Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Psychedelic Truffles

The overly zealous ban on magic mushrooms in the Netherlands left an interesting door open - psilocybe fungi in the form of sclerotia, a dense, truffle-like mass, remain legal and have taken over the market.  The ban essentially did nothing except hurt a lot of existing businesses while creating an opportunity for a lucky few.

The lucky winners were the proprietors of Magic Truffles, who had a culture of these psychedelic truffles, so-called philosopher's stones.  A series of videos (and text), Hamilton and the Philosopher's Stone, tells the tale.  They can produce up to 18,000 tons a year.

The history of this formerly rare fungi goes back to the slightly crazed doctor and mycologist Steven Pollock, who found a specimen around Tampa, Florida and named it psilocybe tampanensis.  Pollock was later murdered under mysterious circumstances (Harper's, pay wall).

In the article about Pollock, I found it fascinating the lengths that a later researcher went to in order to spread and preserve the strain, i.e. "with news of the coming of Hurricane Erin he quadrupled production, inoculating fifty-pound bales of straw day and night ... dispersing billions of spores into the stratosphere."

1 comment:

  1. Magic Truffles are gaining popularity. Truffles are available in smartshops and online as well as. There are excellent varieties like mexicana, atlantis, dragon's dynamite available and each one of them have own effects. I found many varieties on magic-truffles-shop. They are selling products to cultivate truffles as well as.

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