With marijuana legalization looming, B.C. activists are looking for similar approach to psychedelics

For less than the price of a monthly adult three-zone transit pass in Metro Vancouver, anyone can grow their own magic mushrooms.

The Vancouver Seed Bank – bearing the motto “overgrowing the government since 2006” – markets $165 “mushroom starter kits” that contain everything needed for customers to grow their own illegal psilocybin mushrooms at home, including a syringe full of psilocybe cubensis spores.

Wander Vancouver’s infamous Wreck Beach on a sunny afternoon and you’ll encounter vendors hawking a host of psychedelic plants and tabs – all of it illegal.

As Canada readies for legalized marijuana this summer, activists who worked to push legalization of the drug onto the political agenda are looking to use similar strategies for psychedelics.

They point to growing numbers of people who use these drugs recreationally, and to a growing body of research on the drugs’ medicinal uses. They point to ongoing legalization efforts in the state of California. And they point to the increased availability of the substances both online and in some of Vancouver’s still-illegal marijuana dispensaries.

Psychedelic drugs – including MDMA, ketamine, psilocybin-containing magic mushrooms, ayahuasca and LSD – are currently classified as illicit substances in Canada under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. People found in possession can face criminal prosecution, fines and incarceration.

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But their use is on the rise. According to the 2015 Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey, 1.2 per cent of Canadians reported using hallucinogens in the past year, doubled from 0.6 per cent from the previous survey in 2013.

“I do hope the legalization of cannabis leads to more civil disobedience against other drug laws,” Vancouver cannabis activist and politician Dana Larsen said.

“How cannabis went from a recreational substance to a medicine, which then led to the broader legalization that we’re getting now – we’re seeing that with psychedelics now,” he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor have been asked often about the decriminalization of recreational drugs more broadly, amid soaring overdose deaths from fentanyl in the illicit drug supply.

They have consistently ruled the option out.

“It’s not an issue that we’re looking at,” Ms. Petitpas Taylor told reporters last fall. “We are exploring other avenues right now.”

Some Vancouver businesses continue to actively stock illicit products in their storefronts. While many find legal loopholes by not marketing substances for human consumption, others are upfront about it.

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In a 2017 promotional video on Facebook for the Vancouver-based dispensary Health Lifestyle, the camera races around the store to upbeat music, focusing on a variety of marijuana products and accessories.

At several points, the camera zooms in on a platter of heart-shaped chocolates surrounded by dried mushrooms, dried “happy mushrooms” and a mushroom tea promising “cerebral effects.”

In 2015, Health Lifestyle’s Commercial Drive location was raided by police for selling psilocybin-containing magic mushrooms and cannabis edibles.

Health Lifestyle reopened several months later, offering a free joint or pot cookie in celebration. In the years since, the business has closed and reopened at five different locations across Metro Vancouver after various raids and fines from the city.

But they persist, and according to their Instagram page, Health Lifestyle received two new business licenses in April from the City of Vancouver to operate locations on Victoria Drive and Kingsway.

No one from the company was available to comment on whether magic mushrooms will be again on offer.

Vancouver city councillor Kerry Jang is in charge of the municipal cannabis portfolio and said the city is aware of illicit and semi-legal products currently sold in Vancouver storefronts.

“To say that we’re not aware would be stupid. It exists,” Mr. Jang told the Globe.

While the exact details of enforcing new cannabis laws are still being sorted out, legal cannabis regulation in B.C. – such as alcohol – will fall within the province’s jurisdiction.

Retailers will be required to obtain a cannabis license from the province come October and will likely require criminal background checks and regular check-ins to ensure they are only selling registered products.

Mr. Jang said the city will only be responsible for regulating at the business license level, but predicted the province will crack down on the black market, which would include illicit sales of psychedelics.

“The province can levy quite significant fines and act on it immediately. They can do jail times and criminal records, which the city cannot do,” Mr. Jang said.

“Once the federal and provincial laws come into effect, a lot of that stuff will disappear.”

Duke – not his real name due to the nature of his work – makes a living from the artisanal cannabis candies he crafts in his Vancouver home kitchen and sells to an online distributor. He worries Canada’s impending legalization of cannabis will force him and other dealers out of the market as big retailers start to carry the drug.

Psychedelics could offer him the needed change to his business model.

“I have a feeling that the [cannabis] edibles side of legalization, when it does come, is going to push me out,” Duke admitted.

“But they’re already talking about the legalization of magic mushrooms in California and I see a lot of people that are in the weed business now that are expanding to that, betting that it’s the next big thing.”

In the past few decades, research around the world has looked at the potential medical benefits of psychedelic drugs. A 2017 study published in Scientific Reports suggested that psilocybin – the active ingredient in magic mushrooms – may “reset” the activity of key brain circuits known to impact depression.

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is currently completing trials in the United States of LSD-assisted psychotherapy as well as ayahuasca-assisted therapy. And in Canada, MAPS is currently conducting Phase III trials in Canada on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to help treat PTSD. At the trials’ expected conclusion in four years, MAPS Canada executive director Mark Haden says the therapy will be legal in Canada.

He says medical research is what helped initially build comfort in people around cannabis and eventually led to legalization efforts and a similar process could happen with psychedelics and other drugs.

“The awareness of the need to change policy around cannabis started with the awareness that cannabis could be used as medicine,” Mr. Haden said.

“And then as the public discussion evolved, it became clear it was inappropriate to criminalize it, even when it came to recreational use.”

But he notes that, despite similarities in trends regarding medical research, any process to legalize psychedelics in Canada will be vastly different than cannabis. Psychedelic drug legalization, Mr. Haden stresses, will be less about public popularity – as was the case with cannabis – and more focused on medical or spiritual healing.

He suggested a legal framework for psychedelics might resemble supervised injection sites, where trained professionals supervise use for psychotherapeutic benefits. He stressed that supervision is key to using psychedelics in a productive, medical way.

“Cannabis is becoming legalized because of popular opinion; psychedelics are becoming legalized because they are going through the Stage I, II and III clinical trials and bringing them into the world of psychiatry, social work and psychology.”