Magic Mushrooms, as they are known, are naturally occurring Fungi which are usually consumed raw or dried and ground up and sipped in tea or coffee, and produce hallucinogenic effects. There are many, many kinds and varieties of magic mushrooms with varying strengths. Basically the mushrooms free up the imagination to internal or external influences and allow it run without bounds, whether the 'trip' be pleasurable or a nightmarish experience is practically unrestrainable. It generally takes no longer than an hour for the trip to engage, and can last up to 6 hours. It is like a less intense alternative to the far more dangerous semi-synthetic hallucinogen LSD.

Whilst the long term effects of taking magic mushrooms regularly are somewhat unknown, the biggest problem is their natural availability (they grow in wild grazing fields in or around cow and horse feces). This can be somewhat of an irresistible lure to the thrill seeking mushroom users who'll go out and collect them on their own thinking every mushroom is consumable. mushroom chocolate bars However, not all of these fungi are the desired ones and it can be very difficult to distinguish ones which are or aren't toxic. Some of these mushrooms are highly deadly and can kill in a very slow and painful way, for example feeling sick, nausea and diarrhoea. Some have even a delayed reaction taking days to show any indications before taking your life with absolutely no antidote.

Because Magic Mushrooms are naturally occurring and not 'processed' in any way before consumption, they are somewhat naively considered a safe drug. Absolutely no drug is safe, and most drugs are naturally occurring or refined from natural plants or fungi anyway. Having said that, they aren't known as an obsessive or heavy drug, nor are they as thrashing or psychologically damaging as LSD, nor are they socially corroding such as crack or heroin. Depending on the mushroom-users mental predisposition however, mushrooms can have a damaging affect on the user. For instance, if the user is prone to having a fragile mental state or is of a very suggestible nature, they may believe their hallucinations to be the manifestation of something true and grow somewhat obsessed with it and damaged by it.

One such documented case of these extremities involved a new man who began taking mushrooms and started having the recurring hallucination of a flower clothed as a court-jester which repeatedly taunted him with scarring insults. As preposterous as it sounds, without discounting these experiences merely as hallucinations, he believed this abusive-flower to be the manifestation of realities about himself and spiralled into a severe depression. He and his friends publicly stated he was absolutely fine before taking mushrooms, but somewhere during the course a can of viruses was opened for him. Sadly, to this day he still struggles with emotional and mental issues which simply wasn't there before the advent of his life-changing hallucinations. It would be impossible to say for certain when this happens if the mushrooms were responsible for triggering such continuing mental problems, or an underlying mental illness was already present and the mushroom use was inconsequential, but it is always worth bearing in mind.