Police raid magic mushroom shop, arrest two

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This article was published 19/05/2023 (876 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

City police have raided an Osborne Street storefront claiming to be the first magic mushroom dispensary in Manitoba and arrested two people involved in its operations.

“At the end of the day, this is just drug trafficking. These are drug traffickers. That’s all this is,” said Insp. Elton Hall of the Winnipeg Police Service, during a news conference Friday evening against the backdrop of a psychedelic mural near the corner of River Avenue.

Six days after opening its doors, Magic Mush — a shop decorated with paintings of colourful fungi that started selling hallucinogens — was shut down by authorities.

The commander of the WPS organized crime division said two people have been charged with possession of illegal drugs for the purpose of trafficking, and more individuals could be implicated as the investigation continues.

Police indicated they were made aware of the situation May 13, and later learned operators were asking customers to use an ATM and collecting psilocybin mushrooms from another location to “resupply” and sell at the site via cash-only transactions.

Psilocybin is an active chemical compound in magic mushrooms. It is classified as a Schedule III substance under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

Unless authorized by Health Canada, the production, sale and possession of it is illegal. Some exemptions have been made for people living with mental health disorders, among other reasons, in the past.

Local officers initially considered taking a “softer approach,” involving a police site visit to inform operators the dispensary was illegal and asking them to shut it down immediately, Hall said.

“Once the media attention happened, and the lawyer was in the media commenting on it, my position changed and we took an enforcement approach and this has turned into a drug investigation — not just here,” he said, adding the investigation may become interprovincial.

Earlier this week, a Winnipeg-based lawyer representing the dispensary’s operators told the Free Press the people behind the Osborne Street shop also have locations in Ottawa and Toronto.

“We are trying to run a responsible enterprise as best we can,” said Jamie Kagan, an attorney at Thompson Dorfman Sweatman. “There are a lot of issues in Winnipeg that need police attention. A business selling a product that people want and can consume with care doesn’t need to be the focus of their attention.”

Kagan did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Hall urged customers who have visited Magic Mush in recent days to either hand over purchases to police or flush anything they bought from the site down the toilet.

“There’s no way to determine if these are safe drugs or not or what the effects are going to be, so there’s no safe approach (here),” he said, noting WPS will not be taking action against people who’ve purchased from the shop.

The inspector indicated Friday police observed hundreds of individuals enter and exit the facility in recent days.

Given similar dispensaries have been cropping up across Canada, Hall said he figured it was only a matter of time before local police would face the issue.

He likened the investigation to many of the ones officers conducted when selling cannabis was illegal before 2018.

Not long after the news conference, multiple passersby attempted to enter the storefront before realizing it was shuttered.

A returning customer who did not provide his name to a reporter said police should be focused on violent crimes rather than shutting down a shop selling something “that grows naturally.”

Meantime, “It’s not surprising, but it is disappointing — how far behind Canada itself is on harm reduction,” said Mel Zebrynski, an area resident and self-described harm-reduction advocate.

“There’s been so many studies on how helpful (psilocybin) can be (for mental health challenges) and it’s just frustrating, because we’re all adults and we should be able to make those choices for ourselves. I feel like it’s kind of against freedoms to try and control what we do with our lives.”

While Hall indicated he is not opposed to discussions about drug decriminalization, he reiterated police enforce the law and this operation was illegal.

Police indicated further details about arrests and items seized during the Friday search would be released at a later date.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie