ANN ARBOR, MI – Ann Arbor police are checking to see if a service offering same-day delivery of so-called ‘magic’ mushrooms in the city is in compliance with the law.
Despite both the city and Washtenaw County taking recent measures to loosen restrictions on psilocybin mushrooms, police said they are investigating whether the services offered by Arbor Shrooms, which advertises on colorful flyers throughout the city, are legal.
Arbor Shrooms features a variety of mushrooms on its website starting at $20 per gram and describes trip levels from “relaxed euphoria” to “total loss.”
Plants such as ayahuasca, ibogaine, mescaline, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms and other compounds with hallucinogenic properties are still deemed illegal under state and federal law, but there has been a push to decriminalize the substances in recent years, including a current ballot proposal initiative underway in Michigan.
The push for the ballot proposal comes after Ann Arbor decriminalized the use and possession of magic mushrooms and psychedelics in September 2020, declaring it the city’s lowest law enforcement priority to investigate and arrest anyone for entheogenic plants and fungi.
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But the city’s legislation states it does not authorize or enable “commercial sales or manufacturing of these plants and fungi, possessing or distributing these materials in schools, driving under the influence of these materials, or public disturbance.”
“From what I can tell, it looks to be a business that is growing and selling, so I would call that manufacturing mushrooms, which as I read the council resolution, falls outside the scope of the council when that resolution was developed,” Ann Arbor police Lt. Mike Scherba said in reference to Arbor Shrooms.
Scherba later confirmed police would be investigating.
“We will be looking into this business to ensure they are in compliance,” Scherba said.
Washtenaw prosecutor won’t charge people for marijuana, shrooms, other psychedelics
Arbor Shrooms maintains it’s not a business, however — it is not registered with the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, according to online records — and its proprietors defended their practices in a statement to MLive/The Ann Arbor News.
“We have a legal team and believe we’re operating within the bounds of the current law,” the statement reads. “We are trying to make it clear that we’re not an operator at all; we are a service to connect the existing psychedelic community with patients in need who don’t have transportation and are in need of delivery and aren’t in a position to grow their own medicine. Arbor Shrooms is not a corporation, it’s a community, where patients can connect with mycologists, the farmers and custodians of these sacred medicines. Patients can gain direct and safe access to now decriminalized medicine…
Read more:‘Magic’ mushroom delivery service advertising in Ann Arbor raises legal questions,