New psilocybin 'shroom research

Shrooms are one of the most commonly depicted drugs in popular media – but there’s a lot we still don’t know about them. Why do some experiences feel different from others? How can you be sure that you have psilocybin mushrooms and not a toxic lookalike?

Today, we’re talking to psilocybin harm reduction researcher Sam Lasham about his new study and what he’s learning about shrooms. 

Kia ora Sam! Tell us a bit about yourself and the Mushroom Variability and Consumer Safety study – what are you hoping to find out? 

I'm Sam, I'm a PhD student at the University of Auckland where I'm investigating magic mushroom use in Aotearoa. Essentially, we’re trying to better understand how people are using shrooms, but also looking at drug checking as a tool to better understand what's actually in the mushrooms that people are consuming. 

There are hundreds of magic mushroom species around the world. There's lots of really big genetic diversity there, and that means there's huge potential for chemical diversity as well. 

We’re curious if that variability between species leads to variability drug-wise. For example, could different species cause differences experiences between people? 

How does the study work? 

There’s three parts: 

We have a nationwide survey which is open to anyone who has used mushrooms in New Zealand. We’re trying to understand how people are using mushrooms, how much they’re taking, what they're experiencing and whether they've had any kinds of harm or unwanted effects. It’s an anonymous online survey, and there's a $100 supermarket voucher prize draw for people who participate. Head to the survey page to take the survey.

Once you complete that, you're essentially enrolled. You get a unique webpage created just for you that you can bookmark. That leads to the second part: the post experience surveys. If you have a mushroom experience any time after signing up, you can go back to that page and fill out a survey on that specific experience. Everyone who does a post-experience survey gets a little voucher too as a thank you. Again – these experience surveys are open to anyone nationwide. 

The third stage is the drug checking aspect, where we find out what’s in your shrooms. You can bring in fresh or dried shrooms, powders, chocolate… If it's weird, bring it in. We'll see if we can test it!  
 
The drug checking can only be done by people in Auckland, because they have to bring samples in physically. You book an appointment through your unique webpage and meet me at the clinical research centre in Grafton. Then it’s kind of like a standard drug checking clinic, although results aren’t available immediately and can take around 2 to 4 weeks.  

For more info or to sign up, check out the University webpage, or take the survey now. 

For people who haven’t been to a drug checking clinic before, what’s involved? 

(Editor: Check out this article on The Level to understand how drug checking works. It’s free, legal and anonymous, and this project operates under the same license as other drug checking.)

Same as any drug checking service, I ask a few questions and then prepare a sample of what you’ve brought in. Then we talk about ways to stay safer. We’ve got a lot of mushroom-specific handouts, guides on how people can integrate their psychedelic experiences and other mental health resources.  

About two to four weeks later, people can get their results online via their unique page. It tells them the species, how much psilocybin is in the sample, and a write-up of what it all means.