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R. T. MOORE
University of Ulster, 73 Strand Road, Coleraine BT51 3AD, U.K.
Information in two BBC news reports should be of particular concern to fungus groups, forays, field mycologists and the
BMS. The first report is entitled Magic mushrooms ban
becomes law <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4691899.stm>.
The Drugs Act 2005 came into effect on July 18th and ended
the situation in which fresh magic mushrooms were legal
but those which were dried or prepared for use were not.
The psychedelic chemicals in these fungi, psilocybin and psilocin, were already class A (which also includes crack cocaine
and heroin) but until now the law did not apply to fresh or raw
magic mushrooms which contain far less of the drug gramfor-gram than when dried. Under Clause 21 it is now an offence to import, export, produce, supply, possess, or possess
with intent to supply magic mushrooms, including in the
form of grow kits. Exceptions are made for people who unknowingly pick the mushrooms in the wild or find them growing in their garden. The report also includes the Home Offices
rationale for the change, the effects of taking psilocybes, the
responses of critics (who have argued the act will be difficult
to police), and the fact that the legislation does not apply to
Amanita muscaria. The Entheogen Defence Fund, formed by
mushroom retailers, intends to launch a legal challenge on
the basis that the revised law contravenes European trade
rules and the 1971 Vienna convention.
The second report, by Christine Jeavans, describes How
UKs love of mushrooms grew <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/
magazine/4692359.stm>. She notes that the popularity of
magic mushrooms has soared in recent years (according to
the report above, use of the fungi has risen 40 % in a year,
with more than quarter of a million people estimated to
have taken them in 2003/04, compared with 180,000 in 2002/
03; but still a miniscule share of all drug use). This rise has
gone hand in hand with increasing availability; where,
before, the widespread and common Liberty Caps had to be
seasonally searched out in the wild; now, as it was, British
users had their pick from many local sources of not only the
native Psilocybe semilanceata, but also exotic species P. cubensis,
P mexicana (the Philosophers stone), and Copelandia (Paneolus)
cyanescens; and, according to the previous report, the vast
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39
doi:10.1016/j.mycol.2005.11.012
as a coprophilous fungus. Sphaerobolus, the story of a funguswas the title of my second BMS Presidential Address in 1972.
During the few years I played with Sphaerobolus, I used two
very distinct species: S. stellatus and one, unnamed, from
Africa, with larger basidiomes. Both were good spore-guns,
but S. stellatus completely outshot the other, in spite of its
much smaller projectiles.
It is good that even plant pathologists are moved to study
such odd-bods as Sphaerobolus.
C. T. Ingold
26, Cottage Road, Wooler, Northumberland, U.K.
0269-915X/$ see front matter
2005 The British Mycological Society.
Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.