A Vancouver-based drug activist who sent all 87 B.C. MLAs an unsolicited Christmas gift of magic mushrooms and a coca leaf in the mail should be investigated for drug trafficking, says one MLA and former Mountie.
However, Dana Larsen, who advocates for the legalization of psilocybin mushrooms, said he’s willing to risk legal consequences if it means sparking a discussion about the “ridiculousness” of Canada’s drug laws.
Elenore Sturko, B.C. United MLA for Surrey South and a former Surrey RCMP officer, said she was incensed to discover Larsen sent the illegal drugs to the constituency offices of all provincial politicians over the holidays.
Sturko said Larsen’s “publicity stunt” is offensive and irresponsible.
“The outrage that I feel is in receiving these substances, it puts me in contact with something that may have played a role in gang activity,” she said.
“It may have played a role in someone’s murder and that is not OK with me.”
Larsen sent each MLA one gram of “Golden Teacher” psilocybin mushrooms and one coca leaf, the unrefined plant used to make cocaine.
He also enclosed a letter that said the Golden Teacher strain of mushrooms is commonly used for its “beneficial therapeutic properties.”
“Unfortunately, possession of even a gram of this mushroom is still considered a criminal offence in Canada,” he wrote.
Larsen questioned why B.C.’s decriminalization of small quantities of illicit drugs didn’t extend to “safer substances” like psilocybin mushrooms.
“The idea that our laws treat coca leaf the same as cocaine and that we have decriminalized possession of cocaine, heroin, meth and MDMA, but not possession of a mushroom, is very odd to me,” he said on Wednesday.
Sturko opened her package Tuesday and immediately notified the Vancouver police since the packages were sent from Vancouver. She was told to turn the drugs in to the Surrey RCMP which she did. Vancouver police didn’t respond to questions from Postmedia about whether it has launched an investigation.
B.C.’s sergeant-at-arms, Ray Robitaille, who is responsible for security at the legislature, advised MLAs and their constituency office staff not to open the packages and report them to their local police agency for “disposal and/or investigation,” according to the Office of the Clerk.
In a statement, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth called Larsen’s actions “reprehensible and wrong.”
Sturko hopes police treat the case not as individual incidents but as one incident of drug trafficking with 87 different recipients.
Larsen, however, called Sturko’s response “over the top.”
“I wanted to create some controversy and I wanted a conversation about the harms of prohibition,” he said. “The overreaction that is coming back … is a good example of the hysteria and the lack of logic behind the prohibition laws.”
Larsen operates three medicinal mushroom dispensaries in Vancouver and the Coca Leaf Cafe. Larsen notes the coca leaf has been used for thousands of years across South America for medicinal, social, cultural and spiritual purposes.
The businesses were raided in November by the Vancouver police, which seized tens of thousands of dollars worth of product. Despite being held in police custody for seven hours, Larsen was released without charge and reopened the businesses the next day.
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