When Eric Leas, a public-health scientist, discovered packages of “magic mushroom” gummies for sale in a smoke shop, he wondered: Were these candies even legal? Had they been properly tested, and did anyone actually know what constituted a safe dose? This Aeon piece follows Leas down a rabbit hole as he investigates whether the Amanita muscaria products currently on store shelves are as safe as their candy-like packaging suggests.

I found a product with a very high reported amount of muscimol. It was a gummy product, one in a benign-looking package that did not have childproofing or clear warnings. I began doing the calculation no one wants to do. If a young child ate the entire package, mistaking it for candy, could they die? I took the reported amount of muscimol, the toxicology estimates (the LD50), a conversion used to translate dosing between species, and the average weight of a small child. The result looked bad. Bad enough that I did not quite trust myself. So, I called a friend, Matthieu Rouffet, a medicinal chemist and the dean of science at a local college, who does toxicology calculations more often than I do. I wanted him to tell me I had made an error. Instead, he was alarmed too.

On September 19, Dou Xiankang, who heads the National Natural Science Foundation of China, described a grant that most young scientists anywhere would envy. Researchers under 35 will get 15 years of support. The money doubles after five years and doubles again after ten, and there are no short-term performance reviews. The only test, Dou […]

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