How magic mushrooms became illegal in Canada: a sourced timeline

Canadians often ask when magic mushrooms became illegal, and the honest answer has layers. Psilocybin and psilocin, the compounds the mushrooms contain, were added to Canada’s controlled-drug lists in stages. The rule that applies today is a 1996 statute, and the date before it is documented mostly by secondary sources. This article lays out each step with its date and its source, and it says plainly where we could not check the primary document. For where these steps sit in the wider history, see the psilocybin timeline.

How we label dates: “primary” means we read the official document (a statute, a government report, a treaty record). “Secondary” means we found the date only in a lawyer’s or commentator’s summary. Where a date is secondary, we say so in the sentence.

When did magic mushrooms become illegal in Canada?

In three steps, from the most firmly documented to the least:

1. Late 1973 (primary): the federal inquiry known as the Le Dain Commission reported that psilocybin was not on any Canadian schedule.
2. 1974 (secondary only): two legal-commentary web pages say psilocybin, psilocin and their salts were added to the restricted drugs in Schedule H of the Food and Drugs Act that year. One of them cites the regulation as SOR/74-198. We could not open that regulation.
3. 1996 and 1997 (primary): the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) received royal assent on 20 June 1996 and has been in force since 14 May 1997. Psilocin and psilocybin are in its Schedule III.

One wording point matters throughout. The statute and regulations list chemicals, “psilocin” and “psilocybin”, rather than naming mushrooms. Health Canada’s page applies them to magic mushrooms and says the production, sale and possession of magic mushrooms are illegal in Canada.

What did Canadian drug law look like in the 1960s and early 1970s?

Early interest and research

The Le Dain Commission’s final report says non-medical interest in LSD, psilocybin and mescaline began to grow in the 1950s, though it appears to have been mostly limited to a few professional, academic and artistic experimenters (Le Dain Commission, 1973, appendix, p. 355). Of mushrooms, it says that although psilocybin-containing kinds grow in many parts of Canada, only a few exceptional experimenters seemed to have eaten them (appendix, p. 357).

Canada had its own early hallucinogen research. The psychiatrist Humphry Osmond left England in 1951 for a position in Saskatchewan, where he spent a decade experimenting with hallucinogenic substances (Lett and Dyck, 2023). We have no source on psilocybin trials in Canada in this period, so we make no claim about them. The wider story, from Mesoamerica to Hofmann’s 1958 chemistry, is in our history of magic mushrooms, and the Toronto side is in surprising stories of psychedelic Toronto.

The Le Dain Commission, 1969 to 1973

The federal government appointed the Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs on 29 May 1969, under Order in Council P.C. 1969-1112 (Le Dain Commission, 1973, p. 3). It is named for its chairman, Gerald Le Dain. Its public hearings included informal settings such as coffee houses in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver (Le Dain Commission, 1973, p. 6); the Toronto side is told in the Le Dain Commission in Toronto. Its fourth and final report is dated 14 December 1973 (Le Dain Commission, 1973, letter of transmittal). Its appendices also list a “Rochdale Klinic (Toronto)” among Canada’s street clinics (Le Dain Commission, 1973, appendices): the clinic at Rochdale College, Toronto’s free university at Bloor and Huron.

That report is the best primary snapshot of the law just before any psilocybin listing. It says the category of restricted drugs under the Food and Drugs Act was not created until August 1969 (Le Dain Commission, 1973, p. 86). Part IV of the Act and Part J of the Food and Drug Regulations controlled them, and Schedule H of the Act (formerly Schedule J) listed LSD, DET, DMT, MDA, MMDA, LBJ, harmaline, harmalol, STP (DOM) and various forms of dimethoxyamphetamine. Mescaline sat in Schedule F of the regulations, under a looser regime. And psilocybin, in the report’s words, was “not included in any Canadian schedules” (Le Dain Commission, 1973, p. 75).

So at the end of 1973 the law already had a category for strong hallucinogens, and psilocybin was outside it. Evidence: primary. The report’s own recommendations on these drugs are outside this article.

When was psilocybin added to the Food and Drugs Act?

The commonly repeated answer is 1974. A law firm’s web article on the legal status of psilocybin spores says possession, trafficking and production were not illegal in Canada until 1974, when the Governor in Council amended the Food and Drugs Act by regulation to add psilocybin, psilocin and their salts to the restricted drugs in Schedule H, and it cites the regulation as SOR/74-198 (Cannabis and Psychedelics Law Group). A second legal-information page gives the same year and says psilocybin was not added to the Act until 1974 even though the 1971 treaty named it (PsychedelicLaw.ca). That second page gives no regulation number.

Evidence: secondary only. We could not open the regulation or the Canada Gazette issue that carried it, so we cannot give the exact day, and we cannot confirm the SOR number. The 1974 date fits what the primary Le Dain report says about 1973, but it is not proved by it.

How the 1971 UN treaty fits in

The Convention on Psychotropic Substances was signed in Vienna on 21 February 1971 and lists psilocybine and psilocine in its Schedule I. Article 7 requires parties to prohibit all use of Schedule I substances except for scientific and very limited medical purposes (UNODC text of the Convention). It came into force on 16 August 1976, and Canada acceded on 10 September 1988, with a reservation that covers peyote rather than mushrooms (UN Treaty Collection).

If 1974 is right, Canada’s listing came before the treaty entered into force and 14 years before Canada joined it. We found no source explaining why Canada acted when it did, and we will not guess. The treaty also lists chemicals, not fungi: in 2010 the International Narcotics Control Board noted that no plants are controlled under the 1971 Convention, and named magic mushrooms among examples of plants containing controlled substances (INCB, 2010).

How did the 1996 Controlled Drugs and Substances Act change things?

Parliament passed the CDSA in 1996. Its long title says it was also meant to repeal the Narcotic Control Act, it received royal assent on 20 June 1996, and a note on Justice Laws records that it came into force on 14 May 1997 (Justice Laws, CDSA). In the Food and Drugs Act, Parts III and IV, which included the restricted-drugs part Le Dain described, now read “Repealed, 1996, c. 19, s. 81” (Justice Laws, Food and Drugs Act).

In the CDSA, Schedule III lists psilocin as item 11 and psilocybin as item 12, each with “any salt thereof” (Justice Laws, CDSA). Section 4(1) says that, except as authorized under the regulations, no one may possess a Schedule I, II or III substance. We do not cover penalties here; the Act and Health Canada’s page are the places to read them.

Our own comparison: the same schedule also lists LSD, DET, DMT, LBJ, harmaline and harmalol, the names that appear on Le Dain’s list of restricted drugs. That makes Schedule III read like a carry-over of the old restricted-drugs list with psilocin and psilocybin included. We found no document stating that reasoning, so treat it as an observation, not a finding.

What has changed since 1997?

The schedule listing has stayed in place, but the routes around it have shifted. Each item below is from an official page:

• Section 56(1) of the CDSA lets the Minister of Health exempt a person, class of persons or substance from the Act where the exemption is necessary for a medical or scientific purpose or is otherwise in the public interest (Justice Laws, CDSA). Health Canada says each request is assessed individually (Health Canada).
• January 2022: the ability of health care practitioners to request psilocybin through the Special Access Program was restored through amendments to Part C of the Food and Drug Regulations (Canada Gazette, 2025; Health Canada).
• British Columbia’s exemption for personal possession of small amounts of certain illegal drugs did not include psilocybin: Health Canada’s page lists opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA, and shows the exemption as expired, with 31 January 2026 as its end date (Health Canada, BC exemption).
• The Controlled Substances Regulations, SOR/2025-242, were registered on 28 November 2025, published on 17 December 2025 and come into force on 1 October 2026. They consolidate earlier regulations, including the Narcotic Control Regulations and Parts G and J of the Food and Drug Regulations, and list psilocin and psilocybin as restricted drugs in their Schedule 4 (Canada Gazette, 2025). They did not change the Act’s own Schedule III listing, which we read in the consolidation current to 21 September 2026.

Health Canada also says there are no approved therapeutic products containing psilocybin in Canada or elsewhere (page modified 20 October 2026). Research is a separate story, told in what is psilocybin.

What is the position in 2026?

As of 4 October 2026, psilocin and psilocybin are listed in Schedule III of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Justice Laws), and Health Canada’s page says the production, sale and possession of magic mushrooms are illegal in Canada, with activities illegal unless authorized by Health Canada (Health Canada). Exemptions exist in law, such as under section 56, but they are decided case by case. That is a summary of two official pages, not advice, so read them and ask a lawyer about a real situation.

Timeline of magic mushroom law in Canada

What we could not verify

• The regulation behind the 1974 listing: its exact date, its number and the Gazette notice. The year comes from two legal-commentary web pages, one of which cites SOR/74-198.
• Why psilocybin was not added to the restricted drugs when the category was created in 1969, and why it was added later. We found no source and will not guess.
• Why the CDSA put these substances in Schedule III. We found no explanatory document.
• Any historians’ dispute about these dates. We found none, so the gap here is missing documents rather than rival interpretations.

If you can point us to the original regulation or Gazette notice, we will add it. For the film-length version of the same evidence-first approach, see our films page.

Shroomverse sells mushroom products. This article is general information about history. It is not medical, legal or purchasing advice, and it does not encourage anyone to use drugs.