QUICK TAKEAWAY
Magic mushrooms, containing psychoactive substances psilocybin and psilocin, are illegal in Canada under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) but have potential therapeutic benefits for anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Their consumption is only legally permissible in certain medical contexts with special permission from Health Canada. Possession of these mushrooms could result in a maximum of three years imprisonment if treated as an indictable offence. Magic mushrooms are widely available online and in certain stores despite their illegal status. Their effects are similar to LSD, with effects manifesting within 15 to 45 minutes and typically lasting four to six hours. The charges for possessing, trafficking, or exporting magic mushrooms can vary based on the quantity possessed and any aggravating factors involved.
Table of Contents:
What are Magic Mushrooms?
There are more than 200 species of the fungi, and some have been used for thousands of years. The active ingredients in magic mushrooms are psilocybin and psilocin. As psychoactive substances, they produce effects similar to LSD, including hallucinations and an altered state of consciousness. Effects appear within 15 to 45 minutes and usually last four to six hours.
They are sold either as dried whole mushrooms or as a powder. Whole mushrooms can be eaten raw or cooked, ground up and used to make tea, while the powder can be swallowed in capsule form or snorted.
Street Names for Mushrooms
They are commonly known as magic mushrooms, also called caps, booms, blue meanies, golden tops, mush, mushies, shrooms, psilo, fungus and fungus delight.
Therapeutic Uses Being Explored
There is a burgeoning interest in the potential therapeutic benefits of magic mushrooms for mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder even though clinical trials have yielded promising outcomes, as of now, no psilocybin-based therapeutic products have been approved in Canada or any other country.
Legal status of Mushrooms in Canada
Despite their availability both online and in some physical stores in cities like Vancouver, magic mushrooms remain illegal in all parts of Canada. The drug is included in Schedule IIIMost hallucinogens of the CDSA. The prohibition applies to possessing, distributing, cultivating, importing, and exporting psilocybin and psilocin, the active compounds in these mushrooms.
Exceptions to these laws exist under certain circumstances, including:
- Participation in clinical trials involving magic mushrooms
- Enrollment in a special access program allowing physicians to request drugs showing potential in clinical trials or approved in other countries
- Acquisition of an exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA)
While British Columbia decriminalized personal possession of up to 2.5 grams of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, and MDMA on January 31, 2023, this change did not affect the legal status of psilocybin. In 2023, law enforcement raided stores in Windsor, Ontario, and Ottawa that sold magic mushrooms openly.
What is Needed to Convict
To find you guilty of possessing magic mushrooms, the Crown must establish beyond a reasonable doubtThe standard that must be exceeded to find someone guilty that you were in possession of the drug. Possession is not only having the mushrooms on your person, in your car or house. It means that you had some degree of control and knowledge of the drug.
The Crown must prove the substance in question is a drug listed in the CDSA and that you knew it was illegal to possess it.
Penalties for Mushroom Offences
The Crown has the discretion to treat the charge as a summary conviction or indictable offence. If it is your first offence and you are found guilty on summary conviction, you face a maximum fine of $1,000, imprisonment of up to six months or both. For a subsequent offence, the maximum fine is $2,000, one year in jail, or both.
If the Crown treats your possession charge as an indictable offence, the maximum prison term is up to three years.
If you possessed magic mushrooms for the purpose of trafficking or exporting, the possible penalties include a prison sentence of up to 10 years if the charge is treated as an indictable offence or 18 months for a summary conviction.
Sentences will vary depending on how many magic mushrooms you possessed and if there were any aggravating factors such as distributing the drug to minors.
November 17, 2022
Update: Bill C-5: Mandatory Minimum Penalties Repealed.
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Shellie Addley Barrister and Solicitor.
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Keli D. Mersereau Criminal Law Office
Glossary of Legal Terms
Reasonable doubt
The Supreme Court of Canada has said that reasonable doubt “falls much closer to absolute certainty than to proof on a balance of probabilities” and “that something less than absolute certainty is required, and that something more than probable guilt is required."
Schedule III
Schedule III drugs include the amphetamine family, including methamphetamine and lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD. Most hallucinogens are classified under Schedule III. See Schedule III of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
