Psilocybin, or "Magic," Mushrooms - what do a glass jar, a paper bag, and a chunk of fungus have in common?

Magic mushrooms are an odd case, as far as drugs go. Psilocybin, the typical active ingredient providing the "magic," is a Schedule I drug under federal law. The same goes for another mushroom-manufactured hallucinogen, psilocyn. So far, so good, right?

The catch is that psilocybin mushrooms grow wild pretty near everywhere, and their primary negative effect seems to be the risk of eating the wrong mushroom (a problem I gather is inherent to mycology). The mushrooms themselves aren't often mentioned on drug schedules, and so have had their illegality challenged-- sometimes with success.

Not so much in Washington State.

Washington State courts first tackled the issue of whether psilocybin mushrooms are illegal in 1984 in State v. Patterson. The court decided that, by the wording of Washington's Schedule I (more on drug schedules, coming soon!), even though coca leaves and opium poppies (the natural origins of cocaine and heroin, respectively) are mentioned elsewhere in the schedules, mushrooms qualify for the full ton of bricks that comes with a Schedule I drug because they are, in the schedule's language, a "material ... which contains" psilocybin.

The court thus put naturally-occurring, raw mushrooms in the same category as, say, pills, and went on to pound a few more nails in by declaring that 1) the mention of psilocybin in Schedule I, even without mentioning mushrooms, was enough warning and 2) the common confusion over whether the mushrooms are illegal (a "mistake of law") is no defense.

The courts don't seem to have looked back, since. "Magic mushrooms" are a Schedule I drug in the State of Washington, as illegal as LSD.