Despite the positive impact that psilocybin has had on their lives, Zach says that due to its illicit status, they could be facing prison time for using the substance. Recent data shows that over the past five years, 90 people have been charged in New Zealand for simple possession of psilocybin mushrooms. Otago University's trials, influenced by Imperial College London research[JK1] , also incorporate a psychotherapy component to examine its potential to amplify psilocybin's effects.

Manufacturers also crush dried mushrooms into a powder and prepare them in capsule form. Psilocybin is a Schedule I substance, meaning that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) believes it has a high potential for abuse and serves no legitimate medical purpose. Because mushrooms alter a person's sense of reality and affect judgment, trying to drive while under the influence of mushrooms is likely to cause accidents.

"We have hundreds of paper files with patients describing their experiences. They’re not digitized, they’re not standardized, they’re not made into statistics," Dyck explains. Moss says the company grows more than 70 different strains of psilocybin-containing mushrooms but makes its capsules of a single strain they’ve grown to meet specific parameters. Certain pharmaceutical companies, like Filament Health in B.C., which is providing the psilocybin for Petranker and his team, have also obtained licenses from Health Canada to produce psychedelics under strict guidelines.

Professor Crowe states that, typically, depressed individuals are stuck in rigid thinking patterns. However, after dosing with psilocybin, people experience "much more connectivity [and] global integration across the brain." Nichols agreed that there’s a tremendous amount of interest in psilocybin.

Wake had registered to hold a clinical trial in Jamaica, but Murray said the company ultimately decided not to pursue it, focusing on offering treatment instead. Psychedelics are mostly out of a person's system by the next morning, but, according to researchers, that increased openness can last for weeks or months without additional doses, providing a window during which they can begin to address their problems. Researchers have discovered that classic psychedelics, like psilocybin and LSD, Avery’s Albino Mushroom act on the serotonin 2A receptor, the same receptor targeted by the most common antidepressants on the market. But beyond that, the understanding of how they work to help people is, at this point, more theory or conjecture than scientific fact. She spoke slowly and deliberately, waving smoke from an urn as she urged participants to gather in a circle on the lawn of the estate.