There’s several easy ways to get your hands on the en vogue drug of the moment — magic mushrooms. You can get them off your regular dealer, shop around on the dark web or, if you’re feeling creative, you can even grow them yourself. But when it comes to the latter, where do you begin?
For those who really want to challenge themselves, we already outlined everything you need to truly grow them from scratch. Though, of course, not all of us have time for that, which is why many people favor, er, Uncle Ben’s rice, or, more commonly, mushroom growing kits — and, as luck would have it, you can get them off Jeff Bezos himself (via Amazon, obviously).
Still, it’s a little more complicated than, “Cool, I can buy psychedelics on Amazon!” The truth is, you can buy normal mushroom growing kits on Amazon that you can eventually use to grow psilocybin shrooms. To understand this, you’ll need some insight into how growing magic mushrooms works.
First of all, you need substrate jars — containers filled with material that provides nutrition for the mushrooms — which will come with any pre-made growing kit, as well as a grow bag and hygiene supplies like latex gloves and alcohol swabs to keep your shrooms sterile (many kits also come this). Then — and this is where you’ll have to shop outside of Amazon — you need to get psychedelic mushroom spores, which come in syringes. As the spores don’t actually contain psilocybin, you can, in most states, legally buy them (if you’re doing so for microscopic study, that is) — it’s when you germinate and grow them into psilocybin-containing mushrooms that it becomes illegal. You can find psilocybin spores on sites like Spore Works, or you can buy, sell or trade them via the subreddit r/sporetraders. There’s also plenty of other stockists — just Google “psilocybin spores.”
There’s a handful of mushroom growing kit options on Amazon — though some will set you back a fair amount. This one, for example, is $133, but contains everything from substrate jars to a heater (shrooms have to be kept at a certain temperature when growing) and hygiene supplies. Others, like this $22.95 one or this $39.99 one, are cheaper but more basic, typically only containing the substrate. Be careful not to buy grow kits like this one, which already contain the mushroom mycelium (this is what’s produced after your spores germinate, and you can only cultivate magic mushrooms if you use psilocybin spores).
People on Reddit appear to speak positively about grow kits bought via Amazon (they’re usually from third-party sellers). “I’ve had great success with the Amazon grain bags,” one wrote. “Kinda over priced, but still good.” Another described them as “pretty good,” but agreed that they’re not so good “on the wallet.”
However, as Amazon is evil, you might want to get your growing kit elsewhere — from independent providers, for example. Double Blind has a few suggestions, which you can find here. Having said that, many people suggest that it’s “cheaper and more worth your while to start from scratch” because “if your grow contaminates, you’re out less money and you can figure out what went wrong,” whereas “if a grow kit contams [sic], you’re just out a bunch of money with nothing to show for it.”
Of course, this article is purely theoretical — we, law-abiding citizens know that growing magic mushrooms is illegal in most states. Although, if you’re in New Mexico (where cultivating shrooms is legal), grow away, baby!
Brit Dawson
Brit Dawson is a London-based journalist who mostly writes about sex, women's rights and sex work. She is also the staff writer at Dazed.
