Imagine yourself on a microdosing vancouver hunt in a quiet, magical forest of misty air and verdant moss. In your hands you have a compass and a knife. And you also have a bucket with holes. This bucket is important because it allows the mushrooms to breathe. “If the mushroom can’t breathe it will go rotten really quickly,” says Benjamin Patarin, co-founder of Vancouver Island wildcrafting company Forest for Dinner. This is a key lesson for anyone who wants to find and harvest mushrooms, particularly those that contain the psychoactive compound psilocybin.

Finding Your Fungi: Where to Source Magic Mushrooms in Vancouver

Mushrooms like Psilocybe baeocyst contain a hallucinogen that can cause people to see, hear or feel things that aren’t there. It can also cause anxiety, fear, nausea and muscle twitches. In some cases, it can lead to bad trips that can be life-threatening if the person takes too many mushrooms.

In the past, mushroom pickers would get arrested if caught picking mushrooms that contain psilocybin. But last year the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled that psilocybin does not belong in the list of drugs that is prohibited by the Narcotic Control Act. That means mushroom pickers will not face prosecution this year if they are caught.

Even so, the psilocybin market is still illegal. That’s because psilocybin is not decriminalized under the new legal regime that came into effect Jan. 31, 2023. And even though RCMP officers on Vancouver Island and in the Queen Charlottes say they are not arresting mushroom pickers this year, they will continue to prosecute those who extract psilocybin from mushrooms to make a drug.