MADURAI: Magic mushrooms, the illegal yet famed fungi of the Kodai hills that induce hallucination, are playing a trick on prosecutors.The question before the courts now is: Should they consider the quantity of the mushrooms or that of psilocybin, the psychoactive compound, in it? In the absence of a system to ascertain the active ingredient, peddlers are getting away with a rap on the knuckles.Here’s the latest case: Possession of 55g of magic mushrooms should have sent two men in Kodaikanal to at least 10 years in prison. Instead, they walked away after an 11-month imprisonment because the prosecution failed to prove how much psilocybin the seized mushrooms contained.Police arrested R Sivabalan, 36, of Kodaikanal, and L Kannan, 42, of Kerala’s Idukki district, on charges of selling magic mushrooms to tourists near Poondi bus stop in Feb 2024. They seized 55g of mushrooms from them. The prosecution argued that 50g constituted a commercial quantity under NDPS Act and sought a prison term of at least 10 years.And then, the defence found a hole: The laboratory did not state “how much psilocybin and psilocin” the sample contained. It said the overall weight of the mushrooms alone was insufficient to establish possession of a commercial quantity of the prohibited substance.Judge K Alli said the prosecution neither quantified the psilocybin nor examined the forensic expert to establish the quantity of the banned ingredient. The special anti-drug court in Madurai on June 29 convicted the duo for an intermediate quantity (2g to 50g) and imposed 11 months’ imprisonment, while allowing the period already spent in custody to be deducted.“This is not an isolated case. The story of magic mushroom smugglers using the absence of chemical quantification to escape severe punishment continued to play out for the past two years,” a senior Dindigul police officer said.Madras high court heard a similar case in 2024, when the Kodaikanal police opposed bail to a man caught allegedly with 56g of magic mushrooms. Justice N Anand Venkatesh said the court could not presume that 56g of mushrooms contained an equal quantity of the banned chemical. He granted bail to the accused while clarifying that the finding was only preliminary and could be contested during trial.A Tamil Nadu forensic official said dried magic mushrooms commonly contain around 0.5% to 1% psilocybin by weight, although concentrations vary widely between species and samples. “Broadly, 50g of mushrooms contain 250mg to 500mg of psilocybin.” he said.Botanist V Sivapriya said the quantity of the mushroom, not the active ingredient, should be considered. “In the case of ganja, the total weight — including buds, leaves or amorphous powder — is taken into account. Mushrooms containing psilocybin should be treated similarly because Tamil Nadu laboratories do not quantify the chemical separately,” she said.
