Utah’s magic mushroom church is selling grow-your-own-sacrament kits. Are they legal?

Those looking to cultivate their own psilocybin need not look further than The Divine Assembly.

Utah’s homegrown magic mushroom church is selling kits on its website for beginners to cultivate their very own sacrament. While psilocybin is still considered a Schedule 1 drug and illegal in Utah, all people need to grow their own crop is $75, plus shipping, and a sincerely held religious belief to which these fungi are central.

Or, at least, one must say they have such a religious belief.

Church co-founder and former state lawmaker Steve Urquhart told The Salt Lake Tribune the kits stemmed from The Divine Assembly’s “shroomiversity,” where members meet up to school one another on how to successfully grow psilocybin. While hundreds have attended the psilocybin workshops, Urquhart said, the church has congregants worldwide and many of them could not attend.

So he decided to bring this information — and mushrooms — to them via e-commerce.

The kits includes instructions, spores, two jars containing sterilized oats set up for mushroom inoculation, substrate and tubs in which to grow the mushrooms, and sterilizations tools, like gloves, a mask and alcohol wipes. Buyers should have their first flush of mushrooms in nine to 12 weeks.

“We’ve worked extremely hard, I mean, so many trials and experiments,” Urquhart said, “to get this kit absolutely as simple as possible...for people to have a successful first grow.”

So far, Urquhart has sent out hundreds such kits, which he said are a way to ensure members’ autonomy and safety. If they can grow their own mushrooms, they don’t have to seek out drug dealers in order to worship, and they know exactly what they’re consuming.

But some legal risk remains in cultivating magic mushrooms, and some questions about whether such kits could be considered illegal paraphernalia — all risks Urquhart hopes The Divine Assembly members can nullify through their sincere religious beliefs.

“I weigh concerns. I weigh legal jeopardy. ...I want to be responsible, and I don’t want to put law enforcement in that awkward position, so I do my best,” Urquhart said. “But at the same time, if this is how I worship, and other people want to worship, I think we’re entitled to do that.”

Legally using and growing magic mushrooms

Selling psilocybin spores (or mushroom spores of any type) online is hardly unique to The Divine Assembly. Such spores can be procured from other websites, because psilocybin spores themselves are not illegal under federal law.

The Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed this earlier this month in a letter first reported on cannabis lawyer Rod Kight’s blog Kight On Cannabis.

“If the mushrooms spores (or any other material) do not contain psilocybin or psilocin (or any other controlled substance or listed chemical), the material is considered not controlled under the (Controlled Substances Act),” the letter read.

“However,” it continued, “if at any time the material contains a controlled substance such as psilocybin or psilocin (for example, upon germination), the material would be considered a controlled substance under the (Controlled Substance Act).”

There is a still a question, Kight wrote, about whether these kits would be classified as drug paraphernalia.

Federal law defines paraphernalia as anything “primarily designed or intended” to use for “manufacturing, compounding, converting, concealing, producing, processing, preparing, injecting, ingesting, inhaling, or otherwise introducing into the human body a controlled substance.”

“This newest DEA letter is a positive clarification of a long-debated issue,” Kight wrote. “However, it does not necessarily open the doors to widespread use and sale of spore kits. At a minimum, buyers and sellers should understand the legal issues with a lawyer, and act accordingly.”

For Divine Assembly members, another legal precedent is at play.

Urquhart said his members’ cultivation and use of psilocybin is legal based on a 2006 Supreme Court ruling in Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal. The nation’s high court found that people practicing the União do Vegetal religion could legally use ayahuasca because of protections under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Urquhart said he encourages his members to write out their religious beliefs, including the importance of mushrooms, so they can explain it to law enforcement if they’re ever caught with the otherwise illegal drugs. The Divine Assembly also sells membership cards on its website for $75.

“While the card is not required,” The Divine Assembly website states, “it has proven extremely valuable in convincing government that members’ worship is legitimate and legally protected.”

Is there a catch?

Former U.S. District Court Judge Paul G. Cassell said Urquhart’s legal interpretations are sound, in theory. The trouble comes when putting those interpretations into practice, since Utah hasn’t carved out a religious exemption for magic mushrooms like it did peyote.

“I could see people having a sincerely held religious belief. But I could also see people saying, ‘Oh, I want to use mushrooms. And so now let me pretend that I have a sincerely held religious belief,’” Cassell said. “That’s where it could become difficult.”

Those selling the kits could also face prosecution if they sent them to people without sincerely held religious beliefs, said Cassell, now a professor and researcher at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.

“If the circumstances were that it looked like those were not legitimate religious usages of psilocybin, you would be guilty of the crime,” he said, “even if you yourself had the required religious intention.”

Yet, for someone to face legal repercussions, Cassell said, a prosecutor would need to agree to take on what would likely be a complicated case of proving whether a person’s claimed religious beliefs were sincerely held.

And if one is growing psilocybin at home, for personal use, how likely would it be that law enforcement would ever know and intervene?

Richard Piatt, deputy chief of staff at the Utah attorney general’s office, told The Tribune that no one had asked his office, which enforces both state and federal laws, to look into The Divine Assembly or its grow kits.

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