Are liberty caps illegal? The law in the UK, the Netherlands and elsewhere

Yes. In the United Kingdom any fungus that contains psilocin or an ester of psilocin has been a Class A drug since 18 July 2005, fresh or dried, whole or prepared. In the Netherlands mushrooms that naturally contain psilocin or psilocybin, with Psilocybe semilanceata named on the list, have been controlled under List II of the Opium Act since 1 December 2008. Ireland made the same change in January 2006. Situation checked on 10 October 2026; laws change, so check the current text where you are.

United Kingdom

Section 21 of the Drugs Act 2005 added "Fungus (of any kind) which contains psilocin or an ester of psilocin" to the list of Class A drugs in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. It came into force on 18 July 2005 and applies across the UK.

Before that date, the mushroom was only a Class A drug once it had been turned into "a preparation or other product", for example by drying or cooking. The explanatory notes to the Act describe exactly this gap.

What counts as possession

The law makes a narrow exception for wild mushrooms, in regulation 4A of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. Possession is not an offence when the fungus:

• is growing uncultivated, so a landowner with liberty caps in a field or lawn commits no offence;
• has been picked only to be destroyed as soon as reasonably practicable;
• has been picked only to be handed, as soon as reasonably practicable, to someone lawfully entitled to take it.

Anything else is possession of a Class A drug. Picking liberty caps to keep, dry, eat, give away or sell is covered by the full law.

Penalties

Source: GOV.UK, drugs penalties. FRANK confirms that supplying friends counts as supply (FRANK).

The Netherlands

Dried, crushed or processed mushrooms were already treated in law as preparations under List I of the Opium Act. Fresh mushrooms were sold in smartshops until the government closed that route. A decree of 17 November 2008, published as Staatsblad 2008, 486, added "Paddo's" to List II: "mushrooms that naturally contain the substance psilocin or psilocybin". The decree lists the species by name, Psilocybe semilanceata among them. It came into force on 1 December 2008.

The Dutch addiction service Jellinek summarises the result: fresh psilocybin mushrooms fall under List II, dried ones under List I (Jellinek). Picking wild liberty caps in the Netherlands is therefore illegal as well.

Visitors sometimes confuse this with magic truffles, which are still sold legally in the Netherlands. Truffles are sclerotia, a different part of a different fungus, and in April 2026 the Dutch Supreme Court confirmed that they fall outside the Opium Act (Hoge Raad, ECLI:NL:HR:2026:450). The status of dried truffles has not been settled. That exception does not extend to any mushroom, wild or grown, and it ends at the Dutch border.

Ireland

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 (Controlled Drugs) (Declaration) Order 2006 declared any fungus containing psilocin or an ester of psilocin a controlled drug from 31 January 2006. A companion order makes an exception for fungus growing uncultivated (S.I. 54/2006).

Other countries

Psilocybin and psilocin are also controlled internationally under the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, so most countries have some form of control. Some places have made changes at regional level in recent years; those rules differ in detail and change often, and this site does not summarise them.

Driving and travel

Driving while impaired by drugs is an offence in the UK and in the Netherlands. Taking mushrooms or truffles into another country can count as importing a controlled drug, and the UK wording "fungus (of any kind)" leaves little room for exceptions.

What to read next

The habitat entry explains where liberty caps grow and why the uncultivated exception matters to landowners. The history entry follows the species from an 18th-century London park to the 2005 Act.