Fake magic mushroom products: Amanita gummies, mislabelled edibles and what is really inside

A gummy, a chocolate square or a tablet sold as a “mushroom” product makes an implied promise about what is inside it. Over the past few years, US regulators, poison centres and laboratory researchers have tested that promise, and many of these products failed it. Some contained compounds from the fly agaric, a different and toxic mushroom. Some contained synthetic drugs that do not occur in any mushroom. Some contained nothing active at all. This article sets out what the regulators and published studies actually found, why the fly agaric is a different thing from a psilocybin mushroom, why a label cannot settle the question, and what to do if someone feels unwell. It names no seller other than the one a regulator recalled, and it gives no buying information and no doses.

What are fake magic mushroom products?

We use the phrase for products marketed with mushroom words, such as “mushroom gummies”, “shroom chocolate”, “microdosing bars”, “nootropic” mushroom blends or “Amanita” edibles, whose real contents differ from what the name or label suggests. The published cases fall into four patterns:

• Fly agaric compounds. Products labelled with, or found to contain, muscimol or ibotenic acid, the active compounds of Amanita muscaria. The FDA says Amanita muscaria and its constituents have been used in foods sometimes marketed as “psychedelic edibles”, “legal psychedelics” or “mushroom edibles” (FDA, 2024).
• Undisclosed tryptamines. Products whose labels do not mention psilocybin or psilocin, or say they are free of it, that tested positive for psilocin, psilocybin or synthetic relatives such as 4-acetoxy-DMT, also called psilacetin (Correia et al., 2025; Michienzi et al., 2024).
• Other unlisted drugs. Caffeine, ephedrine, kratom, kava, cannabinoids including THC, and the prescription drug pregabalin have all turned up in tested mushroom edibles (Michienzi et al., 2024; van Breemen et al., 2025; FDA outbreak page).
• Nothing active. Some products contained none of the compounds the testers looked for, including one labelled as containing psilocybin (van Breemen et al., 2025; Katragunta et al., 2025).

Almost all of this evidence comes from the United States, where products containing fly agaric were sold openly in some shops because, as a 2024 CDC report notes, Amanita muscaria was not a scheduled drug there (Michienzi et al., 2024). In Canada, Health Canada says the production, sale and possession of magic mushrooms are illegal, and that drugs produced illegally are not tested and may contain other dangerous substances (Health Canada, magic mushrooms). We searched Health Canada’s recalls and safety alerts site on 17 October 2026 for “amanita”, “muscimol” and “psilocybin” and found no recall or advisory about mushroom edibles. That is a statement about our search, not proof that none exists.

What happened in the 2024 Diamond Shruumz recall?

The largest documented case is a US outbreak in 2024. The Arizona Department of Health Services was notified by the state’s poison centres in June 2024 of severe illness after people ate a Diamond Shruumz-brand chocolate bar. Two young adults lost consciousness and had seizures; two adolescent girls had seizures, muscle rigidity and a fast heart rate, and both needed a breathing tube in hospital. All four recovered and went home (Walker et al., 2025). On 27 June 2024 the company behind the line, Prophet Premium Blends of Santa Ana, California, recalled all flavours of its Diamond Shruumz infused cones, chocolate bars and gummies. The recall notice gives the reason as “toxic levels of muscimol” and said 39 illnesses had been reported at that time (FDA, recall notice).

The FDA kept a running count on its outbreak page. The table below copies the figures as that page and the CDC reports state them.

Two details in the CDC analysis matter for anyone reading the headlines. First, the case definition was wider than one brand: it counted people who ate any Diamond Shruumz product or another mushroom-containing chocolate product, and about a third of cases (62, or 34%) involved only chocolates not sold under that name. Second, people who ate only the recalled chocolate bars had much higher odds of seizures, intensive-care admission and intubation than people who ate only other mushroom chocolates, and outcomes got worse as the amount eaten went up (Rumph et al., 2026). The most common symptoms were confusion, drowsiness and agitation, and the median time from eating to the first symptom was 90 minutes.

The death count differs between sources. The FDA page and the 2025 Arizona report say three potentially associated deaths (FDA outbreak page; Walker et al., 2025). The 2026 CDC analysis reports two deaths among the 174 cases with that information (Rumph et al., 2026). We report both because neither source explains the difference. Evidence: established that this outbreak caused serious illness; the exact number of deaths is reported differently.

What did the tests find inside the products?

The recall notice blamed muscimol. The FDA’s own testing found a messier picture. It tested 22 chocolate bars, 10 cones, 22 gummies and one raw ingredient said to have been used to make some of the products. It found muscimol in 9 of the 22 bars, 5 of the 10 cones and the raw ingredient, and said muscimol “cannot explain all the symptoms” (FDA outbreak page). It also found:

• acetylpsilocin (4-acetoxy-DMT, also called psilacetin) in 9 bars, 5 cones and 14 gummies;
• psilocin, a Schedule I controlled substance in the US, in 4 bars, 5 cones and 14 gummies;
• pregabalin, a prescription drug, in 3 bars, 5 cones and 4 gummies;
• three kava compounds together in 18 bars, all 10 cones and 11 gummies;
• ibotenic acid and muscimol in the raw ingredient.

Six of the 22 gummies tested negative for all of these, and the FDA warned that even the same flavour could vary in what it contained. It added that there is less research on what these compounds do when eaten together (FDA outbreak page). A separate case report describes a 17-year-old who arrived at hospital with altered consciousness, salivation and muscle jerks after eating one of the recalled chocolate bars, needed a breathing tube, and was back to normal within about eight hours; the authors judged the product likely contaminated with muscimol (Ebbens et al., 2024).

A recall does not take a product off every shelf at once. The FDA repeatedly reported recalled products still on sale and published lists of stores (FDA outbreak page). A study of online listings found that, of 67 web domains marketing the recalled line just before the recall, 45 were still marketing it about two weeks after (Mackey et al., 2025).

Is it just one brand? What other lab studies found

No. Several independent teams have bought mushroom gummies and edibles from US shops and tested them. Each study is small, so none tells us how common the problem is, but they point the same way.

The van Breemen team’s summary is blunt: many unregulated retail magic mushroom edibles lack psilocybin and are adulterated with synthetic tryptamines, botanicals or other undeclared compounds, and the synthetic ones have unknown toxicology (van Breemen et al., 2025). Poison-centre data fit the picture. A review of 362 psychoactive mushroom edible exposures reported to US poison centres in 2023 and 2024 found that exposures involving more than one substance were linked to higher odds of hospital admission and more severe toxicity, and called the effects of these products unpredictable; no deaths were reported in that data set (Jorgenson et al., 2026). That review used a different case set from the outbreak, so its counts should not be added to the outbreak figures.

Evidence: established that products sold as mushroom edibles in the United States have repeatedly been found to contain unlisted or different substances; preliminary on how common this is, because each lab study tested a small number of products from a few shops. We found no published lab analysis of mushroom edibles bought in Canada.

Why is the fly agaric a different mushroom with different risks?

“Magic mushroom” usually means a mushroom that contains psilocybin. The fly agaric, the red mushroom with white flecks, is not one of them. Its active compounds are ibotenic acid and muscimol, which act on the brain’s glutamate and GABA systems rather than on serotonin pathways, and a 2025 toxicology review groups it with “CNS toxicity” mushrooms, not with the psilocybin group (Stoeva-Grigorova et al., 2025). The Ontario Poison Centre’s newsletter for health-care workers lists these two compounds as their own group, with symptoms usually starting within about 30 minutes to three hours: intoxication and drowsiness, then confusion, euphoria, delirium and hallucinations lasting roughly 4 to 12 hours (Ontario Poison Centre, 2023).

The same 2025 review describes two older adults who arrived in a coma after eating home-prepared fly agaric, needed intensive care and recovered; it says deaths are exceedingly rare, and that the amount of active compounds varies with season and growing conditions (Stoeva-Grigorova et al., 2025). In December 2024 the FDA concluded that Amanita muscaria and its constituents do not meet the safety standard for use in food, that their use as food ingredients may be harmful, and recommended that people avoid eating foods with these ingredients. It noted these ingredients appear in foods intended to have hallucinogenic effects that look like ordinary foods such as candy bars (FDA, 2024).

For the history, chemistry and folklore of this mushroom, including the Santa Claus theory, see Is Santa a mushroom? The fly agaric theory fact-checked. For the psilocybin side, see what magic mushrooms are and psilocin vs psilocybin.

Why can’t a label or a “lab-tested” claim tell you what is inside?

Every product in the studies above had a label, and many labels were wrong. A product said to contain Amanita contained tryptamines instead; one said to be psilocybin-free contained psilocybin; one said to contain psilocybin had none (Correia et al., 2025; van Breemen et al., 2025). A name, a mushroom picture or a word like “nootropic” is marketing, not a measurement.

“Lab-tested” claims have the same limit. In the recall notice, the company says it reviewed its products’ certificates of analysis after receiving complaints, and that they showed higher than normal amounts of muscimol (FDA, recall notice). Yet the FDA’s later tests found several other active substances, and results varied between samples of the same flavour (FDA outbreak page). The CDC authors pointed to variable ingredients and the absence of standardised regulatory oversight for sampling and testing finished products (Rumph et al., 2026). A test result describes the sample that was tested, for the compounds the lab looked for, by the method it used. It says nothing certain about the next package. Our explainer on mushroom potency claims and what lab studies establish covers why sample identity and method matter.

Lookalike packaging adds a separate danger for children. Candy-style gummies and chocolates are easy to mistake for ordinary sweets; in the Virginia report a 3-year-old was hospitalised after eating two gummies (Michienzi et al., 2024), and the FDA said the recalled products may appeal to children and teenagers (FDA outbreak page). Our article on lookalike candy edibles covers storage and child safety in detail.

What should you do if someone feels unwell after eating one?

1. If the person collapses, stops breathing or has a seizure, call 911 first (Ontario Poison Centre; infopoison.ca).
2. Otherwise call a poison centre straight away. In Ontario that is the Ontario Poison Centre on 1-800-268-9017, available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, or 1-844-POISON-X (1-844-764-7669). Elsewhere in Canada, 1-844-POISON-X routes callers to their local poison centre, and Québec keeps its own line, 1-800-463-5060 (Health Canada, 2023; infopoison.ca). In the United States, the FDA directs people to the Poison Help Line at 1-800-222-1222 (FDA outbreak page).
3. Keep the package and any leftover product, and tell the poison centre or paramedics exactly what the label says and when it was eaten. The label may be wrong, but it is still the best starting point they have.
4. Do not try to make the person throw up, and give water only if the person is awake and able to swallow (Ontario Poison Centre, first aid).
5. Do not wait to see if it passes. The authors of the Virginia report advise anyone with symptoms after eating these products to seek immediate medical attention (Michienzi et al., 2024). In the national outbreak, symptoms included confusion, drowsiness, agitation, loss of consciousness, a fast or irregular heartbeat and seizures (Rumph et al., 2026).

Step 3 is our own addition, drawn from the fact that the contents are often unknown; the other steps follow the cited pages. The numbers also live on our safety page. For broader questions, see can you overdose on magic mushrooms? and what to do if a wild mushroom may have been misidentified.

What is not known

• How common mislabelled mushroom edibles are. Each lab study tested between 6 and 27 products from a small number of US shops.
• What is sold in Canada. We found no published lab analysis of mushroom edibles bought in Canada and no Health Canada recall about them.
• Which compound caused which illness in the 2024 outbreak. The FDA said muscimol could not explain all the symptoms, and little research exists on these substances taken together.
• The exact death toll of that outbreak. FDA and CDC sources report three potentially associated deaths and two deaths respectively.
• What any single product contains. Results varied even between samples of the same flavour, and illegally produced drugs are not tested (Health Canada, magic mushrooms).

Shroomverse sells mushroom products. This article is general consumer-safety information about mislabelled and unregulated edibles. It is not medical or legal advice, and it does not recommend any product or seller.