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Assuming we're in portugal where drugs are decriminalized or in a Torah law society (So not taking into account Dina D'malchusa), what are the halakhic considerations regarding consuming psychedelic mushrooms? The reason I ask my question is because I saw this question about smoking marijuana and I believe that many of the factors that motivated Rav Moshe's teshuva cited in the answer prohibiting marijuana are not relevant to mushrooms.

Could they be permitted for medicinal purposes? Psychedelic mushrooms been used in many psychological treatments, as well as a known cure for cluster headaches. See www.clusterbusters.org

Could they be permitted for recreational use, considering the facts that they are non-addictive and nearly impossible to overdose on.

Mushrooms release chemicals in your brain, mainly serotonin. A typical trip lasts 4 hours. After the trip is done you can continue to take mushrooms but they have no effect as all of the available serotonin has been released. It takes 5-7 day to replenish your serotonin so you could only trip about once a week. You could take them every day if you wanted to but you would have no psychotropic effect from them until you gave it a rest for about a week. Most of this is anecdotal as the government has made this a schedule 1 drug. But if you search the web you'll find a zillion sites that state this. Most of them say only about once a month or twice a month works. But it's really about a week. Here's a site but there are many more. http://www.psychonaut.com/mushrooms/26445-waiting-period-between-2-trips.html

After a certain amount the drug psilocybin which is the active ingredient doesn't do anything to you because you've released all of your serotonin. The mechanism is more complicated then what I'm describing but this should suffice. LD50 is the amount of a drug that is required to cause death. The LD50 of Psilocybin is about a pound, but that's the active ingredient and there's only a small amount of the drug in a mushroom. They estimate to achieve the LD50 you'd have to eat from 6 pounds to more than your bodyweight in mushrooms(depends on potency, but I'd bet it's a lot more than 6 pounds), which is impossible to do. Again there are many sites that discuss the LD50 of mushrooms. Here's one. http://www.psychonaut.com/mushrooms/26445-waiting-period-between-2-trips.html

Also please don't respond that all intoxicants are not permissible, as alcohol is an intoxicant and is permissible to drink. It's even suggested to get drunk on holidays such as Purim and I've seen a few Rabbis shikered on Simchas Torah as well!

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  • One(of many, no doubt) reason that entheogenic fungi might be non-permissible is that they have religious sacramental use for some groups of people, and that eating them might be the equivalent of eating the Eucharist--definitely "a custom of the Gentiles". – Gary Jan 07 '16 at 14:32
  • @daniel but somebody is going to repost the marijuana answer, which isn't relevant because many people may not know the addictiveness(or lack of), the chance of overdose, and it's medicinal properties. I added those so I don't get an answer focused around those issues that are incorrect. You've completely gutted my question to where I'll get non-sensical answers and have to deflect each one in comment lines. I'm allowed to say consider these issues. When I put just that the first commenter told me to prove those claims, so I did. I can't win, lol. Typical jews, 2 jews 3 opinions, ha. – JMFB Jan 07 '16 at 15:09
  • @JMFB The teshuva of Rav Moshe wouldn't apply to this question because it's about marijuana, not about mushrooms. If someone used that as an answer it wouldn't be applicable to this question. If he published a teshuva about cocaine with the same reasons, even if his reasoning was wrong it would still be a correct answer to the question. Your question asks for opinions of halakhic authorities. You won't get nonsensical answers because legitimate halakhic authorities don't make decisions without researching the facts. – Daniel Jan 07 '16 at 15:10
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    @Gary I'm not aware of a known religious custom particular to this mushroom. But assuming there is one, even if that's not your intent, just because Catholics use a piece of matzah doesn't mean we don't, just cause they use wine doesn't mean we don't, or because they have christmas trees I can't have an evergreen growing in my front yard. – JMFB Jan 07 '16 at 15:12
  • @Daniel true, but that doesn't mean they always get it correct. Look at the history of the laws against electricity on shabbos, originally it was fire, the changed to boneh after the fire argument broke down. There was even a posek from Baltimore that thought it was gorneshed that it was fire. But they accepted it and then changed it to boneh when it was clear fire wouldn't hold. That was an issue of people wanting a certain thing, coming at it from that perspective, and making(picking, etc.) the laws fit. In essence this is the same type of question. I'm interested to hear an answer. – JMFB Jan 07 '16 at 15:16
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    @JMFB You may or may not be right, but on Mi Yodeya we don't editorialize or attempt to determine whether a posek is correct or not. We want questions that have verifiable answers. – Daniel Jan 07 '16 at 15:19
  • @Daniel, as we're not experts on drugs here, this question is greatly enhanced with the inclusion of substantiated details about potentially-relevant aspects of these mushrooms. It works in its present form, asking whether there are any responsa that address them, in particular, but it's weak, since there's nothing about why they might. In addition, it's a different question from the original one, which asks for Halachic analysis of this substance, rather than for responsa explicitly about it. (1/2) – Isaac Moses Jan 07 '16 at 15:23
  • I recommend putting the details back in and then refocusing the post to sound more like a clear question and less like advocacy. In the mean time, I'm voting to close, so that it doesn't get answers while its content is in dispute and flux. (2/2) – Isaac Moses Jan 07 '16 at 15:23
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    @IsaacMoses How's this? @ JMFB Could you add a source that mushrooms are not addictive? You claim that it's impossible to trip more than once every week or so, but that on its own doesn't mean that they're not addictive. – Daniel Jan 07 '16 at 15:33
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    Also @JMFB It would be good if you could add why you think the reasoning of Rav Moshe doesn't apply to mushrooms. – Daniel Jan 07 '16 at 15:35
  • @JMFB - Never mind the Castaneda/Don Juan fraud, some Native Americans really have peyote and psilocybes as religious sacrament. Teonancatl is sacred--and there were definitely a lot of visitors to the "Jews for Jerry" tent. But it is definitely foreign to Jewish worship. We don't bow and eat the cracker as part of our davening process, same goes for eating mushrooms. – Gary Jan 07 '16 at 17:04
  • @Gary What does that have to do with this question? It's not asking about using mushrooms for Jewish worship. – Daniel Jan 07 '16 at 18:17
  • @Daniel - true true true, the question asks about recreational and medicinal use. But (at least in my limited experience)I have not seen much in the way of pure "recreational" use of mushrooms(Hey man, lets eat 'em and get messed up for the party!"/etc). Usually, there's a spiritual aspect of the usage--and that is what some cultures use them for in a formal/ritual sense-and that is a "way of the nations"/"you shall not do as they do" sort of worship thing, IMHO. So in regards to the question, THAT might be a sure halachik basis for forbidding them, whether they physically do damage or not. – Gary Jan 07 '16 at 18:37

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