Why are magic mushroom retail stores popping up across the country?

In today’s Big Story Podcast, it feels like a trip back to 2017, when cannabis was on the cusp of becoming legal and most cities in Canada were inundated with ‘dispensaries’ — unlicensed retail storefronts selling pot as if it were already just fine. Mostly, crackdowns on those failed, pot became legal and everyone stopped caring. Until this year, when the cycle began again with a much different drug … magic mushrooms. Now, stores with names like “Fun Guyz” and “Shroomyz” have opened across the country, and the enforcement, or lack thereof, seems similar to 2017.

Daniel Eisenkraft Klein is a PhD Candidate at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and a Fellow at the Canadian Centre for Health Economics. “I could point someone to at least 30 retail stores in Canada, and maybe a dozen websites that tomorrow you could access in Canada, where they’re selling psilocybin and often a number of other psychedelics,” said Eisenkraft Klein.

How are these two situations — and two substances — different from the cannabis experience? What does the rise of retail ‘shrooms’ tell us about psychedelics in general? And is psilocybin really on track to become the next legal, recreational drug?

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