Amid Canada’s cannabis-fuelled legalization revolution, mushroom stores with names like Fun Guyz and Shroomyz are popping up across the country. They’re selling illegal psilocybin — also known as magic mushrooms — on their own or in edibles such as gummies and chocolate. They’re banking on the public’s indifference to a drug that’s still federally illegal while police focus their attention on more dangerous narcotics, such as poisoned opioids. Source magicmushroomsdispensary.ca

It’s not hard to find one of these stores: In downtown Vancouver, a rainbow fungus decorates the exterior of a store called House of Mushrooms; in Toronto’s bustling core, a shop with a painted mural of red, blue and purple mushrooms calls out to passersby with the slogan “walk into a new reality.” But while Health Canada has allowed select medical patients to possess small amounts of psilocybin for therapy, the substance remains completely illegal to sell.

Legal Status of Magic Mushrooms: Where Are They Legal

Store owners argue that as long as the spores are isolated and sold separately, they’re not breaking the law. Once a spore germinates and forms a mycelium, however, it becomes a controlled substance because our bodies metabolize it into psilocybin — the hallucinogenic compound that causes people to see, hear or feel things that aren’t there. This distinction is being argued as the legal basis for the mushroom stores’ continued operation, even in the face of raids. It’s a strategy that echoes the approach taken by Canada’s pot shops in the run-up to cannabis legalization.