The Turkish Journal Of Occupational / Environmental Medicine and Safety

Abstract

Fungi are rich and diverse groups of organisms and it includes more
than 100,000 species but the global biodiversity of the fungi has been
estimated at about 1.5 million species. Mushrooms are those fungi that
form large sporocarps visible without using a magnifying apparatus. Most terrestrial mushrooms are saprobes or mycorrhizal
symbionts, but some are pathogens of plants. The hallucinogens are a
chemically diverse class of drugs that cause
hallucinations. Their effects more unpredictable
than those of other drugs and vary greatly from person to person. Natural hallucinogens
can be found in some plants, mushrooms or
animals and they have been used for thousands of years in different part
of the world, mostly for religious rituals. Hallucinogenic
mushrooms are psychoactive fungi, containing hallucinogenic compounds, most
commonly psilocybin and psilocin. Approximately, 200 mushroom species are considered as hallucinogenic
mushrooms that contain these compounds and they are also called as magic
mushrooms. Turkey is very
rich in terms of mushrooms diversity because the habitats, vegetation and
climate are very suitable for magic mushroomsgrowth.

In the current
study, general features of common hallucinogenic mushrooms, their diversity and
legal status in Turkey were provided and discussed briefly.