In a land of alpacas, dairy and conventional cash crops, Greenly Farms was the last place you’d expect to find magic mushrooms. But that’s exactly what Thomas Hartle has found since returning to his family’s Ontario farm after a career on the road as an artist and organic farmer. His new venture is a mushroom dispensary that offers customers psilocybin spores and grow kits so they can legally buy the hallucinogen on their own.

How do mushrooms grow?

The fungi known as “magic mushrooms” contain the psychoactive chemical psilocybin, and are ingested to cause altered perception, pattern recognition and hallucinations. They’re a Schedule III substance under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, which means their production, sale and possession is illegal in Canada. However, Health Canada has made exemptions to allow psychedelics for medical purposes if they’re used in clinical trials or through a Special Access Program granted through a ministerial exemption. Go here

That leaves a grey area where people like Larsen can operate dispensaries. He believes the law is unenforceable and that if the government did try to close up legal avenues for mushrooms, it would be violating Canadians’ right to life, liberty and security of the person protected under the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

It’s a view that’s been successfully used in court cases to get medical marijuana legalized, and it could be the key to getting medical mushrooms on the map. For now, it’s up to Health Canada and a few brave dispensaries to make the case for psilocybin as a viable treatment for depression, anxiety, addiction and other mental health issues.