Which came first, the mushroom or the spore?

July 1, 2008 1:58 PM

How do psychoactive mushroom spore vendors not get in trouble?

So there are internet vendors that sell magic mushroom spores "for microscopy purposes only" (wink wink). I know that the spores themselves contain no active chemicals and are legal in most states.

I know of a particular vendor is located in my state where the shrooms don't grow in the wild. So I'm assuming they are growing the mushrooms, and I'm wondering how they get around the legality of that. I mean isn't it pretty obvious to Johnny Law what they must be doing?

posted by samph to home & garden (12 answers total)

Spore sales are not always legal (varies by state) and people do get busted. "Fanaticus" was one such high profile bust (see notes here.)
posted by chairface at 2:09 PM on July 1, 2008

I had read about Fanaticus, I guess what I'm really asking is there ever a circumstance (in the US) in which it is legal to grow the mushrooms, like a regulated spore vendor or something.
posted by samph at 2:15 PM on July 1, 2008

A spore vendor could stay legally above board by importing spores from another country, thus being able to acquire and sell them without ever actually producing an illegal mushroom.
posted by justkevin at 2:36 PM on July 1, 2008

I confess to knowing nothing about mushrooms, but I suspect it's a lot like the prostitution and "I've got some sticky green" posts that you see on Craigslist: the police probably don't spend too much time trolling the web for these things, so they go unnoticed most of the time.
posted by fogster at 2:44 PM on July 1, 2008

Mushroom spores do not contain any illegal chemicals. Thus, according to the letter of the law, they are legal to own and sell, which as justkevin points out, can be done legally through importation.

Contrast this with hemp (cannabis), which has had numerous legal action, because hemp does contain small amounts of THC.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:52 PM on July 1, 2008

I have it on good authority (actually more than one person) that the DEA and other drug warriors operate these sort of businesses in order to find suspects. That does not mean they operate all of them, but there is a lot of potential for a sting operation there.
posted by TedW at 3:19 PM on July 1, 2008

TedW, I find that hard to believe, that would be a good case for entrapment. Not that I doubt you, but I've heard a lot of embellished stories coming from LEO.

The major reason such operators continue to exist has to do with legal loopholes in the selling of spores and low usage rate of mushrooms. Let us face it, mushrooms and are used at a far, far lower rate than cannabis, cocaine and opiates. The profits are low and generally doesn't attract organized crime. The same resources needed to put away someone selling shrooms or growing some in the back of their closet can easily net more high profile cases. Hey even law enforcement must bow to limited resources and the laws of economics.
posted by geoff. at 6:05 PM on July 1, 2008

...that would be a good case for entrapment...

One of the unfortunate results of the war on drugs (and many other law enforcement initiatives) is that entrapment/stings become SOP. It can take a good lawyer to use the entrapment defense; the typical person snared in sch a scheme is a small-time drug user who can't afford decent legal help and so the prosecutor and drug agency can claim another victory without making a dent in the real problem.
posted by TedW at 7:12 PM on July 1, 2008

I've heard a lot of embellished stories coming from LEO.

This is true; it is even more true if said stories will make the news media.
posted by TedW at 7:15 PM on July 1, 2008

It is legal to collect spores from wild mushrooms: to bust a producer the government would be under the usual legal burden to demonstrate that they were actually illegally cultivating mushrooms: the mere fact of their possessing and selling spores would probably not measure up.

I don't know if you read the actual PF statement, but according to him, in order to get the bust the DEA had years of surveillance, the DEA itself ordered a syringe and followed the provided instructions to successfully grow mushrooms, there were a number of people who apparently got busted with mushrooms and "ratted" on PF, they found growing and dried mushrooms in his house... and for this slam dunk case they plea-bargained a no jail-time deal for him and his wife and two family co-defendants got dropped from prosecution entirely. You can bet if they thought they could really make a charge that he'd grown all the mushrooms for those spores he sold or had facilitated the massive production of mushrooms by others they would have tried to get a judge to throw away the key.

I get the feeling the suppliers are basically just flying under the radar, and/or keeping it ambiguous enough to prevent a case being made.

I don't know about legal cultivation for the purpose of producing spore samples: I do know it is (or at least was) possible to get a legal license to grow for research purposes, as mushroom guru Paul Stamets states in his book Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms that he conducted research and cultivation of psilocybe mushrooms under the provisions of a DEA license.
posted by nanojath at 11:13 PM on July 1, 2008

i live in MN and we used to sell "mushroom kits" at the bookstore where i worked. people were often astonished that it was legal. here was our short answer to any and all: psychoactive mushrooms are indigenous to the US, and thus cannot be a controlled substance in spore form. growing them purposefully--i.e. using the kits for their designed purpose-- is a crime and punishable under the law.

but it's true that the main reason it's not been criminalized is that the consumer rate is so small. hell, most people buy the spores and either aren't successful at growing, or don't have the patience to do it.
posted by RedEmma at 10:26 AM on July 2, 2008

Just since there hasn't been a full answer yet, I'll relight the flame on this one. As many other people have said, there is no psilocybin in the spores, and it is only the chemicals that are outlawed. Obviously, they have a cover, which in most cases is that hobbyists enjoying looking at them under microscopes. Judging by the sheer number of online spore shops, it's a pretty big hobby that nobody I know seems to take part in. As for the grow bags and other commercial products such as the "Let's Grow Mushrooms!" series, their makers specifically market them for legal mushrooms such as oyster or shitake. They can't actually outlaw these bags since the only reason they would do so is to stop people from "misusing" them.

That's like saying you're going to outlaw knives, things that have known, acceptable uses, because they can be used for murder. It's very difficult to make a case for it, and as others have said, mushrooms have no ties to organized crime and have no potential for physical addiction or overdosing, so there is not much point to invest in stopping these little guy when you can bust people who manufacture meth, a considerably more dangerous drug that does a great deal more harm than mushrooms ever really could.
posted by RKaushik at 8:59 AM on October 14, 2008