ARE MAGIC MUSHROOMS LEGAL IN CANADA?

ARE MAGIC MUSHROOMS LEGAL IN CANADA?

TL;DR: Are magic mushrooms legal in Canada? No. While possession is rarely prosecuted, selling remains a criminal offence that carries the risk of a permanent criminal record.

In any big city in Canada, you can walk into a store, browse an ample selection of magic mushrooms, and buy whatever you want. So you could be forgiven for thinking that magic mushrooms have been legalized in Canada, or that there has been some kind of change to their legal status. 

There certainly has been a change when it comes to how people view magic mushrooms. Survey data suggests that 2-million Canadians used psychedelics last year, many of them purchasing magic mushrooms from a local dispensary. 

There is research into magic mushrooms as treatment for PTSD, depression, addiction, and other serious health conditions. Many of these medical trials are taking place in Canada. Recent studies show an increasing plurality (48%) of Canadians support the legalization of magic mushrooms.

So attitudes are changing. 

But all this raises the important question: has the criminal law kept pace with these changes in how our society views magic mushrooms?

The Short Answer

The short answer is “no”. Magic mushrooms remain illegal to possess in Canada. Psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, is listed in Schedule III of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. So even possession for your own use remains a criminal offence. 

The New Drug Prosecution Policy

However, back in 2020, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (Canada’s drug prosecutors) adopted a new policy on when it is appropriate to prosecute drug possession The policy states that “Resort to a criminal prosecution of the possession of a controlled substance […] should generally be reserved for the most serious manifestations of the offence.” 

In other words, the PPSC has a policy of not prosecuting simple possession of any drugs – not just magic mushrooms – unless there are aggravating factors present. So while psilocybin remains illegal on the books, possessing a small amount for your own use is generally not prosecuted. 

But note: this doesn’t mean you won’t be charged. Police departments are not subject to this policy and will often still lay simple possession charges even if they know they won’t be prosecuted. 

The exceptions to the non-prosecution policy are numerous but fairly reasonable. The list of “most serious manifestations” outlined in the policy include instances like:

• where children are put at risk
• where the drugs possessed put others at risk (like driving)
• where the drugs are connected to other offences

There are other less common scenarios that may apply. 

Traffick Jam

The bigger caveat to this policy is for trafficking. Many think of drug trafficking as what drug dealers do. But the definition of trafficking is much broader than you might think. The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (“CDSA”) defines trafficking to include selling, but also administering, and also giving drugs. 

So if you were to bring a baggie of magic mushrooms to a cottage to share with some buddies, that would technically constitute trafficking a controlled substance, which remains a prosecuted offence in Canada. 

However, charges in a situation like that would be very unlikely, and to understand why, we need to discuss how prosecutors prove an intention to traffic. 

Absent direct evidence, prosecutors will often rely on the quantity of a drug. Let’s say an average dose of magic mushrooms is 1g. If police searched you and found 15g on your person, would that be evidence of an intention to traffic? Well, a person could conceivably have on hand 15 average doses for their own purposes. And for a heavy user, that might be only 3 or 4 doses. Given that the onus remains on the Crown to prove the intention to traffic, it would be difficult to do so simply by the quantity alone in this scenario. 

In fact, most cases where an intention to traffic is proven involve kilograms of magic mushrooms, with the lowest amount in reported case law at about 500 grams. With that quantity, it would obviously be much harder for someone to argue that the mushrooms were possessed only for their own use. 

In fact, there are very few reported cases of convictions for trafficking solely magic mushrooms. That is, up until 2024. 

Shroom Service

In 2024, shroom dispensaries started opening up across Canada. Police, at times, turned a blind eye to these operations. Canadian cities, as we know, continue to struggle with abuse and addiction of far more harmful substances. So some police forces, like the TPS, have indicated that enforcing laws against magic mushroom trafficking are lower priority.

But despite having other priorities, magic mushroom dispensaries are raided by police from time to time, and criminal charges are now frequently laid. But on these dispensary raid, police rarely seem to encounter owners or senior managers. Much more often they find low level employees, probably working for minimum wage. 

When these cases end up in court, there is a division in the case law. 

The Light End

When sentencing low level employees like store clerks, judges have often been sympathetic to their situation. 

For example, In the case of R. v. Sydor, a clerk working in a Fun Guyz store in Toronto pleaded guilty to possession of 15kg of magic mushrooms that were found in the dispensary where he worked. Justice Borenstein, a judge sitting in Toronto, noted that this clerk may have even believed the store he worked in was legal:

In another decision called R. v. Vagenos, the accused was working behind the counter at the Mushroom Cabinet in Hamilton. It was alleged that he sold psilocybin to an undercover officer posing as a customer, and then was found in the store a week later when it was raided by police. He pleaded guilty to five different offences relating to the drugs. In his sentencing decision, Justice Garg focused on the less harmful nature of magic mushrooms, stating: 

In both these sentencing decisions, the employees being sentenced were given conditional discharges. This is a way of finding a person guilty without sending them to jail and without giving them a permanent criminal record. In fact, this is the result in the majority of reported decisions involving low level dispensary employees.

The Heavy End

However, for other judges, the brazen nature of how these dispensaries operate is seen as more aggravating. 

For example, in the case of R. v. Osores, the accused was a store clerk at a dispensary called Shroomyz located on Queen West in Toronto. He was sentenced for possession of 17kg of magic mushrooms, amongst other things. The sentencing judge, Justice Jones, characterized the open nature of how these dispensaries operate as an aggravating feature of the offences. He wrote:

In this case, Justice Jones sentenced Mr. Osores to house arrest, a sentence which left Mr. Osores with a permanent criminal record. Similar sentences are seen in cases of more senior employees like store managers.  

The only reported cases where people have been sent to jail for trafficking magic mushrooms were cases that involved significantly aggravating circumstances – other drugs, or evidence of trafficking mushrooms to minors. But this is always subject to change. Jail is certainly an available sentence for this offence.  

The Current Legal Landscape

Activity	Legal Status	Reality on the Ground
Personal Possession	Illegal	Rarely prosecuted for small amounts
Medical Use	Restricted	Possible but difficult to get access through the Special Access Program
Trafficking	Illegal	Dispensaries are regularly raided and employees typically face potential criminal records or house arrest

High Time for Change?

So, now you know that despite scant enforcement of rules against possessing magic mushrooms, there can be serious criminal sanctions for trafficking them. If this scenario seems familiar, it should be. This is more or less how things were in Canada for marijuana in the 2010s. As you may remember, after a long series of court challenges and different attempts to regulate cannabis, recreational use of cannabis was finally legalized in 2018. So are we heading in that same direction for magic mushrooms?

Like cannabis, psilocybin is not without risks. But those risks are relatively low, especially compared to other substances like alcohol or prescription opiates. 

It is increasingly now accepted that psilocybin can be an effective way of treating certain health conditions, and it is now possible to obtain a Health Canada exemption to allow patients to legally obtain medical psilocybin. However, this treatment regime is very supervised and difficult to access – even if you find a doctor to apply on your behalf, the majority of these applications are denied. 

This is something to keep any eye on, because with cannabis legalization, the rights of patients to reasonable access to cannabis as a means of treatment was an important trigger for eventual full legalization. As we get more and more evidence for the medical benefits of psilocybin, there will be increasing pressure on the government from the courts to make it easier for people to get legal access to mushrooms as a form of treatment. 

Outside of medical benefits, people on magic mushrooms often report having spiritual or mystical experiences that have a highly positive impact on their lives. This was the more or less the basis for a recent court challenge to the criminal prohibition on psilocybin in the 2025 case of the R. vs. Akila. Samer Akila, the owner of a Fun Guyz dispensary in London, Ontario was the accused. His store had been raided by police and he was charged with trafficking magic mushrooms. 

His lawyers argued that access to psilocybin is critical to allow a person to experience the full freedom of thought that is protected by section 2b of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, the judge hearing this case disagreed, and wrote that the experience of taking a psychedelic drug is “not what freedom of thought was meant to protect.” 

There are other cases currently before the courts challenging restrictions on access to magic mushrooms, and you can bet there will be more coming. 

CONCLUSION

So has the criminal law kept pace with changes in how psilocybin is perceived and understood in Canadian society? 

On one hand, while police may treat magic mushrooms as a lower priority, the law hasn’t actually changed. Psilocybin remains a controlled substance in Canada — and when cases do reach the courts, judges are forced to wrestle with what that means in a society whose views are changing fast.

My personal view is that if medical studies continue to show that psilocybin is capable of treating conditions that other drugs cannot, the government will have to provide legal and easy access to medical psilocybin in the near future. Whether that takes the form of full legalization, like it did with cannabis, or a more limited scheme, remains to be seen. 

Need Legal Advice on a Drug Charge? If you or someone you know has been caught up in a dispensary raid or is facing possession charges in Toronto, don’t leave your future to chance. 

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