Denver officials want to get ahead of regulation for magic mushrooms

People eating some of the now-recalled Diamond Shruumz brand candies may also have been getting a dose of an illegal substance from magic mushrooms, testing by a Virginia poison control center has confirmed.

The Blue Ridge Poison Center at the University of Virginia says they found psilocin among the undisclosed substances mixed into Diamond Shruumz gummies. 

Psilocin, like the hallucinogenic psilocybin found in some kinds of mushrooms, is a schedule I controlled substance by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"You can't look at these labels and say, 'Oh I know what's in here, I know how to treat this,' or if I'm a consumer, 'I know what I'm taking,'" Dr. Avery Michienzi, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Virginia who was the lead author on the report, told CBS News. The team's findings were published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Michienzi is also the assistant medical director of the Blue Ridge Poison Center, which fields calls from the public and doctors across central Virginia, Michienzi said, a largely rural portion of the state spanning 48 hospitals.

"I would caution people to be very wary of these products because, as it stands now, no one's looking at them, no one's regulating them, and they can put anything in there that they want as long as they don't put it on the label," she said.

The center began testing mushroom gummies from several brands to help doctors treating the patients after five emergency room visits — including one young child who accidentally ate the gummies — in the region last year were linked to eating gummies. More have been reported since.

"We like to be aware of what's going on around our community so that we are able to appropriately counsel physicians and patients, if they come into our emergency department, on what they're using," said Michienzi.

Michienzi's center tested gummies purchased at local smoke shops and gas stations, which had been marketed as natural "nootropics" to purportedly help boost cognition or as legal alternatives to psilocybin to get a psychedelic experience.

Scientists at the University of Virginia broke the gummies down into a solution, then used an approach called high-resolution mass spectrometry which can match unidentified compounds found in the gummies against a library of known substances.

Instead of psilocybin, some of the gummies they tested had been labeled as claiming to use legal extracts of a mushroom called Amanita muscaria. That mushroom can cause hallucinogenic effects, but are rarely ingested because they cause side effects like seizures and gastrointestinal upset.

In its recall, Prophet Premium Blends claimed that unexpectedly high levels of muscimol from Amanita mushrooms were to blame for the Diamond Shruumz issues.

"It's just not as commonly sought after for the psychedelic experience. So that's what kind of led me to scratch my head a little bit, when we got the calls for these cases. I said, 'wait, what? We're selling Amanita muscaria gummies now?'," she said.

Michienzi said their center had not fielded any cases of poisonings specifically linked to Diamond Shruumz candies, unlike other states that have seen a number of serious illnesses.

At least 69 illnesses and 36 hospitalizations have been linked to consuming Diamond Shruumz "edibles," the CDC says, which included chocolates and cones as well as gummies. Multiple hospitalizations have been in children.

"We've had a couple pediatric ingestions, and those worry me a little bit more, because a kid is not going to eat the appropriate, quote unquote, dose of one of these things. They're just going to eat it, and they taste good so they keep eating it," said Michienzi.

Testing of Diamond Shruumz brand chocolate bars by the Food and Drug Administration has turned up other undeclared substances like psilacetin, sometimes nicknamed "synthetic shrooms." Testing of more products from the brand is planned.

"FDA has initiated sample collection and analysis and more information will be provided in our advisory as it becomes available," Courtney Rhodes, an FDA spokesperson, said in an email.

The FDA has urged smoke shops and other retailers to stop selling the products in recent days, after finding they were still on shelves more than a month after the agency warned about the now-recalled products. 

Michienzi cautioned that the issue was not unique to Diamond Shruumz. Poisonings treated in their region have been linked to gummies from other brands, which she said they are still finding in stores alongside new products showing up on shelves.

One of the other brands that the Blue Ridge Poison Center purchased from local smoke shops and gas stations was found to have psilocybin in addition to psilocin, as well as other ingredients not declared on the label. Another brand had the hallucinogen DMT and kratom, which can lead to opioid addiction. A third was found to have ephedrine, a stimulant.

"Owners and people that work there told me that, 'Oh we can't sell this brand anymore. We've been told that one's not OK. But we can sell this brand now.' So they're constantly changing," said Michienzi.

This story has been updated with details of what was found in some of the other brands tested.

In:
• Product Recall
• Magic Mushrooms

Alexander Tin

Alexander Tin is a digital reporter for CBS News based in the Washington, D.C. bureau. He covers the Biden administration's public health agencies, including the federal response to infectious disease outbreaks like COVID-19.

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