16 Sep What Happened to the Mushrooms, Man? Again…
We will no longer be selling the Amanita Muscaria Mushroom.
This is due to a number of stop sales placed on Chillum Mushroom and Hemp Dispensary by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Amanita muscaria mushroom products are still available through Learn Euphoria’s website
VISIT LEARN EUPHORIA’S WEBSITE
Last year, on December 7th, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) paid Chillum Mushrooms and Hemp Dispensary a little visit. They entered our location in Historic Ybor City for the purposes of placing a stop sale on our Amanita Muscaria mushrooms.
We had recently “upgraded” our brand at Chillum. Traditionally we specialized in Hemp and smoking products, but we decided to expand our product line and start selling “shroom” products. This meant a number of additions to our inventory but the FDACS were particularly interested in only one of those products and for a very specific reason. The claim was that Chillum Mushroom and Hemp Dispensary was selling a poisonous food.
Like cannabis and other psychedelics, there are a number of misconceptions about these mushrooms. Amanita Muscaria mushrooms were mistakenly considered poisonous by many amateur mycologists for a very long time. Although this misconception is starting to change there is quite a bit of info out on the internet that still makes this claim. Also the Food and Drug Administration has not evaluated Amanita Muscaria as a consumable food, which means it cant legally be sold as a food in the United States.
Chillum had done quite a bit of press claiming that the consumption of Amanita Muscaria will cause psychedelic effects. Whether you agree with the stigmas or not, we still don’t, the truth is the FDACS was well within its rights to claim that we were selling a poisonous mushroom as consumable food. They were indeed justified in their stop sale on Dec 7th.
Education, and breaking stigmas, has always been a big part of what we do here at Chillum. We took the stop sale as a sign that more education was needed. So… we set out to create a new company that focuses on education and we called this company Learn Euphoria. We will have online and in person education that will debuted on the Learn Euphoria website before the end of this month. But in order to break stigmas, that obviously still loom over the Amanita Muscaria mushroom we decided to provide Amanita products, for education only, under the Learn Euphoria educational brand.
We began selling Amanita Muscaria products, on the Learn Euphoria website, for the sole purpose of education. Once we were convinced that we had the product line figured out, we then debuted Learn Euphoria products at both Chillum locations and on our website.
The idea was the intention behind selling these products was now different. Yes we mistakenly began selling this mushroom for consumption purposes, which is very wrong. We wanted to put in the work to provide these products properly to the consumer.
So…
- We posted the info to our site and distributed press releases bringing to light the stop sale.
- In doing so we had the intention of informing the public that Amanita Muscaria Mushrooms are not an approved food by the FDA and that the FDACS considered this mushroom to be poisonous.
- We created a whole education brand, called Learn Euphoria, and began organizing initiatives to educate the public on psychedelics.
- These initiates include in person and online workshops, blogs, surveys, etc..
- We placed disclaimers instore, online, and on Learn Euphoria products
- These disclaimers informed that the mushroom was not considered a food by FDA, was considered poisonous by FDACS, that the mushroom was not to be consumed, that the use of this mushroom was only for education or spiritual purposes, and that the use of the mushroom for any other purpose other than education and spirituality would be considered an abuse of product.
Regardless of our efforts, it was not enough for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
This year, on August 8th, 2023 the FDACS paid us a little visit…
They entered our new St Petersburg location with the sole purpose of placing a stop sale on the Amanita Muscaria products. Although they did not give us much info, the idea seems that since we maintain a prepackaged retail food license at both our locations, we were selling the mushroom as a food regardless of how it was labeled or how we inform the consumer.
Unfortunately for our customers, we are going to have to comply with the stop sale. We have found quite a bit of success the past year; however, the process for contesting the stop sale with the FDACS is a long and costly appeals process. We are still a small business and we don’t have the resources to contest the stop sale.
It is because of all of this that we have removed the Amanita Muscaria mushroom products from both stores and have labeled them as sold out on our website. We will no longer be selling the Amanita Muscaria mushroom through Chillum Mushroom and Hemp Dispensary.
We are very saddened as a company that we can no longer carry these products and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this has cause our customer. It was a pleasure providing this product and we take great pride of the work we have done as far as educating the public on this magical mushroom. We have seen first had what benefits our customers enjoyed by providing this mushroom and we hope that one day we will be able to provide it again. Unfortunately the powers at be disagree and will not allow us to continue.
Learn Euphoria’s Amanita Muscaria products are still available through www.LearnEuphoria.com
VISIT LEARN EUPHORIA’S WEBSITE
One thing that we are proud of at Chillum Mushroom and Hemp is our advocacy in promoting and celebrating alternative culture. The psychedelic industry is very new… but it is here and it is here to stay. Chillum Mushroom and Hemp is moving past the Amanita Muscaria but this industry is evolving everyday.
We cannot wait to see what is next for this industry and how we can participate and promote this amazing part of alternative culture. More things to come….
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