, tan-coloured mushrooms and look a little like a woolly hat on a thin stalk. They also bruise blue when they’re touched.
• Fly agaric (Amanita Muscaria), are more like the red and white spotted toadstools you’ll see in fairytale books and films. Some of these types of mushroom are poisonous, so if you don’t know what you’re doing, you certainly shouldn’t take them.

The effects of magic mushrooms can take between 30 minutes to two hours to kick in. The strongest part of the ‘trip’ can last for 4-10 hours and the after-effects usually last a further 2-6 hours. The more you take, the longer your trip could last.

How do people take magic mushrooms?

After picking, magic mushrooms are often eaten raw or are dried out and stored. Some people use the dried mushrooms to make tea. Most people take between 1-5 grams. People don’t tend to eat fly agaric mushrooms raw as they can make you feel really sick.

What do magic mushrooms do?

Magic mushrooms can give you a good trip, making you feel confident, relaxed and in good spirits – or they can give you a really scary bad trip. You won’t know what will happen until you take them. The more you take, the longer your trip could last. If you feel that you’re having (or going to have) a bad trip, let your friends know and get their help. Go to a nice quiet spot where you feel safe and can relax.

They can also have other effects:

• Magic mushrooms can distort colours, sounds and objects. They can make you feel as if your senses are mixed up so that, for example, you think you can hear colours and you can see sounds. Some people can feel more emotionally sensitive or more creative or feel enlightened.
• They can also speed up and slow down your sense of time and movement.
• They can make it feel like you’re dreaming when you’re awake.
• Sometimes, magic mushrooms can make you feel disoriented, tired or sick and can give you stomach pains or diarrhoea.

What are the risks of magic mushrooms?

There are many different types of mushroom in the UK and some, like the fly agaric, are so poisonous that they can kill you. That means the biggest danger to your health when taking magic mushrooms is eating a poisonous mushroom by mistake. If you have eaten poisonous mushrooms you’ll soon know it. If this happens to you or a friend it’s really important to get medical help as soon as possible. If you do have to go to hospital, it’s helpful to take an example of the mushroom that’s been eaten, so the doctors can identify it.

Here’s what else magic mushrooms could do to you:

• They could give you a bad trip. These are seriously frightening and unsettling. And you can’t tell whether you’re going to have a bad trip or a good trip until it’s too late.
• You can get flashbacks some time after taking magic mushrooms.
• Your perception of your body and the world around you can be distorted, which means you may be at risk because you’re not in complete control of what you’re doing.
• If you have any mental health issues, magic mushrooms can make them worse.

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Can you get addicted to ’magic mushrooms’?

Magic mushrooms are not addictive, but like with LSD you can become tolerant of the effects quite quickly – and that means you’ll need to take more to get the same effect as before.

‘Magic mushrooms’ and the law

• 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.

What if you’re caught?

• If the Police catch you with magic mushrooms, they’ll always take some action. This could include a formal caution, arrest and prosecution.
• A conviction for a drug-related offence could have a serious impact. It can stop you visiting certain countries – for example the United States – and limit the types of jobs you can apply for.

Did you know?

• Like drinking and driving, driving when high is illegal – and you can still be unfit to drive the day after using magic mushrooms. You can get a heavy fine, be disqualified from driving or even go to prison.
• Allowing other people to supply drugs in your house or any other premises is illegal. If the police catch people supplying illegal drugs in a club they can potentially prosecute the landlord, club owner or any person concerned in the management of the premises.