![]() “It’s such a virulent species, it’ll eat every wood chip you can imagine,” he says. “It's really important that people are able to get connected, back in touch with nature, and then start to make change.”īack in Washington, Patterson is gearing up for another outing with spores from one of his favourite strains. “My mission is to enable other people to get easy access to magic mushrooms,” one attendee says. Some left the workshop professing that they may begin using the knowledge to pollinate green spaces with the magic variety. “This should be a thing of national interest,” Phillips says.īut spore spreading skills are undeniably transferable. ![]() Scientists have found that eating a whole host of mushroom varieties may provide protection against cancer, Alzheimer’s and heart disease due to their high levels of antioxidants. He believes that increased wild production of sober varieties such as shiitake and lion's mane would lead to reduced prices in stores and that increased public consumption would significantly improve public health. “They strengthen people’s immune systems.” “Get everybody eating gourmet mushrooms,” says Nick Phillips, after leading a recent Psychedelic Society guerrilla event in London where the spawns of non-psychoactive mushrooms were distributed in a park. Many mycology enthusiasts are, like McCoy, spreading all sorts. It’s not just the magic variety of mushrooms that benefit humans. One afternoon in the fall, I noticed that one friend’s whole backyard was covered with dozens of pounds of psilocybe cyanescens.” (Note to any would-be gardeners: spreading non-native species is a bad idea.) “I knew people who did that around my college town Olympia, Washington, and they grew abundantly. McCoy tells VICE he is unaware of anyone ever being arrested for guerilla magic mushroom spreading, but “even today, some people are still reluctant to admit things”.īut not him: “They're very aggressive species, very easy to grow outdoors,” he says of azurescens and cyanescens, two particularly potent hallucinogenic strains native to his hometown state of Oregon. Thousands got their hands on the zine, according to the author. Since the dawning realization that magic mushrooms grow abundantly across the US from the mid-1950s, mushroom pickers have been spore spreading through low-tech methods.īut the current era began in 2008 when amateur mycologist Peter McCoy, through a campaigning group known as the Spore Liberation Front, published Radical Mycology, a guidebook with “a call to sporulate” all kinds of mushrooms, from tasty chanterelles to their trippier cousins. It’s taken a while for the countercultural movement to arrive at this moment. Many are now operating with more confidence than ever. Psilocybin is a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act, but pro-shroom reforms in Oregon and Colorado have galvanised certain activists. He’s not the only one – a growing legion of amateur mycologists are taking matters into their own hands to ensure that there is no serious depletion of shroom stock, as is already the case with the cactus peyote. Cops often say you may be trespassing, you should go now.”Īs psychedelics become increasingly popular, Patterson believes spore spreading will counter any reckless picking by newbies in the wild. “Whenever we've been approached, we just say things about mushrooms that most people get bored with and they leave you alone. “A few of us have been stopped by police or other people who are curious about why we are digging in the wood chips,” he says. Patterson isn’t shy about his activities, even though Washington lawmakers are still deliberating over a bill to legalise psilocybin. “And I would love for the future generations to be able to experience that as well.” “I grew up picking, and it was freaking amazing,” he reflects. Even if only one percent take root, that’s a whole lot of shrooms. He, like other guerrilla mycologists, is playing a percentage game.
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