A New Look at Hallucinogenic (Psilocybin) Mushrooms

A New Look at Hallucinogenic (Psilocybin) Mushrooms
Q: When is an illegal "recreational" drug more than that?
A: When it is discovered to have extraordinary therapeutic potentials.

BACKGROUND

Cover art from the Allman Brothers Band's album 'Mycology: An Anthology' For more than fifty years, Western research into the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms (Psilocybe spp.) by aboriginal peoples of Mexico and other parts of southern North America and Central America, and publications regarding such investigations, have fed an exponential increase in the cultivation and use of hallucinogenic mushrooms by citizens of the United States and other modernized civilizations.

Ritually used by those native peoples for religious purposes, "shrooms" became tremendously popular within the U.S. "hippie" counterculture during the 1970s, thanks in large part to the publication of several books detailing practical methods for cultivating Psilocybe cubensis, a species which is common on cow and horse dung in the Southeastern states (South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and southeastern Texas).

In 1967, Jefferson Airplane vocalist Grace Slick sang about the purportedly mushroom-induced hallucinations of Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) in the Top Ten song "White Rabbit," apparently warning against the dangers of a Psilocybe-induced "bad trip." Within a few years after the federal government banned psilocybin in 1970, "magic 'shrooms" had become such a significant part of American counterculture that their use was widely perceived as "standard operating procedure" for attending concerts by certain popular touring bands (most notably the Grateful Dead). Rock musicians commonly incorporated mushrooms in the artwork used on their album covers. The 1980 feature film Altered States famously depicted an effort to use psilocybin for reasons (albeit nonsensical ones) well beyond "getting high." As recently as 1998, the Allman Brothers Band released an album titled Mycology, and in case the title wasn't clear enough, the CD cover was. In short, elements of American popular culture—particularly the rock music industry—discovered, glorified and effectively promoted illegal psilocybin mushrooms as state and federal authorities tried in vain to literally arrest their use.

Psilocybin mushroom use in the U.S. today remains so pervasive—and so illegal—that many schools' dress codes prohibit students from wearing garments that depict any mushrooms. (Plants in general are spared this generalized humiliation, presumably because unlike hallucinogenic mushrooms, everyone knows what Cannabis looks like.)

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http://americanmushrooms.com/psilocybin.htm


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