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Anno
Experimenter
Registered: 06/17/99
Posts: 24,166
Loc: my room
Last seen: 18 days, 21 hours
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Illegal activities sprout along with mushrooms
#4285626 - 06/12/05 02:40 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2005/06/12/m1c_slShrooms_0612.html
Illegal activities sprout along with mushrooms The Treasure Coast is fertile ground for a hallucinogenic fungus.
By Sofia Santana Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 12, 2005
The season's heavy rains recede slowly, leaving small, muddy puddles in a cow pasture along Jenkins Road in suburban Fort Pierce.
Here, spoon-sized caps of maturing beige mushrooms peek through tufts of vibrant green grass. FIELD TRIP: The photograph shows a psilocybin mushroom growing in cow manure. It is estimated that a dozen arrests are made each year in St. Lucie County and twice as many in Martin of people illegally picking the hallucinogenic mushrooms.
The moist field is fertile ground for an abundance of these mushrooms ? the psychedelic and potentially poisonous kind.
"Magic mushroom" pickers often flock to rural pockets of the Treasure Coast during the wet season in search of the mushrooms that sprout from small piles of dung and contain a hallucinogen similar to LSD called psilocybin.
Two St. Lucie teens were arrested on trespassing charges this week after deputies found them at the Jenkins Road pasture with a bag stuffed with mushrooms. St. Lucie County sheriff's deputies seized the mushrooms, and the regional crime lab in Fort Pierce is testing them for psilocybin. If the mushrooms contain the hallucinogen, the teens could also be charged with a felony.
"There are two things we respond to: the trespassing and then the mushrooms," said St. Lucie Sheriff Ken Mascara.
The sheriff's offices in Martin and St. Lucie counties regularly patrol rural areas and are not shy about using helicopters and blocking off areas to catch suspected pickers. They also hope the aggressive tactics will deter others, many of whom apparently learn about the mushroom patches on the Treasure Coast from the Internet, authorities say.
Drug Enforcement Administration officials estimate that about a dozen suspected mushroom pickers are caught each year in St. Lucie, and at least twice as many in Martin.
People who live near these pastures say the mushroom-pickers are a nuisance more than anything else.
"It's just not a very respectful thing to do to march on someone else's property without asking," said Mary Smith, who lives near a pasture along Edwards Road in St. Lucie. "The animals get scared easily and they kick the fence or run through it and get hurt like that."
Others worry the problem could be more serious, saying that people are being hired to pick the psychedelic mushrooms that will later be dried and sold illegally. The mother of one of the teens arrested this week for trespassing said her 16-year-old son was one of those hired by a local man.
"I'm extremely concerned, and as a parent, I'm drug-free and don't condone or accept that," said the mother, who asked not to be identified in order to protect the identity of her son.
She said it was the first time her son had picked mushrooms, and she hopes he learns from the experience.
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esin
cheesefondue
Registered: 11/21/01
Posts: 1,275
Loc: Lysergia
Last seen: 14 years, 4 months
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Re: Illegal activities sprout along with mushrooms [Re: Anno]
#4285862 - 06/12/05 05:38 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
The mother of one of the teens arrested this week for trespassing said her 16-year-old son was one of those hired by a local man.
Suuuuuuuure
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rocknliam
happy willowdweller
Registered: 12/12/03
Posts: 307
Last seen: 10 years, 3 months
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Re: Illegal activities sprout along with mushrooms [Re: esin]
#4285908 - 06/12/05 07:19 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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No man thats true, AND it was his first time too!
Haha, parents don't want to believe their kids might be interested in anything slightly left of center
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SuperD
Cacti junky
Registered: 10/05/03
Posts: 6,648
Loc: The bridgesii bridge
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Re: Illegal activities sprout along with mushrooms [Re: rocknliam]
#4285956 - 06/12/05 07:59 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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<<She said it was the first time her son had picked mushrooms, and she hopes he learns from the experience.>>
He would have learned a lot more from the experience if he had eaten the mushrooms.
-------------------- D Manoa said: I need to stop spending all my money on plants and take up a cheaper hobby, like heroin. Looking for Rauhocereus riosaniensis seeds or live specimen(s), me if you have any for trade
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OneMoreRobot3021
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,026
Loc: the sky
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Re: Illegal activities sprout along with mushrooms [Re: Anno]
#4286237 - 06/12/05 10:19 AM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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I can't believe you can be arrested for picking mushrooms.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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kake
The answer to1984 is 1776.
Registered: 05/06/99
Posts: 2,782
Loc: The 66th harmonic
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Re: Illegal activities sprout along with mushrooms [Re: OneMoreRobot3021]
#4286965 - 06/12/05 01:35 PM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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Right...I understand their logic(which is flawed any way) in making it illegal to grow them, but then on top of that, its a felony for simply picking up mushrooms from a field??? What if you were out collecting species, and you happened to pick up some Psilocybes along the way, they go back and test them, now you're a FELON? <b>WTF.</b> How are you supposed to know they have psilocybin in them? Last I checked, we aren't embedded with supercomputers that can analyze a mushroom on site.
Granted, I'm sure this kid was just going for the Psilocybes, but the law is inherently fucked.
-------------------- The answer to 1984 is 1776.
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Mitchnast
Toadmonger
Registered: 10/27/99
Posts: 8,656
Loc: Okanagan
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Re: Illegal activities sprout along with mushrooms [Re: kake]
#4288722 - 06/12/05 08:22 PM (18 years, 9 months ago) |
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go picking in pairs, one on lookout. see the cops? run! have an escape route in advance. a ditch spot is also handy. hollow tree, flat rock over hole, etc.
bring a fishing line. in MANY places, it legal for angler with fishing licenses to cross private property to reach bodies of water. the provision is you must not harm the property or enter posted land
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