A hemp dispensary in Florida has started selling “magic” mushrooms that are technically legal.Chillum sells mushrooms containing Amanita muscaria, rather than the outlawed psilocybin.Advertisement
A hemp dispensary in Florida has started selling psychedelic mushrooms as it pushes legal boundaries.
Chillum, founded in Tampa in 2018 by Carlos Hermida, introduced “magic” mushrooms to his dispensary last month. But Hermida has taken another route to bypassing strict laws, based on a curious legal precedent he hopes will catch on.
Hermida tends to refer to his mushrooms without calling them “magic” – a term typically associated with psilocybin, the psychedelic substance in traditional “magic” mushrooms.
Psilocybin is illegal in the US and classed as a Schedule 1 drug by the Department of Justice, alongside heroin and LSD, which it says have “a high potential for abuse and serve no legitimate medical purpose in the United States.”
Instead, Hermida says he has found something of a loophole by selling Amanita muscaria mushrooms that don’t contain psilocybin, making them legal by federal law. The distinctive red and white mushroom is legal in every state except for Louisiana, per Third Wave.
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Hermida argued that drugs are only banned “when they become a problem,” suggesting Amanita muscaria’s lack of uptake