Psychedelic mushrooms a Treasure Coast attraction

July 09, 2001 News staff report

That "bad trip" from eating hallucinogenic mushrooms found in Treasure Coast pastures might lead to the county jail. It could even end in the morgue, especially if a poisonous variety is ingested by mistake.

Violators caught picking psychedelic mushrooms on private property no longer will be given warnings, as was done in previous years, said Indian River County Sheriff Roy Raymond. At the minimum, offenders will be charged with trespassing, which carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail.

Recently, one youth was arrested and charged with trespassing and two juveniles were released to the custody of their parents after they were caught in a pasture across from Sebastian River High School, near County Roads 510 and 512. The youths had three bags filled with mushrooms, said Deputy Neil Bevis. If lab tests confirm the presence of psilocybin, an offender can be charged with a third-degree felony, said Lawrence Mirman of the state attorney’s office.

Psilocybin is a hallucinogenic chemical that is found naturally in some forms of fungus. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. But prosecutors must prove a suspect knew the mushrooms were hallucinogenic. Some local arrests have involved people from as far away as Tennessee and Alabama a fact that might not be so surprising considering the publicity the Treasure Coast has received for its mushrooms.

A Web site listing locations of pastures where hallucinogenic mushrooms grow, in every county in Florida, refers to the pasture across from Sebastian River High School as a "field of dreams," Bevis said. Deputies and Raymond spent a recent weekend rounding up youths who were hopping over fences or cutting them to obtain access to pastures where the mushrooms grow.

About a dozen were caught one recent Saturday afternoon, picking mushrooms in the same pasture where an arrest occurred three days earlier. John Bradley leases 480 acres where a recent arrest occurred. He has started patrolling his pastures every day where his 110 head of cattle graze.

"There can be as many as 15 to 20 people out there at any one time," Bradley said. "They keep my cows running from pasture to pasture, and, at night, they spook the cows and they run through fences." Martin County has had its share of mushroom seekers traveling from far and wide to cow pastures in Indiantown. Sheriff’s deputies estimate 50 to 100 people are arrested each year during the rainy season on trespass violations related to mushroom picking.

Although the most recent mushroom-picker arrest involved a local man, not just local people know about pastures west of Interstate 95 and Florida’s Turnpike. Fields in Indiantown and St. Lucie County are included on the North Florida Shroom Guide on the Internet.

"The problem is, a lot of these kids come up here and they don’t know what they’re picking," said Martin County sheriff’s Lt. Ken Ault. "There’s a lot of poisonous stuff up here." Cows on area ranches have become a useful police tool in capturing would-be mushroom hunters. Ault was assisted by a cow about a month ago, when he arrested a 20-year-old Martin County man in an Indiantown cow pasture.

"Anytime (there’s) a stranger or an animal that they’re concerned about, there’s always a spotter cow. She was standing out there like a pointer dog looking right at this guy lying down." St. Lucie County officials say their biggest problem relating to the mushroom hunters is trespassing. "It occurs every year, usually in small numbers," sheriff’s office spokesman Mark Weinberg said. What attracts people to these mushrooms is the "high" that has been compared with a mild LSD trip.

The chemical, psilocybin, produces a feeling of euphoria and can involve hallucinations, said James Kimbrough, a mycologist with the University of Florida at Gainesville. He’s studied mushrooms for 37 years. Mushrooms can be eaten or dried and smoked. Or, they can be brewed into a type of tea. But some species of mushrooms are deadly when eaten.

There are about 320 groups of mushrooms with multiple species of mushrooms in each group. Mushrooms begin to flourish this time of year because of the rains. More than a dozen species of mushrooms are toxic if eaten. Those toxic species can be found in pastures, along with the hallucinogenic varieties, especially near the pasture edge and at the base of trees. Hallucinogenic mushrooms are found in pastures on manure piles, predominantly cow manure piles, Kimbrough said. "We all know how cows like to stand under trees," he said.

The toxins reportedly produce a breakdown of red blood cells in the liver and kidneys. Early symptoms might be mild, and include nausea and sweating. But a few days later, Kimbrough said, jaundice would develop and the person, ultimately, would require a liver transplant. As with LSD, long-term use of hallucinogenic mushrooms can produce personality changes and can induce "flashbacks" from earlier hallucinations. "I think the greatest danger is misidentification," Kimbrough said.

Gabriel Margasak and Sarah Myrick, of the News staff, and Debbie Robinson, of the Vero Beach Press Journal, contributed to this report.

July 09, 2001