Backed by greater than $22 million in funding, Optimi acquired a drug institution license in 2024 from Canadian regulators to export pharmaceutical-grade psilocybin to psychiatrists overseas within the restricted variety of locations which have authorized avenues for its use. Oregon has legalized supervised mushroom journeys, Australia has accredited psilocybin remedy for PTSD and despair, and an growing variety of governments—nationwide, state, and native—are contemplating eradicating authorized obstacles to psychedelic mushrooms on a medical foundation as the quantity of analysis supporting their use grows. There are additionally options that the Trump administration could also be extra prone to assist federal reform within the US.
However the authorized market, medical or in any other case, stays tiny. So for now, nearly all of Marshall’s mushrooms—he has grown greater than 500 kilos since becoming a member of Optimi in 2022—keep within the firm’s vault. “By setting the bar for manufacturing and [compliance with] regulation,” he says, “we’re serving to to increase scientific understanding and accessibility of psychedelics for therapeutic use.”
Studying the craft
Earlier than Marshall, 40, started cultivating mushrooms, he was working in property administration. However that modified in 2014, when a buddy who was an skilled grower gave him a replica of the guide Mushroom Cultivator: A Sensible Information to Rising Mushrooms at Dwelling (1983). That buddy additionally gave him a spore print, successfully the “seeds” of a mushroom, from which Marshall grew three Psilocybin cubensis mushrooms from the golden trainer selection, his first foray into the sector. “I stored rising and rising and rising—for my very own well being and well-being—after which acquired to a degree the place I wished to assist different individuals,” he says.
In 2018, he established his personal firm, Ra Mushrooms, promoting cultivation kits for a number of varieties, together with unlawful psilocybin, and he was often posting pictures on Instagram of mushrooms he had grown. In 2022, he was employed by Optimi, marking his journey from underground grower to authorized market cultivator—“an unbelievable dream of mine.”
Mattha Busby is a journalist specializing in drug coverage and psychedelic tradition.
