![]() ![]() If caught selling, a cultivator could face 2 to 32 years in prison, according to the Colorado Legal Defense Group.īut there’s plenty of motivation, especially as renewed public interest drives demand for a relatively rare drug. The new law offers no protections for dealers, and reformers like McAllister say they don’t want to encourage sales. The most lucrative, and most illegal, business may be growing and selling the drug. Joe Amon, The Denver PostMazatec psilocybin mushrooms ready for harvest in their growing tub. “There’s some opportunities here but they are fraught with danger,” McAllister explained. With so many unresolved shades of gray, psilocybin entrepreneurs and advocates are proceeding with caution. Even simple possession remains a felony punishable by 6 to 12 months in prison - if the city attempted to prosecute, as it did in the early cannabis days. “The general attitude has been that they intend to respect the will of the voter, and they do not intend to prosecute anybody (for possession),” he said.īut the drug is not truly legal, even if its users are far less likely to be prosecuted in Denver now. In early discussions, city officials are embracing the new law - unlike their hostile reaction to early cannabis decriminalization measures in the 2000s, according to Sean McAllister, general counsel for the Decriminalize Denver campaign and a longtime drug policy reformer. ![]() One person was forced to give up a bag of suspected mushrooms at Denver International Airport, but there was no arrest, and the district attorney refused the case. Suspected psilocybin was found in six cases, but they were charged instead with other offenses. ![]() The city has reported no psilocybin charges since its passage in May. It makes mushroom possession the cops’ “lowest priority” and forbids the use of city resources in prosecutions. Initiative 301 discourages police and prosecutors from targeting users of psychedelic mushrooms. Joe Amon, The Denver PostMazatec psilocybin mushrooms dried and ready for consumption. He knows that selling the drug remains a prosecutable felony that could carry years in prison, and the city’s new laws offer no protections for the sale of the drug - but he has the leeway he needs to feel safe, he said. To live in Denver, you’ve got to have a second or a third income,” he said. “I was kind of just tired of being broke. The entire setup cost him $550, and he’s on track for $2,000 a month in sales, including to two people who are dealing with PTSD. He sells the shrooms, sometimes in pill capsules or chocolates, to a network of about 20 people. Instead of plastic baggies, he packages his stuff in the same canisters and bags as the cannabis industry - complete with his custom logo. And he’s only ramping up with decriminalization in effect. The cultivator that The Post met with showed off an impressively elaborate system for batch production: pounds upon pounds of grains for propagating mushroom genetics, jars of liquid culture, a zip-up tent with plastic tubs where ghostly white mushrooms grow. Amid the confusion and intrigue of a unique new law, the spores of a new micro-economy have landed. But there already are therapists to deal with traumatic trips, guides to light the way through the psychic depths, lawyers, lobbyists and, of course, fungal cultivators. In Denver, the initial change has been subtle - there will be no legal mushroom shops. It’s the subject of a popular new book and promising therapeutic research studies at Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere, but the first steps of decriminalization also have prompted worries about regulation and substance-use culture. Also known as psilocybin, drug reformers see the substance as the next frontier after cannabis. Three months ago, Denver voters approved some of the nation’s first legal protections for psychedelic mushroom users. “It’s just mycelium and the mushroom.”īut the police might not agree, so he asked that The Denver Post not use his name. “Basically, everything in my apartment’s legal - so I feel safe in that aspect,” he said. The young man with a tent full of psychedelic mushrooms in his closet isn’t worried about the cops. ![]() Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menu ![]()
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