Are magic mushrooms the new cannabis?

Charged with 83 counts of attempted murder, an American pilot made news recently after attempting to shut down hydraulic operation and fuel to both engines of a twin-jet aircraft on a commercial flight.

Fortunately, Joseph David Emerson of Alaska Air was restrained by airline employees and the flight landed safely.

But why would he do such a thing? Emerson told police he was suffering from a nervous breakdown and had taken "magic mushrooms" for the first time about 48 hours before boarding the plane.

He said he felt like he was trying to awaken from a dream, according to a Reuters report. 

While the production, sale and possession of magic mushrooms are illegal in Canada, stores are opening — and subsequently being shut down —across the country, and usage rates have ticked up slightly in the past few years.

So what will this mean for employers when it comes to potential impacts on the workplace such as lower productivity and safety risks?

Katherine Poirier, a partner at BLG in Montreal, recommends that employers amend their policies so employees know that if they are consuming any type of substance that can alter their work performance, they should proactively divulge it.

“As an employer, we're used to seeing people consuming alcohol so we can anticipate how they're going to behave and we’re being exposed to people who are consuming cannabis... but with magic mushrooms and psychedelics, the consumption is pretty new, so we're not used to recognizing the behaviour that it entails and to predict what it could have as an effect in the workplace.”

What are psylocibins?

Magic mushrooms contain hallucinogens - usually psilocybin and psilocin – which can have dramatic side effects.

“Taking magic mushrooms may cause you to see, hear or feel things that are not there, or to experience anxiety, fear, nausea and muscle twitches accompanied by increased heart rate and blood pressure. In some cases, the consumption of magic mushrooms can lead to "bad trips" or "flashbacks,” says the government of Canada.

While there is increasing interest in the potential therapeutic uses of magic mushrooms and psilocybin, at this time, there are no approved therapeutic products containing psilocybin in Canada or elsewhere, says the government.

Fun as they may be, there are definite risks to these drugs; in extreme cases, these can include paranoia, loss of boundaries, impaired judgment, and a distorted sense of self.

“Your sense of reality can be very, very altered by consuming psychedelics,” says Poirier, citing anxiety attacks as one example.

“The context in which you're taking the psychedelics will really influence the effect that you will have.”

Physically, taking magic mushrooms can also produce:

• numbness, particularly in the face
• increased heart rate and blood pressure
• dry mouth, sometimes leading to nausea and vomiting
• muscle weakness and twitching, or convulsions
• exaggerated reflexes
• sweating and high body temperature, often followed by chills and shivering
• loss of urinary control

And using magic mushrooms with substances such as cannabis, amphetamines or alcohol elevates the risks of serious side effects and adverse events, says the government.

Popularity of magic mushrooms

When it comes to hallucinogens such as LSD, PCP, and psilocybin (magic mushrooms), just two percent (2% or 587,000) of Canadians consumed them in 2019, according to the latest data from the Canadian government.

That’s up slightly from 1% (443,000) in 2017. Males (2% or 352,000) and females (1% or 234,000) consumed hallucinogens in similar amounts. Consumption was higher among young adults aged 20 to 24 (6% or 129,000) than youth aged 15 to 19 (2% or 47,000) and adults aged 25 and older (2% or 411,000).

“It's been more popular because it's become more easy to access them,” says Poirier.

“You have lot of people self-medicating with it. They call it micro-dosing. So people will take small, small, small doses… and they feel that it gives them a better mood, essentially, it releases them from anxiety or problems sleeping.”

However, microdosing has not been confirmed as an effective method of alleviating anxiety or insomnia or depression, she says.

“So sometimes the problem with the substance is not that you consume it, it's that it can trigger other underlying mental health issues.”

But overall, the consumption of hallucinogens in Canada is “hugely less” than the number of people who consume cannabis, “so it's not a widely used substance,” says Eugene Oscapella, barrister and solicitor and professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa.

In 2019, the prevalence of past-year cannabis use (for medical or non-medical purposes) was 21% (6.4 million), compared to 2017 (15% or 4.4 million), and 2015 (12% or 3.6 million).

And it’s unlikely that psilocybin is going to be legalized anytime soon, he says. “If it is, I don't think it's going to make much difference in the rates of use.”

In the U.S., states such as Colorado and Oregon have legalized the sale of psilocybin, which is another reason why magic mushrooms are seeing greater publicity, says Oscapella, along with the therapeutic uses being explored.

“There's more attention to the possible benefits of these substances, because we've demonized these drugs for so long [and] we haven't looked at some of the potential therapeutic benefits. And I think we were starting to loosen up a little bit in our approach to these things.”

Magic mushrooms and the workplace

But if your job involves driving or manipulating very precise machinery, taking hallucinogens is absolutely incompatible, says Poirier.

And if an employee doesn’t acknowledge that they have consumed the substance, it will be hard to tell if this is the underlying reason for their strange behaviour on that day, she says.

“They will appear very disconnected and because of that, they should be removed from their functions at that moment in time.”

On the other hand, in some industries, the substance has been said to increase creativity, she says.

“I'm not saying I think it's going to be ever recommended in the workplace to consume that. But of course, it's mainly [a concern] in high-risk environments that someone is having those substances in their blood and then maneuvering machinery or working at height — because their perception of reality is not accurate.”

There are also people who may be self-medicating with these drugs, and believe they are micro-dosing, says Poirier.

“[But] when you discuss it with them, you realize they're not, they are dosing themselves…they tell you, ‘Yeah, I have euphoria with that and I'm fine and I'll feel good.’ When you're truly micro-dosing, you're taking 1/10 of a dose, you're not supposed to feel any euphoria at all,” she says.

“People need to understand better what the substance is before they consume it in the workplace or before entering the workplace or workplace-related activities.”

And with “increased social tolerance” of the use of these drugs, people might, for example, bring them in baked brownies for a Christmas office party and believe it's permissible to share with colleagues, says Poirier.

“People do not understand all the side effects you can experience out of it. Same thing as with cannabis, you may also experience a delayed effect, which means that you might consume something and you might experience it a very little bit late. And because of that, people can over-take the dose because they don't feel that it is as strong as they were hoping it would be.”

Drug testing and psylocibin

Another reason why there may be greater attention on magic mushrooms and other hallucinogens is the multi-billion-dollar drug testing industry, he says, which “try to foster concern about whatever new flavour of the month in terms of drugs comes onto the market. So there's always the risk that they will overblow the risks of the substances and the size of the problem.”

That industry hasn’t taken off as much in Canada because of human rights protections and work by the Privacy Commissioner, which has “helped us to forestall massive levels of drug testing, like they have in the United States,” says Oscapella.

Generally, for cause testing is allowed in certain circumstances, such as a person seeming impaired at the workplace or after an accident.

“But the massive levels of random testing that you see in the United States is certainly not justified from a practical or privacy perspective,” he says.

So, is drug testing an appropriate response to psylocybin use? About two-thirds of the compounds from magic mushrooms get excreted in the first three hours after ingestion; after 24 hours, psilocybin becomes undetectable in a person’s urine, according to Medical News Today.

“However, there is no exact time on how long other compounds will stay in the system, or how long the shrooms’ effects will last.”

If somebody is using psilocybin on the weekend, and they come into work on Monday, they're probably going to be fine, says Oscapella.

The bigger consideration should be around why people do drugs, and how that might relate to the workplace, he says.

“Is the workplace environment contributing to a situation where people are going to want to use drugs as a way of coping [after] a tough day?” he says. “There are other ways of dealing with the factors that lead to drug use, and there are lots of things employers can try to do to prevent people from using drugs other than drug testing.”

Policies around hallucinogens

Poirier recommends that employers amend their policies so employees know that if they are consuming any type of substance that can alter their work performance, they should proactively divulge it.

Even if it’s not a high-risk environment, she says, employees often drive from an establishment to another during their workday, and consuming a hallucinogen could impair the use of their car.

If the drug is being taken as part of therapy, that could involve working out a schedule with the doctor to ensure there’s no interference with their job or changing their position, says Poirier.

And while some may claim that a treatment plan should remain private, “at the same time, the health and safety of everyone is tantamount and you have to really protect everyone in the workplace,” she says.

“So, whenever you're in a position where you would be consuming substances, altering your judgment, or altering your reflexes, and you need those reflexes to be working, then you should proactively warn your employer that for a certain period of time, you will be consuming that and then the employer has a duty to accommodate.”