Cost and Benefit of Obtaining Psychoactives from Nature

Heading out into nature and obtaining your own psychoactive substances is a bit of a crapshoot, meaning that the process contains its fair share of advantages and disadvantages. For legal reasons, I suppose I have to say that I don't condone any of the actions described below. But, I like facts, so here they are.

Perhaps the biggest danger of obtaining your own psychoactives out in nature is the problem of classification. Generally, classifying a psychoactive plant is much easier than successfully classifying a fungus or a mushroom. For example, stumbling across a wild cache of cannabis viable for recreational purposes (highly unlikely) is much easier than successfully identifying a psychedelic mushroom. This is because cannabis has a very distinctive leaf pattern. Other plants such as salvia divinorum are also much easier to identify than fungi. Even psychoactive toads are easier to classify, because you will know if you get it wrong when the toad in question does not excrete a milky substance off its back when irritated.

Mushrooms on the other hand are notorious for being extremely difficult to properly identify by amateur hunters. This is due to the fact that the two most commonly used psychoactive mushrooms (psilocybe cubensis and amanita muscaria) are easily confused with other mushrooms of similar appearance. Psilocybin mushrooms are unfortunately a part of the L.B.M. (little brown mushroom) pantheon of mushrooms which encompass thousands of species. Unfortunately, some of the mushrooms are safe to eat and have hallucinogenic properties while others are deadly poisonous. With the case of cubensis, the only way to know for sure of its species is to perform certain tests including bruising paper tests. In general, it is highly inadvisable to try and obtain your own psilocybin cubensis mushrooms unless you are a learned mycologist (someone who studies mushrooms). Amanita muscaria is slightly easier to identify, but unfortunately the same problem of similar appearance occurs with this mushroom as well. Amanitas are a diverse and often similar-looking genus of mushrooms, and unfortunately certain species like the amanita phalloides are among the most deadly in the world. To make matters worse, you often won't know you are poisoned by a toxic mushroom until two days after you consume it. Pumping the stomach by then is a moot point and potential death is a very real possibility.

Another difficulty that arises is the legal issue. Certain psychoactives like Amanita muscaria are legal to possess, but most others that occur naturally in the United States such as peyote cacti or psilocybin mushrooms are illegal. This means that if you are caught harvesting or possessing these controlled substances, you face legal action. And it's hard to justify why you're in the middle of the woods or a pasture with a bag full of illegal mushrooms. Furthermore, certain substances like psilocybin mushrooms grow in large open spaces like farm fields or cow pastures. Usually these are privately owned, and if you're caught on someone else's property, you could face legal action for trespassing. In a worst case scenario, you could end up getting shot.

So what are the advantages of obtaining your own psychoactives in nature? Well, if you are informed enough to make a proper identification of a plant, animal, or mushroom, then you will reap the benefit of having fresh material that has been untainted by dealers or other preparations. Dealers often aren't the most honest of folks and ripping people off or lacing substances with harmful chemicals to improve profits is quite possible. By going out and getting your own stuff, you can oversee preparation processes yourself and know that your psychoactive is fresh from nature without dodgy middlemen. And of course there is the obvious reason, it's free. Picking your own mushrooms can mean avoiding spending the ridiculous black market sums needed to procure them outside of nature. I am in no way condoning breaking the law in order to obtain substances that have been made illegal by the U.S. government. However, these are the facts.

In conclusion, obtaining your own psychoactives out in nature is indeed a crapshoot. On one hand there's the freshness and cost benefit, but on the other there's the potential for making wrong classifications or facing legal action.