CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — Police arrested several people after raiding a grow house where they were allegedly cultivating and selling large amounts of psychedelic mushrooms.
Investigators say it’s becoming a troubling trend in metro Atlanta.
The house sits in a neighborhood just a couple of miles south of the airport. Police say neighbors complained about strange vehicles driving up and people going in and out of the house.
They say they were surprised by what was found inside during a raid last month.
“Very early on we determined something was going on here,” Clayton County Police Maj. Francisco Romero told Channel 2′s Tom Regan.
That something, police say, was an elaborate operation to grow hallucinogenic mushrooms in a rented suburban home.
Investigators say residents there cultivated and grew the magic mushrooms in several rooms of the house and then sold them to drive up customers.
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When they raided the house last month, they seized nearly 60 pounds of psychedelic mushrooms, which can be highly profitable.
“For an ounce of mushrooms, they can go from a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand dollars,” Romero said.
Police say the large amount of mushroom seized suggest the growing use and demand for the mind-bending fungi.
“I would say over the last six months to a year, we have seen a growth in the metro Atlanta area when it comes to magic mushrooms,” Romero said.
Kim Castro is an addiction treatment counselor. She believes news of clinical studies showing possible health benefits from micro-dosing mushrooms is pushing more recreational use of the drug.
“It is a disturbing trend,” Castro said. “When you have people who are especially prone to addiction, and they hear that micro-dosing is good, then they think even more is better.”
Castro told Regan that a bad mushroom trip can trigger frightening and dangerous psychosis. She recalled a patient who thought his dog’s face had split apart and was covered in blood. It was all a hallucination.
“You can have a really powerful and negative result. So it’s really like rolling the dice,” Castro said.
The four people arrested in the raid are facing felony drug trafficking charges.
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