Siberia and Mexico is not traditional. There is little doubt that 
most of it dates back only so far as the earliest modern publicity 
about mushroom rituals — that is, to the late 1950’s. A great 
many articles about hallucinogenic mushrooms appeared in 
popular journals in that period (4). One result was an influx of 
thousands of young people from Europe and North America to 
the centers of mushroom use in Oaxaca (5). On leaving Mexico, 
these people, many of them members of subcultural groups 
valuing the alteration of consciousness by pharmacologic 
means, carried the search for suitable fungi to other lands; in 
many cases their diligence was rewarded. 
Information about the recent use of psychoactive mush- 
rooms outside of Mexico has been scanty. A few subjective 
reports have appeared (6), and several field guides in pamphlet 
form are best sellers in book stores near university campuses in 
the United States (7). These materials contain much misinfor- 
mation and leave us mostly uninformed about the extent of use 
in different regions, the species in use, the methods of prepara- 
tion and ingestion, and the nature of the effects. 
The present paper attempts to clarify information about the 
use of psychoactive mushrooms in one area of North America: 
the Pacific Northwest, including western Oregon and Washing- 
ton and British Columbia. The Pacific Northwest was selected 
for these investigations for several reasons. First, it is an out- 
standing area for the collection of many types of fungi. Even 
casual visitors in the fall fruiting season are struck by the 
exuberance of fungal growth from the crest of the Cascades to 
the sea. As one might expect, mushroom hunting is a popular 
activity in the area, and many residents involve themselves in 
the search for edible species. In this, they follow in the tradition 
of the native Americans who occupied the same territory. 
Moreover, because of its pioneer spirit and long tradition of 
tolerating individuality and independent life styles, the region 
has a strong counterculture and a large population of young 
people who experiment actively with natural methods of 
changing awareness. One example of the influence of this 
group is that in 1973, Oregon became the first state in the United 
States to decriminalize the possession of Cannabis for personal 
use. Many stories in circulation throughout the American sub- 
culture point to the Pacific Northwest as the source of several 
kinds of mushrooms that trigger high states of consciousness. 
Finally, laboratory analyses of mushroom samples sold on the 
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