Mushrooms!

[Toddy]

I know this may be slightly off-topic, so please delete this, BCUK mods, if you think I am being inappropriate.

People may not be aware that a certain variety of mushroom, such as one might consume at Glastonbury, or a Hawkwind gig, have become a category A drug to possess.

Prior to the change in the law these were legal to possess and consume so long as they hadn't been 'treated' in any way, such as drying or made into some item of food.

Simple possession of 'magic mushrooms' in their natural state, that is harvested but untreated, is now a criminal offence on the same level as heroin or crack cocaine.

If it helps someone not get busted I think it's worth knowing.

Danzo

Thanks for the info Danzo; I neither collect or consume *but* the little things are indigenous around here, the golf course and our gardens all sprout them. What's the law about this type of situation. It's not like cannabis which is a a big plant, it's a tiny wee thing growing in the grass.....they even pop up on the school playing fields.

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[Danzo]

If they are growing wild then they are just that; wild. But if you pick the 'shrooms and put them in your pocket then they become a category A drug.



Danzo

 

[Tony]

Cheers mate, always good to have the legal aspects pointed out

 

[Danzo]

Cheers mate, always good to have the legal aspects pointed out

Thanks Tone. I thought it worth mentioning as they were quite legal to possess and consume in their untreated state up until just before the election and now could get someone a lengthy prison sentence and a serious criminal record.

The police down Glastonbury way have already said that they will not be overlooking possession of magic mushrooms at the festival and people can expect to be arrested and charged with possession. Which would quite ruin your weekend.........



Danzo

 

[Wayland]

So I guess people will just have to graze magic mushrooms like cattle to avoid "possessing" them. That should be amusing to watch..

Just a small point though, I wouldn't know one from any other small toadstool without a guide book, I wonder if your average policeman would either. It would be anoying to get arrested just because they thought your collection of mushrooms "might" contain magic ones.

 

[Ed]

Just a small point though, I wouldn't know one from any other small toadstool without a guide book, I wonder if your average policeman would either.

I suppose it depends on where they are from.... I can assure you every copper in the south wales valleys knows what they look like...... it goes with the job around here!!!

Ed

 

[Moonraker]

People may not be aware that a certain variety of mushroom, such as one might consume at Glastonbury, or a Hawkwind gig, have become a category A drug to possess.

Prior to the change in the law these were legal to possess and consume so long as they hadn't been 'treated' in any way, such as drying or made into some item of food.

Simple possession of 'magic mushrooms' in their natural state, that is harvested but untreated, is now a criminal offence on the same level as heroin or crack cocaine.

If it helps someone not get busted I think it's worth knowing.

Danzo

Actually I believe there are some 12 species of fungi found growing wild in the which contain the chemical psilocin which is controlled as Class A drug

The one most often referred to as magic mushroom is the 'Liberty Cap' (Psilocybe semilanceata). In order to avoid confusion (and there should be no confusion when picking mushrooms!) the link provides very good photos and description of this one species.

If you want to know more about this then check out the UK governments Magic Mushroom FAQ.

For those concerned about genuine mistakes when picking mushrooms then it is not an offence as it relates to Section 28 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 provided "a person can prove his lack of knowledge" (taken from the official site linked above).

Danzo, has Section 21 of the Drugs Act 2005 come into effect since May? I think it was still waiting for the final drafting of the regulation which needed to clarify some situations like if they grow in your garden. Whenever it was/ is it is still important to be aware of such things.

Personally I think it is fairly absurd to legislate against the simple possession or use of a naturally occurring plant given that it is only one of thousands that also occur naturally in Britain which has the 'potential' for 'abuse'. A notable example would be the 'well known fairytale toadstool or 'Fly Agaric' (Amanita muscari) (and historically used extensively by the Sami shamans, and indeed in shamanistic ritual throughout Europe) which does not contain psilocybin or psilocin (and thus not covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971)but a potentially far more powerful hallucinogen, muscimol and ibotenic acid, which I could quite legally pick, dry, stew, roast and pass around and the WI market; especially given that the average content of most British gardens has enough mind bending potential, let alone lethal potential, to put the humble Liberty Cap to shame I do however see the need to regulate the supply and sale of such potentially poisonous plants.

 

[Jjv110]

Every year, on the news in Italy, they tell a story of entire families that have sat around the dinner table and have all died as a result of eating the wrong mushrooms. Every year.

I know everyone knows the dangers, I just thought I would mention it.

Julian.

 

[Tantalus]

Thanks Moonraker for that excellent link to the drugs.gov.uk site

what a load of twaddle it is too

no not a comment on your link more a comment on the nanny state in action

I think this could be a first , where ignorance can be used as a defence under the law

Won’t this criminalise those who pick magic mushrooms in the wild without knowing that they are magic mushrooms?

No. It is not an offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act by virtue of section 28 if a person can prove his lack of knowledge.

Tant

 

[Snufkin]

So, if you were caught with a class A mushroom all you have to say is it looked interesting and you were taking it home to look it up in your book? It has been said before, but the law is an bottom

 

[Danzo]

So, if you were caught with a class A mushroom all you have to say is it looked interesting and you were taking it home to look it up in your book? It has been said before, but the law is an bottom

I think that is spot on. Both about the mushrooms and the law..........



I suppose circumstances are going to be a factor in how a police officer deals with this. If you were stopped tramping over the hedgrows, Tilley hat at a jaunty hangle, Swanndri flapping in the breeze with a handcarved walking stick in one hand and a field guide to mushrooms in the other you are probably going to get away with some in your pocket.

If you are stopped whilst waiting to get into an Ozric Tentacles gig then make sure you are also carrying a toothbrush and a change of underwear!



Danzo

 

[Snufkin]

I think that is spot on. Both about the mushrooms and the law..........



I suppose circumstances are going to be a factor in how a police officer deals with this. If you were stopped tramping over the hedgrows, Tilley hat at a jaunty hangle, Swanndri flapping in the breeze with a handcarved walking stick in one hand and a field guide to mushrooms in the other you are probably going to get away with some in your pocket.

If you are stopped whilst waiting to get into an Ozric Tentacles gig then make sure you are also carrying a toothbrush and a change of underwear!



Danzo

Sorry Danzo, you have a field guide to mushrooms so you knew exactly what you were picking....You're nicked sunshine

 

[JimH]

I suppose it depends on where they are from.... I can assure you every copper in the south wales valleys knows what they look like...... it goes with the job around here!!!

Ed

Same goes for most of the Dark Peak (at least around "Madchester", Huddersfield, Sheffield)

Not thaty I know owt about them. Oh no

Jim.

 

[JimH]

People may not be aware that a certain variety of mushroom, such as one might consume at Glastonbury, or a Hawkwind gig, have become a category A drug to possess.
...
Simple possession of 'magic mushrooms' in their natural state, that is harvested but untreated, is now a criminal offence on the same level as heroin or crack cocaine.

If it helps someone not get busted I think it's worth knowing.

Danzo

Well, frankly, it's been years (last Hawkwind gig I went to in '95, IIRC[1])

But thanks for the info. I should watch the news more...

Jim.

[1] Christ! I'm OLD!!

 

[Ajali]

http://www.erowid.org/

This is an amazing site. The 'Law' section might be a little out of date or not applicable to this particular country, but the rest of the information is very good. It even gives you the biochemcial reasons as to why Psylocybin affects peopel the way it does.
The precise link to the section on magic mushrooms is this:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/mushrooms.shtml


Also, i too have heard that Stinkhorn eggs are edible, also that the stem can be extracted from the grown speciman and eaten. The mushroom is rumoured to be an aphrodisiac - although i have a strong suspicion that that is a leftover myth from the time where 'oh, that leaf looks like the lungs, therefore it must be good for the lungs....!'
I found one in the forest but my dog decided to scratch around it and uproted t, so i brought it home and put it in a pot in my bathroom becuase i'm currently growing lots of strange wonderful things in there such as pomegranite, custard apples, melons, papaya, grenadillo, tamarillo, pihaya, pitahaya......lots!
Well, anyway, the next day it hatched. i have heard that they can grow to full height in under half an hour but this took nearly 2 hours...it was so weird! Looked almost primeval or from an alien planet, the way it slowly rose from the egg!
The smell didn't start until the spore mass started to properly react with the air around and degenerate into a smelly goo - about two hours after it started hatching.
Although according to this guy (link below) it's the jelly the fungus is contained in before it hatches that it reacts with, but that wouldn't make much sense as it was quite far away from the jelly mass by the time it started to stink. Unless it's something in the jelly that stops it from maturing enough to smell and gooify (yay, made up a word!) and upon removal of presense of jelly it's no longer inhibited?

Hmm, my younger sister freaked out at the smell, wasn't overly impressed with it's appearance (prude!) and catagorically demanded that i dispose of it outside FAR away immediatly! She hadn't used that tone with me since i hatched over 200 baby spiders in the same attic bathroom! They have a 'hive mind' at that age, and they made a collective web from my pomegranite seedlings where i'd hatched them to the towel rail to the light switch to the door handle....funnily enough she now no longer ventures into thaty bathroom which we used to share and uses the one downstairs with the rest of the family.....some people, have absolutly no appreciation for the wonders of this world!

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~gbarron/MISCE2002/feb2002.htm

http://www.erowid.org/plants/mushrooms/mushrooms_faq.shtml#4
i have copied and pasted the bit i found most fascinating. The pictures refused to copy here.


CHEMISTRY
The primary active ingredients of Psilocybe mushrooms are psilocybin and psilocin, and to a lesser extent baeocystin and norbaeocystin. The ratio of psilocybin to psilocin varies from species to species...........
.................Psilocybin and psilocin are part of the tryptamine family (indole C8H7N & ethylamine side chain). Psilocybin is soluable in 20 parts water, while psilocin is only slightly soluable in water.8 They bear close resemblance to the neurotransmitter serotonin. How these substances work is still quite obscure. Primary effect seems to be the inhibition of neurotransmitter serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine aka 5-HT), i.e. a 5-HT2A post-synaptic agonist that mimics the effects to 5-HT to put it in jargon. This is the working hypothesis for LSD-25 at the moment and it's probably true for psilocybin as well. These substances also present some cross-tolerance.

Ajali
XOX

 

[Ed]

OK guys and girls... I think that is enough chat on magic mushrooms.

The infomation has been well presented above and from a legal and toxicity point of view it is something that we should all we aware of, I thank those for posting the info, but as the mushroom in question has little use in bushcraft I ask if we can please get back on topic about edible mushrooms (this is a food forums after all ) before it degenerates further into more chat about hawkwind gigs and the 1970's

Thanks for your time and enjoy the forums

Ed

 

[Ajali]

http://www.naturallist.com/fungied6.htm

Correct me if i'm wrong but the 'Chanterelles' near the bottom fo htis page look distinctly like false chanterelles - i know i'm still a novice but these 'feel' wrong - the gills look like proper gills rather than ribbed projections and it looks like they're growing under pine - both charecteristics of false chanterelle, yes?
I just wanted to verify with others who lielly know more on this subject than i do, but last year the only wild mushroom my family ate that i brought back was chanterelle because i found four patches of beautiful specimens.
I'm i'm wrong about this page please tell me, if i'm wrote we should surely tell them - i know false chanterelle isn't strictly poinonous but..with wild food....you could die of a misprint.


Also, i found what i think was Oyster mushroom of a sort - a little bit bug eaten, but near a river on a fallen beech log (i'm nearly certain) and they all connected to the one vestigial stem, white/creamy colour, looks like the general shape of the Oyster but my book is vague about colouring and exceptions. Gilled rather than porous and a very mushroomy, savoury smell. Surface is not shiny or slimy, no milk exuded, no discolouration that i can discern so far with bruising etc, soft flesh. The entire mass is about a foot long. Any help would be appreciated!

Ajali
XOX

 

[Tantalus]

tricky one about the chanterelles, like all fungi they vary so much depending on age and growing conditions. chanterelle do grow well under pines

the deciding factor is supposed to be a smell of apricots but i have never smelled this although i have picked and eaten chanterelles often

oyster mushrooms are also a little tricky as they can vary in colour from almost white , thru beige to darker gray.

My best advice is to get hold of a buddy who knows their way around fungi and ither take a few over or persuade them to com on a walk with you to look at both these and any others that you may find

sorry its not more helpful but books , while invaluable are not always perfect

another technique that may help is taking spore prints and examining spores under a microscope, all a bit tricky at home but there are still kids microscope sets available , you could pick one up cheapish on ebay i guess

spores and spore prints are a much more definitive (if a lot more complicated) way of ID ing fungi

Tant

 

[Moonraker]

http://www.naturallist.com/fungied6.htm

Also, i found what i think was Oyster mushroom of a sort - a little bit bug eaten, but near a river on a fallen beech log (i'm nearly certain) and they all connected to the one vestigial stem, white/creamy colour, looks like the general shape of the Oyster but my book is vague about colouring and exceptions. Gilled rather than porous and a very mushroomy, savoury smell. Surface is not shiny or slimy, no milk exuded, no discolouration that i can discern so far with bruising etc, soft flesh. The entire mass is about a foot long. Any help would be appreciated!

Ajali
XOX

If you have some close up photos then it would help.

Oysters are pretty distinctive and growing on beech is a very strong indicator. As Tant says they do vary in colour and change colour as they age. Check out my post on Oyster Mushrooms for photos and also links for further ident. Compare the oyster mushrooms I posted in this later post. See how they are a lighter, creamy colour compared to the other one, which was older and darker brown in colour.

If the specimens are old then leave them to spore and note the tree for a return visit I have harvested three times from the same beech tree this year aready.

 

[Ajali]

Thanx (especially for the pictures!) Mine look much like the paler ones you hsowed me -same colour. I have a spore print in the process so it should be violet(ish?). I know what you mean, Tantalus, about having a friend who can tell you - i have five books - FIVE books woth pictures of Oyster mushrooms and all of them are lacking some important information about identification - some dont tell me what the spore print is, some dont tell me what they smell like etc - and only ONE tells me that there is a slightly dangerous lookalike or relative that has strong antibiotic chemicals in it which harms the intestines, and that doesn't give me any information on the spores or the smell of the dangerous one! Typical! It's a sketch but my mushroom doesn't really resemble it enough, but yes, i will call a friend of mine - he's a GP and a friend of my parents and he's been in the business long enough to know exactly what he's doing. Anyone recomend anybooks that i could invest in? These ones are good in varying degrees and tend to cover what each other lack, but it would be easier having all the information compiled - they are 'The Mushroom Book' from DK, Collins identification guide to Edible fungi, Wild Food by Roger Phillips, Food for Free and 'A Passion for Mushrooms' by an Italian chef. I also have Bushcraft by Ray Mears somewhere.

"I also take a couple of older ones and rub then into cracks of other beech around hoping to spread these delicious treats" Hehe - i do that too! That's good to hear!

I know in Scotland, Chanterelles are often found with pine, but i had forgotten about that when i posted this - around here they're only really found with deciduous trees. I would be wary of them if i did find them with pine because of the Jack O'Lantern and the False Chanterelles. Does anyone know if the Jack O'Lantern really DOES glow in the dark or whether that's just some wonderful myth that the people writing the identification guides are perpetuating for their entertainment at the thought of hundreds of people picking them and sitting in a dark room for hours in attempts to see it too?

What good mushrooms are other people starting to find about now? No chanterelles as of yet, i didn't find any St George's, i did find a yellow/orange waxcap i think, but my dad binned it before i had a chance to identify it - he loves throwign things out and unless i've shown him what i've brought in and specifically commanded that i will throw a temper tantrum if he comes anywhere near it, he considers it fair game. Actually, i think he sometimes throws them out regardless just to spite me!
I did find a scary amount of Jew's Ears but havent plucked up the courage to eat them yet, as i'm not sure how they are best to be cooked - i did read that if you try to fry them whole they are liable to explode like popcorn!

And information in books on Milk-caps are rather sketchy too, although i definatly found one and it's a toss up between the Pickle milk Cap and the Slimy milk cap. It would have been definatly a Pickle but the stem had a hollow section in the middle, it would have been definatly a Slimy but the cap wasn't slimy.... although when it had nearly dried out its sweet mushroomy scent was replaced by a kinda gross heavy mushroom smell and when i picked it up with wet hands it became slightly slimy...gar it's so confusing! My friends, mature as they are, found the idea of a mushroom that leaked white fluid when touched to be vastly amusing....teenagers, what can you say? *rolls eyes*

......

going to stop writing now before i get too carried away
Looking forward to replies!

Ajali
XOX