Medicinal Psilocybin Dispensaries Have Started Popping Up Across Canada

This article was originally published by Truffle Report.

A few days back, I received a direct message from a reader on Instagram asking if there are any laws that protect psilocybin mushroom sellers who’ve been trading openly in Canada. The individual’s question was directly in the context of Dana Larsen’s magic mushroom dispensary in Vancouver which while “illegal, seems to be doing fine,” the Instagrammer mentioned. To recap, Dana Larsen became the first individual in Canada to openly retail microdoses of psilocybin mushrooms for therapeutic purposes in 2019, and has since been growing his venture. If you’re following psychedelics, you’re probably wondering how this works. The simple answer is that there are no laws that allow the trade of magic mushrooms. Psilocybin is a Schedule III substance regulated under Canada’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Under existing laws, anyone found in possession of a Schedule III drug will be “liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years” with a fine of up to a thousand dollars on the first offence and up to two thousand dollars for a subsequent offence. However, activism on drug decriminalization and emerging scientific evidence on the potential benefits of psychedelic substances are raising questions about the validity of this blanket prohibition. While Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary was the first of its type to go online and then open storefront services, there are now more stores in Vancouver following its lead and dealing with magic mushrooms and psilocybin edibles. Canadians in major cities will recall a similar phenomenon of grey-market cannabis dispensaries several years ago. While being illegal, these businesses were tolerated (off and on) and then prosecuted, then finally swept aside in waves of raids and shutdowns in favour of licensed retailers following cannabis legalization. This cycle now seems poised to repeat itself with psilocybin.

Zoomers Dispensary at 1181 Granville Street in Vancouver is a new store opening last month. This is a new category to the dispensary scene in Vancouver with the first mushroom dispensary #vancouver #vancouverdispensary #vancouverdispensaries #dispensarylife Rating: 3/5pic.twitter.com/lYfNApBeW5

— Vancouver Dispensary Review (@604dispensaries) December 28, 2020

“I expect within six months, there’s going to be five or six places in the city [Vancouver], and there’s going to be a dozen or more dispensaries across Canada,” Larsen tells Truffle Report. “And within two years, I expect there to be 100 or more mushroom dispensaries across Canada. I think it’s going to be a faster growth than what we saw with cannabis dispensaries,” he adds.

What is Driving the Expansion of the Psilocybin Grey Market?

Advocacy around psychedelics, and particularly the push toward medicalization of psilocybin mushrooms, has been growing stronger for the last three years. As 2021 marked the fifth year of the opioid overdose emergency in British Columbia, activists were seen distributing samples of clean drugs, including heroin and meth, as a act of protest against the existing drug laws. Larsen was one of them. Meanwhile, British Columbia has also put forward a request asking the federal government for a province-wide exemption from criminal penalties for drug possession while Vancouver stands to become the first city in Canada to decriminalize possession of drugs. A positive response to dispensary products at the ground level has been contributing to the growth of Larsen’s psilocybin sales. “A few months ago after we opened the storefront to expand access, we had such a positive response to the microdosing. Not a single negative reaction or anybody having a problem,” Larsen says. “We decided to start offering stronger dosages, restricted by medical need,” he says, responding to the success of storefront services. Larsen has moved from only selling microdoses of psilocybin to higher doses with dried mushrooms and mushrooms in chocolates. He says that requirements to access the products remain the same. “We will provide microdoses to any adult over the age of 19 who promises to use them responsibly. The stronger products, the whole mushrooms and the mushroom chocolates, require some kind of medical diagnosis,” Larsen says. However, selling larger doses is not without its own concerns, and he adds, “What I worry about is somebody’s not following our guidelines, being irresponsible in some way, and then hurting themselves or hurting someone else and that reflecting poorly on us.” Psilocybin mushrooms are developing a reputation for efficacy in treating substance abuse disorders. A 2017 study published by Global Drug Survey claimed mushrooms to be “one of the safest drugs in the world”. Larsen shared that he has a client base of at least 4,000 individuals at the moment, including some who sought mushrooms for their legally exempted psychedelic-assisted therapy. This has doubled since we last spoke, when he told Truffle Report that he was providing psychedelic medicines to about 2000 Canadians. However, the consumption pattern for psilocybin is different from cannabis use. “There’s less demand for mushrooms and there is for cannabis overall,” Larsen says. Any cannabis user might consume cannabis multiple times a day but even a heavy mushroom user wouldn’t dose more than once or twice a week. “Even that will be considered a lot. I think microdosing of substance will be something that’ll expand the most,” he says. Larsen has also started to deal with other substances that are “actually more legal than the mushrooms”, including microdoses of 1P-LSD. The growing market and demand, however, shows that while the federal government is still debating the decriminalization of substances, Canadians have chosen not to wait. “I also want to see others joining in this movement. I don’t think I’m going to be able to monopolize the mushroom trade in Canada any more than I monopolized the marijuana trade,” Larsen says. The post Canada’s Expanding Psilocybin Grey Market appeared first on Truffle Report. psilocybin mushroom lsd psychedelic microdosing therapy medicinal mushroom psychedelics trading laws decriminalization controlled drugs and substances act legalization

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