Never before have I heard so many different people in one month about something completely unknown to me: magic mushrooms. A liquid that makes you laugh and hallucinate. The stuff is sold in bottles the size of a thumb and is not exactly cheap: in the Netherlands you spend between 120-150 euros per bottle.
Users take these drops in clubs, at festivals or in people’s homes. It is striking that organizations involved in drug use have no information about this. In fact, the Trimbos Institute has never even heard of these drops when asked.
Jellinek also could not confirm that there is a mushroom drop trend. According to the institution, it would be something that might only be used in ‘subscenes’. Both the Trimbos Institute and Jellinek say in a response that they base themselves on several drug monitors, including the National Drug Monitor. They do not see the use of mushroom drops in these monitors.
But how come I hear so many different people about this? And what exactly is this stuff? I decided to ask someone who produces and sells the drops. A friend sent me a number of someone who has been making magic mushrooms for three years. He was willing to speak to me, provided he remains anonymous. Because the production of mushroom drops is illegal, his name has been changed in this article. I also spoke to a number of users about their experiences with mushroom drops. I found them via-via, they come from Amsterdam and The Hague. Two of them bought the drops from Maarten. They also only wanted to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity, for reasons of privacy or possible consequences for their career. All real names are known to the editors.
Maarten* (39), dealer and producer of magic mushrooms drops.
“It all started when a friend of mine came to the Netherlands from London a few years ago. He had a bottle with him that contained a liquid of psilocybin: the psychoactive substance of magic mushrooms. We then used it together. I thought the effect was fantastic: four to five drops were enough for a trip that normally required me to eat two grams of dried mushrooms. That’s why I wanted more of those bottles.
I first bought five bottles for £200 each. Since my friends also gave it to other people, the demand grew quickly: everyone wanted it. That friend from London gradually sent me more and more bottles. But after a while I found it annoying to have to ask him again and again.
Then I thought: can’t I just make this myself? I know a lot of people in the psychedelics world and then I started asking around a bit. No one had heard of Dutch mushroom drops. They did know someone who could extract psilocybin from magic mushrooms.
Along with this man, a retired chemist, and a grower, a friend of mine who grows magic mushrooms, we started making these drops three years ago. That chemist absolutely loves doing this. He feels like Albert Hofmann. Due to the increased demand it feels a bit like we have a new psychedelic revolution have started. Where we started with less than 50 customers, there are now 900 people on our waiting list.
We make the drops from psilocybin extract and a synthetic form thereof: 4-AcO-DMT. My experience is that this combination makes you less introverted than when you use pure psilocybin. In the beginning it took a while to find the right proportions. Those were very nice weeks: we did a lot of testing together with ten friends. Some attempts were much too strong, others too light. After a month we had found just the right ratio. One drop is enough to feel a small effect. Six drops equals a solid trip. From that moment on we started spreading it.
My clients are students, business people, actors, directors and also many people in the dance scene. After we had been working for a year, demand exploded, especially in Amsterdam. In the middle of the corona time, I was cycling through Amsterdam a few times all day – from 11 am to 11 pm. I had a schedule with numbers and addresses that I would visit on a public transport bicycle. On such days I sold 60 to 70 bottles.
We spend the amount we earn on production. We don’t save a lot of money ourselves, but that’s not what we do it for. We spread this because we think that the drops can also be good for the mental health of people in addition to the recreational part.
Due to the high demand, we could grow, but the chemist does not have the extra space to grow more mushrooms. We can make a maximum of three liters of mushroom drops from the harvest from his mushroom garden of approximately four by four meters. Due to the long queue that has arisen as a result, I no longer bring the drops to Amsterdam. Customers must come to me now.
Because the use of mushroom drops is not completely risk-free, I always have personal contact with my customers. When you’re feeling bad, you can get panicky or have recurring thoughts. I think it’s important to tell them what to look out for. For example, people who have had psychoses, I advise against the use of mushroom drops. I also always send a basic text with user information after the contact moment.
However, I get a lot more positive than negative reactions. I really hope these drops become legal one day. For me, it doesn’t necessarily have to be in Albert Heijn, but rather with good instructions for use in pharmacies.”
*Carlijn (30), gives sewing lessons and has used mushroom drops about forty times
“Before the corona pandemic, I had never used psychedelics. That changed when my boyfriend proposed to get together in the spring of 2020 drips to take. He had already taken it a few times and said it was fun. I remember thinking: sounds funny, I’d like to try that. Not much later he had bought his own bottle. The first time, I carefully dropped a drop on the patch of skin between my thumb and index finger. Then I licked that up. I found it extremely bitter – a bit aspirin-like. After that, everything I saw took on a kind of light glow.
Nowadays I do it a lot more often: twice a month on average. Then I take one to two drops. Often when going out with friends, but also when I am walking through nature. During a violent trip, everything seems very soft. When I walk through the dunes, for example, I tend to pet the plants. But the colors also look much more vibrant than usual. Watching the sunset is really fantastic because of the orange and pink colors. Some people take these drops because it makes them laugh, but for me it’s all about the visual aspect. I really like seeing a different world.
It has only happened once that the drops did not fall well. I was at the Berghain in Berlin at the time, with a group of people I didn’t know. The unsafe feeling I had because of that was reinforced by those drops. That feeling got so bad that I decided to leave. But once I got home, the trip led me to the conclusion that if you stand in your own strength, you don’t need anyone to feel safe. So even though I felt like shit for a while, I still learned a nice lesson from it in the end.”
*Dyllan (26) is an Anthropology student and has used mushroom drops six times
“A year ago I was sitting in a record store in Amsterdam with seven people. One of them pulled out a small bottle with a pipette on the cap. He dripped a liquid on his hand and then licked it up. Before I even knew what it was, I joined him. I immediately took two drops. My image started to move, some things got very magnified and certain details stood out. I noticed that the boy I was talking to had a twitching eyelid. I couldn’t not look at that. The whole time I felt like his eye was going to fall out. I also had to laugh all the time, so much that it eventually gave me a bit of a headache.
A few months after that first time, I bought my first bottle of my own. I thought 120 euros was quite expensive, but now that I look back on it, it’s not that bad. The bottle is still not finished, while I have tripped several times and also lend the bottle a lot to others.
In addition to the laughter, the drops also ensure that I put things into perspective and take things less seriously. It helps me to see events or issues from a different perspective.”
*Zoé (25), recently completed the Political Communication study and has used mushroom drops more than thirty times
“In December I bought my first bottle with two friends. From then on we use it almost every weekend. At parties, on the terrace and at friends’ homes. There is always someone who has the bottle with them: almost three bottles have already gone through it. We had bought the last two bottles from another dealer, because the waiting time of the first one is super long.
Normally I take one drop. I’m not going to hallucinate. Everything is just that little bit funnier. With that dose I feel relaxed and happy.
Last New Year’s Eve I took four drops – super stupid. The houseplants vibrated and the images from the TV came at me. It wasn’t even twelve o’clock yet, I still had the whole evening to go. At some point, a friend’s new girlfriend came in and I couldn’t act normal. I was laughing to myself nonstop. Everyone really thought: wtf is going on with you? In the beginning, I often said to friends who hadn’t used it yet, “I have something new, do you want to try this?” People were not really keen on that at first, because ‘psychedelics’. But because it also has a laughing effect, at least fifteen people in my area are now using it.”
Good to know: there are several producers who make mushroom drops. They determine how the drops are composed, so the liquid does not contain standard psilocybin and 4-AcO-DMT. The drug testing service does not test for psilocybin, but if you want to rule out that there is something else in your bottle, you can have it tested there.
Response from the Trimbos Institute on the risks of psilocybin and 4-AcO-DMT
Magic mushrooms contain the substance psilocybin: a substance that is only very slightly toxic and will therefore rarely have direct negative effects on the health of the user, especially in low doses. The chance of addiction is very small. However, it is a substance that can cause behavioral changes in people (which is why many people take them). This can also have a negative effect. You can think of relatively harmless things: experiencing the world differently than people around you, which makes it difficult to communicate, to distinguish main issues from side issues, or to become chaotic. In people who are already more vulnerable mentally (and you don’t always know that yourself), it can also take more serious forms, such as psychoses.
In the body, psilocybin is converted into the actual active ingredient psilocin. 4-AcO-DMT (4-Acetoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine) is a substance very similar to psilocin. It is also called O-acetylpsilocin. Like psilocybin, it is probably a so-called “pro-drug” of psilocin: the acetoxy group falls off in the liver and you are left with psilocin. The effects and risks are therefore very similar (if not equal) to those of psilocin/mushrooms. Some people think that there are differences in the subjective effects, but they seem to be mainly about side effects (less nausea, for example, which you often see with magic mushrooms). A few claim that 4-AcO-DMT itself also has a psychoactive effect. Really good studies have never been done on all this, despite 4-AcO-DMT being synthesized as early as 1963 (by Albert Hofmann).