ESU alumnus trips across ‘the universe’

Photo illustration by Ali Nashatizadeh

When Mike– not his real name– takes a trip, he doesn’t have to leave home.

However, Mike said, if you don’t have the right attitude, your trip is going to be a bad one.

“People that decide to try (mushrooms) should be careful because there is always that risk for a bad trip,” Mike said. “As long as they’re in the right mindset and in a safe environment, they should have a pretty good time.”

Mike, a former ESU student who still lives in Emporia, first tried hallucinogenic mushrooms during his junior year of college.

“I have one experience where I can actually imagine electrons around nuclei and my place within this image and the universe,” Mike said. “You can’t get that get that on anything else that I found. I understand why Timothy Leary published that book – it’s like going on an adventure.”

Timothy Leary was known for advocating the use of LSD and other psychedelics and coining the phrase “turn on, tune in, drop out.” Ergot, the fungus that naturally grows on grass seeds, is responsible for the effects of LSD. Marshall Sundberg, professor of biological sciences, said that there is some speculation that the women of the Salem Witch Trials were actually suffering from ergotism poisoning, which causes shaking and a burning or tingling sensation. In the 1960s, LSD became increasingly popular.

“LSD was an extract of ergot and that was certainly available as a hallucinogen,” Sundberg said.

According to Sundberg, the growing interest in Native American cultures in the 1960s might have had an effect on the popularity of ’shrooms.

“Some Native American cultures use mushrooms as part of their religious experience,” Sundberg said. “Some have sort of stimulated people to look at that as sort of an out-of-body experience.”

He also said that the use of mushrooms for their hallucinogenic properties has occurred since prehistoric times.

“Mushrooms have been widespread and still are widespread in use, not just as a food but to treat different illnesses, but also as an intoxicant hallucinogen for a long time… you can go back to the Romans and the Greeks and there’s documentation of them using them,” Sundberg said.

According to Sundberg, any poisonous mushroom could potentially be used as a hallucinogenic.

“They produce a compound called psilocybin which was one of the hallucinogens that was popular in the 60s,” Sundberg said. “They were little mushrooms that you would eat.”

He said that they also became more popular in the U.S. after other drugs were being outlawed. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, psilocybin is a Schedule 1 drug, along with Peyote, cannabis and heroin. In Kansas, it is a Class A non person misdemeanor and the first offense for possession can lead to a year in jail and a fine.

According to Chris Hoover, captain of ESU police and safety, students found with illegal substances will be treated like anyone else.

“We would treat a student the same as anybody else,” Hoover said. “We basically gather the facts and see if an officer finds a probable cause.”

According to the 2007 ESU Annual Security Report, the total number of drug law arrests has increased from seven in 2006 to 11 in 2007.

Mike said that he usually grows mushrooms for personal use but he knows others who grow and sell them. He first considered growing his own mushrooms after he tried marijuana at the beginning of college. He said that he realized growing mushrooms was easier than growing pot. He endorses the legalization of both substances.

“I think ’shrooms, just like pot, should be legal,” Mike said. “I don’t think you should be penalized for eating something that grows on cow s*** naturally. As long as you’re an adult, you should be able to make your own decisions…. a responsible adult should be allowed to go on a psychedelic journey if they want to.”

Fungi, which are in their own kingdom, are closer in structure to animals than plants. The compound in hallucinogenic mushrooms, or magic mushrooms, is called psilocin. Once it is ingested, it causes psychedelic reactions.

According to Sundberg, growing mushrooms can be a lengthy process with some species of mushroom. There are two ways that fungi reproduce – vegetative propagation or spores.

Vegetative propagation is a process where any piece of the fungus can reproduce other parts of the fungus. Spores, which are found on the bottom of mushroom caps, can also be cultivated. These methods, however, can take up to four weeks to produce mature, fruiting mushrooms.

“The thing I like about ’shrooms is the ease with which you can do it,” Mike said. “There is some expense, but the more I looked into it I realized that growing ’shrooms would be a lot easier than growing pot. Not to mention that with ’shrooms the spores are legal you can get them in the home garden section.”

Mike said that he grows his mushrooms by using spores.

“Brown rice vermiculite and water,” Mike said. “You just leave them in the dark in a jar. You kill the bacteria in the jar by boiling the jars and pop a couple of small holes in the top to inject the spores.”

According to Sundberg, a fibrous fungus will grow relatively easily, but growing a developed mushroom can be more difficult.

“In general, mushrooms are hard to grow… but to get it to change into a three dimensional, fruiting body – the mushroom – something you would consider eating, it takes very special conditions to get that to happen,” Sundberg said.

Sundberg said that identifying mushrooms can be difficult for many people.

“There is no easy way to tell a poisonous mushroom or a hallucinogenic mushroom from many other ones,” Sundberg said. “You just have to learn to identify them. Not a lot of people in this country do, but Europeans do and Japanese and Chinese people do know their mushrooms. There’s kind of a stigma that mushrooms are poisonous, so people don’t eat them. But it turns out that wild mushrooms are much tastier than the store-bought ones.”