Review of Enquiries made to the NPIS Concerning Psilocybe Mushroom Ingestion, 1978-1981

The historical, botanical and chemical aspects of hallucinogenic mushroom are well described (Lincoff & Mitchell, 1977; Cooper, 1980). The use of hallucinogenic mushroom stretches back as far as ancient Aztec civilisation and it has become fashionable in the West since the 1950s, with publicity from popular writers such as Aldous Huxley and Carlos Castenada (Huxley, 1976; Castenada, 1970). Recently, increasing use has given rise to calls for control (Young et al., 1982). In Britain, Psilocybe semilanceata is the most commonly occurring species of hallucinogenic mushrooms (Peden & Pringle, 1982; Peden et al., 1981; Harries & Evans, 1981) containing the hallucinogenic compounds psilocin and psilocybon, indolalkylamines, similar to LSD but only about 1 % as potent (Bowman & Rand, 1980).