Dutch ban Psilocybe sales
From Aunty …
The Dutch government is banning the sale of all magic mushrooms after a series of high-profile incidents involving tourists who had taken them.
Tourists, eh ?
Figures.
The Netherlands is famed for its liberal drugs policy, with marijuana openly sold in licensed cafes.
Magic mushrooms, more properly known as psilocybe, contain the psychedelic chemicals psilocybin and psilocin.
The psychedelic mushrooms found natively in the UK are known as Liberty Caps.
Currently in the Netherlands the sale of dried magic mushrooms - in which the psychoactive chemicals psilocybin and psilocin are stronger - is banned but fresh mushrooms are allowed.
This is because it is more difficult to ascertain how much of the chemicals fresh mushrooms contain.
Calls for a re-evaluation of the drug grew after a 17-year-old French girl jumped from a building after eating magic mushrooms during a school trip to Amsterdam in March.
Other incidents involving the drug have included an Icelandic tourist jumping from a balcony and breaking both legs and a Danish tourist driving his car wildly through a camping ground, narrowly missing sleeping campers.
“It’s a shame, the media really blew this up into a big issue,” said Chloe Collette, owner of the FullMoon shop, which sells magic mushrooms in Amsterdam.
She said all the incidents had involved magic mushrooms in conjunction with other drugs.
Mixing drugs generally skews the picture of the problem, for example many deaths attributed to MDMA are largely not caused by MDMA at all, but as a result of something else the user has taken. MDMA however makes a better headline.
Users of fresh mushrooms experience effects ranging from giggling fits and intensification of colours, lights and sounds to, more rarely, hallucinations. Negative effects can include vomiting, and anxiety.
As always, responsibility and maturity are the order of the day.
