From Magic Mushroom to Forbidden Fungus (and Back)

Half a century ago, Congress declared that there is no legitimate use for psilocybin. State and local governments are finally challenging that judgment.

- By Jacob Sullum

In 1968, just 11 years after the international banker and amateur mycologist R. Gordon Wasson introduced Americans to “magic mushrooms” in a landmark Life magazine story, the federal government banned them. That was how long it took for this object of anthropological fascination, source of visions, and tool of self-discovery to become an intolerable threat to the nation’s youth.

Two years later, when Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, it listed psilocybin and psilocin, the psychoactive components of the “divine” fungi that Wasson ate, under Schedule I, a category supposedly reserved for exceptionally dangerous drugs with no accepted medical use. Half a century would pass before any jurisdiction in the United States reconsidered that classification.

When Oregon voters approved Measure 109, a.k.a. the Psilocybin Services Act, by a 12-point margin in November, they repudiated decades of anti-drug propaganda that depicted psychedelics as a ticket to the mental hospital. To the contrary, the initiative said, “studies conducted by nationally and internationally recognized medical institutions indicate that psilocybin has shown effiacy, tolerability, and safety in the treatment of a variety of mental health conditions, including but not limited to addiction, depression, anxiety disorders, and end-of-life psychological distress.”