In a bustling alley off Vancouver’s Shop Magic Mushrooms Canada, you can’t miss the bright green banner draped over the door of Shop Magic Mushrooms Canada. Inside, aging hippies and solitary businessmen browse glass cases filled with a dozen strains of “magic mushrooms” with names like Penis Envy and Jedi Mind Trick. Also sold are mushroom chocolates, microdosing capsules and a vape cartridge with DMT, the active ingredient in the Amazonian brew ayahuasca. Flash a valid ID, sign a health form and purchase your product and you’re good to go. The store, which sells psilocybin-containing mushrooms and other products to customers age 19 and over, has been open for a week. The owner, Dana Larsen, is no stranger to pushing boundaries: He ran illegal weed dispensaries for years and even embarked on a nationwide “Overgrow Canada” campaign that gave out five million cannabis seeds to Liberal politicians.

Magic Mushrooms: A Guide to Their Effects and Benefits

The sale of magic mushrooms is illegal in Canada, which has yet to legalize psychedelics, but subtle policy shifts have spurred optimism among those hoping to see the drug make it through the legal process. The government has relaxed possession charges for some narcotics, including heroin and cocaine, but not for psilocybin.

And so the underground psilocybin market thrives. At Fun Guyz, the shop that opened in Bank Street last week and another location on Dalhousie Street, employees tell CBC News people from around the country, and sometimes from abroad, are making special trips to visit the stores. The shops operate under the guise of coca leaf cafes and have become a destination for visitors from places like China, Korea and Japan.