Tiney Ricciardi is a reporter for the Denver Post who wrote an interesting article about a story that Jeana mentioned in Wednesday's news: Illegal "magic mushroom" chocolates for sale in Denver, officials warn
More: Health officials warn not to buy 'psychoactive' PolkaDot brand chocolate bars, other items
I asked Tiney by email (which led to her guest appearance today) this question: What I’m trying to understand, beyond the (il)legality of selling psilocybin in stores, is whether the PolkaDot products that are being sold that do contain the psychoactive ingredients state on the label that they do, or whether they look like they contain other mushrooms but not the compounds mentioned in your article.
And here's her reply:
Thanks for reading my story and reaching out. The reason you are confused is because these illicit producers intentionally make it confusing, and it varies case by case. Sometimes products will state on the label that they contain hallucinogenic compounds, such as psilocybin. However, if you are trying to sell those products in stores or online, having that information on the label/website/social media/etc. puts you at risk. Complicating matters further is that you can't really trust what's on the label of these products anyhow because no one is forcing illicit producers to truthfully advertise. The only way to truly know is to test them.
If you look at the picture of this PolkaDot mushroom bar, it states that it contains non-psychoactive mushrooms like turkey tail, cordyceps, reishi, etc. It also advertises "magic mushroom bar" -- none of the aforementioned mushrooms are considered "magic" -- and "nootropics," which are typically non-hallucinogenic additives. We can't see the back of the label, but how likely is it that a store will carry these if the owner knows it has drugs in it? Perhaps if the label doesn't explicitly say it, then he/she can claim ignorance and the product will more likely make it to shelves. (PolkaDot is also somewhat unique here. Because it has been so popular for so long, there are many copycats on the market. I'm told the only way to get an original one is through Signal.)
Now if you look at the case of Diamond Shruumz, their website originally advertised chocolate bars with "trippy little squares" that contained a proprietary mushroom blend. If you dug through its blog, you'd see it was advertising that the blend contained non-psychedelic mushrooms like lion's mane, reishi, etc. It also previously had test results posted on its site showing they contained amanita muscaria, which is not illegal though it does offer a unique kind of "trip." Well, it turns out there were other things not mentioned on their website including synthetic psilocybin compounds, psilocin, Pregabalin (a prescription drug), compounds from the kava plant and more -- which made hundreds of people sick and possibly killed 3 people.
There are plenty of other companies out there that hide behind the "mushroom blend" language, as well as many who overtly state "this product contains psilocybin." All you have to do is dig a little bit or follow their paid influencers to figure it out, but again you never really know what's in there. At the end of the day, it's a marketing game to try and reach consumers -- however knowing or unknowing those customers might be.