An organization dedicated to not-for-profit psychedelic mushroom education events such as Microdose Mondays or Psilocybin 101, the Denver Mushroom Cooperative's Gifting Portal event, held on December 21 at Plant Magic Cafe, allowed individuals aged 21-and-up to share and give away mushrooms they had grown.
The event was created in contrast to a psilocybin co-op claiming to sell support and advice with a free side of psilocybin, according to Gifting Portal organizers, who say the event complied with Colorado's new psychedelic laws allowing the gifting of psilocybin.
“You can give anybody mushrooms, but there’s a responsibility there," Denver Mushroom Cooperative co-founder Travis Tyler Fluck says. "I feel it is necessary to poetically recoin the way that the 'black market' and 'underground' are portrayed. The words themselves have connotations that remove their merits, and the laws to which these groups are positioned after all are unjust, politically motivated and a vestige from the Nixon presidency. I’d like to show that events like this can be a successful model and an alternative pathway to regulated purchase for legislators to consider as they return to session.”
The Gifting Portal was free to attend and didn't allow any money to change hands. Participants were encouraged to share their homegrown mushrooms as well as cultivation advice, supplies and more. According to organizers, the decriminalization aspect of Colorado's Natural Medicine Health Act, approved by voters in 2022 and further implemented by lawmakers this year, makes personal cultivation, consumption and gifting of psilocybin mushrooms (along with DMT and mescaline) lawful in Colorado.
The Gifting Portal provided educational materials about psilocybin cultivation and consumption, as well.
Miranda Burton
Unlike a dispensary, the Denver Mushroom Cooperative states that it is “a group of people who share the core tenet to cultivate conscious community." The group sees Colorado as a petri dish for future decriminalization and legalization, since Colorado is the first state to decriminalize personal psychedelics cultivation and gifting. (Oregon, the first state to legalize medical psilocybin, does not have the same personal use rights.)
Community enthusiasts, including the head of a mushroom church, were in attendance, as well as doctors, neurologists and professionals in functional medicine and depth psychology. Each guest was given a 150-page beginner's guide to mushroom use, but there were no formal booths, lectures or exhibits. There was plenty of discussion, however, with new and experienced mushroom consumers, cultivators and enthusiasts talking about things like microdosing psilocybin, how to start your own home grow and current political events and developments surrounding psilocybin.
Every person was given one of three name tags upon arrival: a tag with an image depicting an outstretched hand, implying that the individual was willing to receive gifts; a tag with a hand holding a mushroom, implying that they had something to offer; a tag with two hands and a mushroom between, implying that they’re open to either.
"Power dynamics and consent are important,” Fluck adds.
Mushroom providers were encouraged to provide potency testing and strain details for all gifted items. On top of obtaining free mushrooms and growing supplies, growers and hobbyists shared details about projects they're working on such as new cultures, mushrooms and psilocybin edibles.
While the Gifting Portal isn’t the first Colorado event to allow participants access to community resources like this, it is more above-board than others. The free event had a full RSVP list with an approximate 155 people in attendance across the two sessions, according to the cooperative, and all attendees were required to bring ID probing they were at least 21, with no last-minute entry.
The Denver Mushroom Cooperative plans to hold another Gifting Portal event or similar gatherings as soon as February of 2024.
