Americans' interest in a potentially harmful "magic mushroom" is soaring, with Google searches skyrocketing 114% from 2022 to 2023, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. In a paper in the , the scientists suggest that the growing market for Amanita muscaria may be sparked in part by emerging clinical research supporting the safety and efficacy of psilocybin as a treatment for depression. Like mushrooms, Amanita muscaria mushrooms produce psychotropic effects.
These include a feeling of weightlessness, visual and auditory hypersensitivity, space distortion, unawareness of time, and colored hallucinations. The psychotropic effects are produced by compounds that naturally occur in the mushroom called muscimol and ibotenic acid, its biosynthetic precursor. However, in addition to being psychotropic, these compounds can also be more toxic than fentanyl, cocaine, and PCP, according to the scientists' review of estimates from published mouse studies.
Nevertheless, gummies and chocolates containing these compounds are being marketed with health-related claims such as mitigation of anxiety, depression, and other conditions, often by vague references to related to psilocybin, which is not as toxic and produces different psychotropic effects. "There is a lot of interest in the therapeutic potential for psilocybin and for good reason. But at the same time, a growing industry .