A magic mushroom dispensary is opening in Montreal. The only problem? It's illegal

A chain that sells illegal hallucinogenic mushrooms opened a Montreal location on Tuesday, risking a police raid and the possible arrest of their employees.

The shop, FunGuyz, advertises itself as a "medical dispensary" that sells magic mushrooms, a type of fungus that is considered a hallucinogen.

The production, sale and possession of magic mushrooms are illegal in Canada, except for some medical contexts which require special permission from Health Canada. 

But the people behind FunGuyz say they should be legalized.

UPDATE: Montreal police raid illegal magic mushroom shop same day it opened

FunGuyz already operates 11 locations in Ontario, five of them in Toronto. Police have raided several of the stores, have seized stock and arrested employees, but each store reopened shortly afterward.

Their owners are challenging the charges in court, a spokesperson for the store said Monday.

At the store Tuesday morning, a man working behind the counter who identified himself as one of the owners and said his name was Hector Hernandez, said he and his partners expected police to raid the store, but said he wanted to assure customers that it would reopen immediately.

"We're not going anywhere," he said.

Francis, a customer who declined to provide a last name, purchased three bags of magic mushrooms. He said he microdoses them — taking only small quantities — to manage symptoms of a head injury he sustained in a woodworking accident five years ago. 

The store's existence is part of a broader push to legalize magic mushrooms. 

Jean-Sébastien Fallu, an addictions specialist and assistant professor at the Université de Montréal's School of Psychoeducation, said the people behind FunGuyz are engaging in civil disobedience similar to that of those who opened cannabis stores prior to its legalization. 

"Social change happens through different paths," Fallu said. "Either with debate and rational argument — that's my job, my business — but some choose civil disobedience and human history has shown that civil disobedience is a way of changing things."

Fallu said there is a growing body of scientific research showing the potential therapeutic benefits of magic mushrooms.

FunGuyz says the products it sells are therapeutic. The store spokesperson said the products the shop sells aren't for recreational use, adding that they are instead intended as a kind of medical product.

But medical use of psilocybin, the main active compound in magic mushrooms that causes hallucinations, is tightly controlled by Health Canada. 

A path to legalization?

Dr. Houman Farzin, a physician at the Montreal Jewish General Hospital who uses psilocybin as part of psychotherapy for cancer patients in palliative care, said he sees FunGuyz's push for legalization as fundamentally different from the push to have the drug recognized as having therapeutic merit in the right circumstances. 

"I don't think it has any relevance to the medical side," he said. "The reality is the medical model that we're applying and developing is very specific and the people that go to the medical system are different; their needs are different.

"Doing this for wellness, for recreation, is very different than doing this for therapy."

Farzin added that recent data, expected to be published soon, shows much of the population is in favour of the therapeutic use of psilocybin and even its full legalization. 

"Activism has a role to play," he said. "The reality is that even in our medical model, we've had to deploy activism to get patients access [to psilocybin] and so what's happening with this store is activism to give the population at large access."

The FunGuyz spokesperson said the store was slated to open at 11 a.m. on Tuesday. 

A Montreal police spokesperson declined to say whether officers planned to raid the store or not, but said the police service intended to enforce the law as it is written in the criminal code. 

François Bonnardel, Quebec's public security minister, said in a statement that hallucinogenic drugs, including mushrooms, are illegal and their sale can result in criminal charges. 

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said in a statement that, "despite her administration's strong position in favour of decriminalization of drug possession" the sale of psilocybin remains illegal and Montreal police "will continue to enforce the law."  

The federal government has acknowledged an increasing interest in the "potential therapeutic uses of magic mushrooms and psilocybin," according to a publication on the Health Canada website. But said that "while clinical trials with psilocybin have shown promising results, at this time, there are no approved therapeutic products containing psilocybin in Canada or elsewhere."

Health Canada only grants access to psilocybin for clinical trials or on a case-by-case basis for trained health care practitioners to use in specific circumstances.

Hernandez, the store co-owner, said the people behind FunGuyz planned to open three or four other stores in Quebec, with locations planned elsewhere in Montreal, in Laval and in Trois-Rivières.