Risks of Magic Mushrooms
The effects of shrooms are the same as those of LSD. They mostly alter the perception of time, space, mood, and feelings. The effects of psilocybin vary between people depending on the mental state, personality, and environment.
People with mental illness face a higher risk of having an extremely bad experience. The most adverse event are reported after recreational use of shrooms is psychological distress. I was never interested in buying shrooms until they were legalized in Canada. Here are some risk factors of taking magic mushrooms:
Bad Trip
This is the common risk associated with the use of magic mushrooms. A bad trip can cause feelings of anxiety, fear, or paranoia. Temporary paranoia can occur following days of using shrooms.
The other unpleasant effects of a bad trip include; agitation, confusion, delirium, psychosis, and syndromes that are close to schizophrenia which might be an emergency. In some cases, these effects often resolve in 6-8 hours. One should visit a hospital immediately if the symptoms persist.
Hallucination
The hallucinogenic effect of magic mushrooms is also known as a flashback. It is the recall of an intensely traumatic experience. The occurrence of the upsetting experience might be from a bad trip or hallucination just takes control.
The hallucinogenic effects can last from weeks to years depending on the intake of psilocybin. It can also alter a person’s emotional experiences which can lead to dangerous behaviors when not supervised. Due to the hallucinogenic effects, it is advised to remove magic mushrooms from areas where there are kids to prevent accidental consumption.
Uncontrolled Behavior
People who take shrooms might engage in reckless behavior for example driving while intoxicated. In a case report, it was reported a young man jumped from a second-story balcony under the influence of magic mushrooms. It was concluded that even for a regular consumer without psychiatric history, the use of psilocybin can lead to a fatal outcome.
In another study, those who had previously used magic mushrooms ranked it as the least dangerous substance. However, those who had never used magic mushroomed ranked it as the second least most dangerous substance. Both non-users and users considered magic mushrooms to be less dangerous than cocaine, ecstasy, tobacco, and alcohol.
Potential Abuse
Psilocybin is not considered chemically addictive and there have not been physical symptoms after you stop using it. Cross-tolerance is likely to occur this means an individual becomes tolerant to the effects of psilocybin.
An individual might experience psychological withdrawal after several days of use. You might also have difficulty adjusting back to reality. The human body can build a tolerance to psilocybin such that you need much higher doses after a few days of use. This might make it difficult to have any effect even after repeated use.