Florida House and Senate panel have approved sweeping agriculture legislation that, among other changes, would explicitly outlaw the distribution of psychedelic mushroom spores and mycelium.
Members of the House Housing, Agriculture and Tourism Subcommittee voted at a hearing Tuesday to advance a bill, HB 651, from sponsor Rep. Kaylee Tuck (R). The nearly 150-page measure would make a variety of adjustments to Florida’s agricultural laws, including around agricultural lands, utilities and wildlife management.
With respect to psychedelics mushrooms, it would make it illegal “to transport, import, sell, offer for sale, furnish, or give away spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms or other material which will contain a controlled substance, including psilocybin or psilocyn, during its lifecycle.”
Violating the proposed law would be a first-degree misdemeanor, carrying a maximum of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
A companion bill, SB 700, which contains the same mushroom provisions, has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Keith Truenow (R). It was amended and approved unanimously last week by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment and General Government.
Prior to reporting the bill favorably on Tuesday, the House panel adopted a striking amendment that made a number of changes to the underlying bill, though the amendment did not substantively affect the provision dealing with spores and mycelium.
Psilocybin and psilocin are the two leading psychoactive compounds in psychedelic mushrooms. Although spores typically do not contain psilocybin or psilocin themselves, they eventually produce fruiting bodies—mushrooms—that do contain the psychedelic compounds.
Because the spores don’t contain any controlled substances, the federal government deems them legal.
“If the mushroom spores (or any other material) do not contain psilocybin or psilocin (or any other controlled substance or listed chemical), the material is considered not controlled,” Terrence Boos, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section chief, said in a memo last year. (Using a similar rationale, Boos has said that marijuana seeds are considered federally legal hemp because they themselves don’t contain THC.)
In Florida, a legislative report for HB 651 similarly notes that “spores do not contain any psilocybin properties themselves and therefore could be considered legal under current law.”
To prevent that, the proposal would clarify as illegal any spores or mycelium that could produce psilocybin or psilocin at any time in their development.
Members of the House panel did not mention the broad agriculture legislation’s psilocybin provisions during Tuesday’s hearing.
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