The Recent History of Magic Mushrooms

The magic mushrooms "tipped" on each side of the Atlantic in the 1970s, having arrived in the aftermath of LSD. Psychedelic meant that for the first time in Western history the effects of magic mushrooms - the colours and hallucinations, the bodily perturbations, the emotional excitation - had become fascinating.

Consequently, as the news spread out in waves, mushrooms extraordinarily quickly went from avoided poison, to academic curiosity, to popular bohemian drug choice. Psilocybin consciousness had actually arrived, it's flames fanned on by folklore information from intrepid experimenters who had returned from the Mexican mushroom pilgrimage and discovered hallucinogenic species at home, as well as media attention that this new found habit had awakened. But typically, continued academic interest in the matter of mushrooms ensured that the latest info concerning taxonomy, identification, pharmacology and dosage filtered down into, and circulated freely inside, favored culture.

The earliest record of illicit magic mushrooms use in Northern America is from Canada in 1965. A handful of college students were held in Vancouver and found to be in possession of liberty Caps. The records don't let us know who they were, how they made their fortuitous discovery, or whether they had the opportunity to sample the mushrooms, but in all possibility one or all the students had made the pilgrimage to Mexico and discovered the properties of liberty Caps on their return.

From these early ripples, the first correct waves of psilocybin consciousness began washing up in the beach State of Florida. In 1972, scholars discovered that Psilocybe cubensis grows abundantly there in the summertime months, as it does across the Gulf States. Anecdotal reports at the time suggested that fraternity parties were being livened up with mushroom omelettes and tea, with maybe loads of people tripping at a time. Two years after, the utilization of cubensis was being reported from Mississippi, which was being promoted as the "mushroom capital of the States". It was another area, though, that could have more legitimately laid claim to this title, for the Pacific Northwest proved to be completely replete with psilocybin-containing species.

Word spread, and popularity grew. 1975 was superb for liberty Caps, so much so that collectors gathered sufficient numbers to market them. They were discovered to be on sale in Eugene for the preposterous cost of $75 to $100 a pound wet weight. Local farmers, like their fellows everywhere, were sometimes antagonistic to this seasonal inundation of mushroom hunters in their fields, and some complained vociferously to the press. Sensing a marketing opportunity , however , others started charging for access, with prices from $1 - $25 for a day's picking. One enterprising farmer issued pickers with official blue buckets to show they had registered.
of many psilocybin-containing mushrooms discovered in the Pacific Northwest, the next most important species after the liberty Cap was the newly identified Psilocybe stuntzii. It was found growing in the landscaped gardens of the campus of the college of Washington, on imported bark mulch.

Almost immediately afterwards a mushroom craze spread through the university and on to other colleges ( such as Evergreen State university in Olympia ). The mushroom bought the name Washington Blue Veil.

A combination of personal recommendation, academic dissemination and press shock stories meant that the magic mushrooms ultimately tipped in America in 1976.

And while the growing use of wood chips in garden landscaping made a contribution to the natural spread of psylocybin mushrooms through suburbia, members of the expanding underground did what they could to help the process with 'guerrilla inoculations'. Spawning blocks - wood chips imbued with mycelium - changed hands and were freely shared, most significantly at grateful Dead gigs - and afterward psilocybin mushrooms started appearing in parks, zoos, arboretums and nurseries across the Northwest. It was, Stamets writes, one "continually unfolding, exponential wave of mycelial mass".