Billed as a pioneering hemp dispensary in Tampa, Chillum Dispensary pivoted final yr from being hemp-based to promoting authorized mushrooms like Lions Mane, Reishi, and, maybe extra intrepidly, Amanita muscaria. The iconic pink and white Amanita fungi (assume Alice and Wonderland and Mario’s Super Mushroom), additionally known as fly agaric, produce robust psychoactive results. In most U.S. states, with Louisiana a notable exception, possession of fly agaric is authorized.
Chillum rapidly caught the eye of psychonauts and researchers, popping up in native and nationwide headlines and calling itself the “first mushroom dispensary within the United States.”
But final month, the shop abruptly introduced that it could not promote the Amanita shrooms.
In a weblog publish in mid-December, Chillum’s founder and proprietor, Carlos Hermida, revealed that the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services had investigated Chillum’s fly agaric merchandise and decided that they contained a “toxic or deleterious substance” in violation of Florida food-safety legislation.
“We have some very unlucky information to share with you all,” Hermida wrote in a December 13 weblog publish. “The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services paid us a bit go to final Wednesday, December 7, and positioned a cease sale on all of our merchandise containing Amanita muscaria mushrooms, [w]hich means we’ll not have the ability to give you the Legal Magic Mushroom merchandise!”
A meals security inspection report obtained by New Times (connected beneath) exhibits that the division issued a stop-sale order on a handful of Chillum’s merchandise that examined constructive for Amanita muscaria, starting from “Microdose Penis Envies Capsules” to “Magic Mushroom Berry Gummies.”
In a press release launched Friday, Hermida mentioned that Chillum mistakenly “sealed their very own destiny” by encouraging clients to devour the merchandise to expertise a micro-dosing impact or psychedelic journey. He claims he possible would have been simply positive if he bought the mushrooms solely for instructional functions.
“This is our fault,” Hermida wrote. “We do not blame [The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services] for the cease sale.”
Though people have consumed fly agaric for hundreds of years, a variety of researchers have recognized the uncooked mushrooms as toxic. One main mycologist mentioned in a 2019 interview that Amanita muscaria is “probably the most harmful mushrooms” and causes “momentary madness.”
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the mushroom was as soon as intently related to northern European and Asiatic shamans and rituals.
The psychoactive results of Amanita muscaria are notably totally different from that of Psilocybe cubensis — the normal “magic mushroom” species — which accommodates psilocybin, a compound at the moment in scientific trials for the remedy of melancholy and produces hallucinations similar to these induced by LSD. Amanita muscaria mushrooms are mentioned to provide a markedly totally different journey that entails delirium, sweating, perceptual distortions, and nausea, relying on the dose ingested.
Hermida emphasizes that Chillum is complying with the state’s orders and has stopped promoting edible Amanita muscaria merchandise. However, he asserts his unwavering perception that consuming the mushroom has redeeming worth.
He claims the fungus is solely misunderstood.
“Truth is, regardless that there are loads of ‘researchers’ in western tradition that deem this mushroom as toxic, there are indigenous cultures which were consuming the Amanita mushroom for religious functions for a really, very very long time,” Hermida wrote in a press release.
In the meantime, Hermida says that the dispensary plans to launch an academic enterprise that can supply lessons on psychedelics and allow members to acquire fly agaric (“Not for consumption!” he provides.)