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HONOLULU STAR BULLETIN
Thursday, March 1, 1973. Page B1.


Heroin Apparently Killed 'Magic Mushroom' Victem
A youth who ate "magic mushrooms" shortly before his death, died from "poisoning due to drugs, probably heroin," said Dr. Alvin V. Majoska, of the Medical Examiner's Office.

Before he died on Christmas Day, John Gomilla Jr., 18, of Bowie, Md., told doctors at Wahiawa General Hospital that he had eaten "magic mushrooms" picked at Mokuleia.

Majoska did not rule out the possibility of mushroom poisoning but said there was no evidence to substantiate it.

Eating wild mushrooms is extremely dangerous because an amateur cannot tell the difference between toxic and non-toxic mushrooms, Majoska said.

"Anybody who is picking wild mushrooms and eating them is playing Russian roulette," he said.

"That's why we have so many mushroom deaths in this country."

"There was a small amount of morphine found in his bile," Majoska said.

The alleged type of mushrooms that he ate were identified as hallucinogenic mushrooms," Majoska said.

Specimens of body liquids were sent to the medical examiner's office in Dallas, Texa for tests, he said.

That's where the morphine was detected.

"He was a known heroin addict until age 16, but he claimed he quit," Majoska said.

He said that "toxins of poisonous mushrooms rapidly metabolize" and do not stay long in their pure form long enough to permit analysis.

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