This article explains how psilocybin works, including the potential effects and risks. Although current research does not consider psilocybin addictive, users may experience disturbing hallucinations, anxiety, and panic after taking the drug. If you or someone you know is fighting drug addiction, recovery is possible.

NIDA is a biomedical research organization and does not provide personalized medical advice, treatment, counseling, or legal consultation. Information provided by NIDA is not a substitute for professional medical care or legal consultation. The strength of magic mushrooms varies depending on their freshness, the season and where they grow. The concentration of active psilocybin mushroom compounds varies from species to species but also from mushroom to Avery’s Albino Mushroom within a given species, subspecies or variety.[43] The species Psilocybe azurescens contains the most psilocybin (up to 1.78%). Despite evidence of its medical benefits, critics are concerned about the drug's potency.

If you're experiencing treatment-resistant depression, Dr. Cusin and Dr. Ghaznavi recommend speaking with your doctor about what clinical trials testing psychedelics may be available. It's important to know that this approach is experimental, and your doctor cannot prescribe magic mushrooms or toad venom. But in fact, these "magic mushrooms" are currently one of the hottest subjects in psychiatric research. For years, whispers have circulated about an underground network of athletes -- primarily ex-athletes -- using psilocybin, the compound in magic mushrooms, to treat traumatic brain injuries, anxiety and depression.

In The Netherlands, psilocybin truffles are legal, though other forms of the compound are not. Here’s a closer look at the status of psychedelics around the globe, including the ever-changing landscapes of legalisation, decriminalisation and drug review agency approvals. Marks says that criminalisation of drugs, including psychedelics, creates more harm than good. Regardless, genetic diversity like that of Australia's naturalized population can help pull back the curtain further on magic mushrooms, offering valuable new details about what exactly they – and we – are capable of. The team from Australia and the US hoped to reveal the evolutionary history of the fungi growing wild in Australia and to learn how domestication has altered commercially available cultivars of the magic mushroom species.