In the late 1970s, there was a big mushroom cultivation bust in the Los Angeles area (High Times magazine, Unsigned, Volume 31, March, 1978). It allegedly involved several tons of psychoactive fungi confiscated by several teams of state and federal narcotics and law enforcement agents. As it turned out, only about five fresh pounds of P. cubensis were confiscated and several tons of compost and casing which were being used to grow the fungi were also hauled away. Most of the charges against the growers of these mushrooms were eventually dismissed.

Bellingham Herald Friday, September 4, 1981.
MUSHROOM RAID
Three Men Arrested as Police Seize Truckload of Psilocybin

Three men are in custody today and five to seven truckloads of evidence were seized after a Thursday raid on a house police believe was being used to manufacture illegal mushrooms.

Police raided a three-story Victorian house at 1208 Broadway Thursday afternoon after a routine burglary investigation, according to Bellingham Police Chief Terry Mangan.

All three stories of the house were being used as an "extensive and sophisticated factory for the cultivation, processing, drying and shipping of psilocybin, an hallucinogenic drug contained in a species of mushroom," Mangan said.

This is the first mushroom lab I've heard of anywhere," Mangan said.

Police believe the mushrooms were being distributed to at least six states.

Police have jailed Douglas Patterson, 28, 1208 Broadway, Scott Butterworth, 27, Squallicum Harbor and Joel Anderson, 28, Moscow, Idaho, on charges of possession of a controlled substance. Anderson and Butterworth are being held without bail. Patterson is being held on $20,000 bail. Police said they are seeking others both here and in other states.

Mangan placed a value of about $1,000 a pound on the dried mushrooms. Because the mushrooms were in various stages of being processed, however, police could not determine the exact amount at the house, he said.

The incident began Thursday afternoon when Officer Dale Brandland stopped three juveniles in the 2300 block of H street on a burglary investigation.

The juveniles had about $20,000 worth of psilocybin mushrooms and some firearms on them when they were stopped, Mangan said.

They apparently had broken into the house and stolen the mushrooms, Mangan said.

When police traced the mushrooms back to the source, they found the house. A search warrant was obtained and the factory raided.

In addition to the mushrooms, a considerable amount of laboratory equipment also was seized.

>Included among the equipment seized were microscopes, culture tubes, large sterilizers, drying racks, grow lights and hundreds of mason jars, Mangan said.

"We have so much evidence we haven't been able to inventory and process it," Mangan said. "The elevators are jammed to overflowing with the evidence."

Even as police were processing the evidence throughout the night, phone calls from various states were coming into the house inquiring about the mushrooms, he said.

He noted Whatcom County has a history of illegal mushroom cultivation and use.

Whatcom County has long been a focal point for the psilocybin mushroom craze," Mangan said.

Some mushroom manufacturers will take regular mushroooms and lace them with LSD in an attempt to pass them off as psilocybin mushrooms, Mangan said. That is not the case here. "These are the genuine articles," Mangan said.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Saturday, September 5, 1981. Page C2.

BELLIGHAM POLICE RAID MUSHROOM LAB

Bellingham (AP)

Prosecutors charged one man and released two others for lack of evidence yesterday, after police arrested the three at a house crammed with hallucinogenic mushrooms.

The mushrooms were being marketed, via United Parcel Service, to Northwest and possibly other states, said authorities.

Douglas K. Patterson, 23, of Bellingham, was charged with four drug counts alleging that he illegally possessed and intended to deliver psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana.

Patterson appeared yesterday in Whatcom County Superior Court where judge Byron Swedberg ordered him held on $150,000 bail and scheduled September 10 for arraignment and entry of a plea.

Two Released.

The county prosecutors office decided to release the other two men arrested Thursday night, said Bellingham Police Chief Terry Mangan.

Scott Butterworth, 27, of Bellingham, and Joel Anderson, 28, of Moscow, Idaho, were released "for lack of evidence, at least this time," Mangan said.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutors office said both men were released without charges, though the judge ordered Butterworth to appear when called.

Mangan said Police searched Butterworth's boat on Squallicum Harbor yesterday but found no evidence. They also were searching for another Bellingham resident in connection with the arrest, he added.

Patterson, Butterworth and Anderson were arrested Thursday evening at a home Mangan called "an extensive and sophisticated factory for cultivation, processing, drying and shipping of psilocybin mushrooms."

Seven truckloads of equipment and mushrooms in various stages of development were seized, Mangan said. Police will not know the weight and value of the mushrooms until next week, he added.

Mangan said the up[stairs and basement of the large, rambling Victorian home were "crammed with equipment and chemicals and cultures of all sorts."

Mangan said evidence indicated the dried mushrooms were being shipped by United Parcel Service to various locations in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Colorado and possibly other western states.

As police seized evidence, calls to the laboratoty where the raid took place continued to come.

The Seattle Times. Saturday, September 5, 1981.

QUICK LITTLE RAID MUSHROOMED INTO MAJOR CASE.

By Svein Giije.

Bellingham - The Great Mushroom Bust was simply out of this world.

"I'd love to tell you that this was a tough case we had worked on for months. But we really fell into it".

Belligham police officers swooped down on a three-story Victoraian house overlooking Bellingham Thursday afternoon, thinking they were after "some college kids with a few mushrooms." They were so wrong.

The department's drug enforcement people weren't even on the case. "They had bigger fish to catch, a cocaine dealer". Instead, the patrol division was sent over to the old house for the quick little raid.

It netted them the first known commercial operation of psilocybin mushrooms in this corner of the nation, and a sophisticated interstate business.

During the raid, calls came in from customers as far away as Colorado. Police officers tried to sound casual as they attempted to pry out information, such as spellings of names and, "Where are you now?"

"Some hung up on us. They obviously figured out that something was wrong," the chief said.

Officers worked through the night after the raid, to inventory and move the evidence -- 4,103 quart jars, most of them full of dried mushrooms that have the effect of an hallucinogenic drug -- and hundreds of tubes and little jars used to germinate new mushrooms.

Also: "wheat to help start the germination, peat moss, chemicals, pressure cookers, gas masks, hot plates, lights, sheets of plastic to seal off areas where high humidity was desired, plastic bags for packaging ground-up dried mushrooms, receipts and other documents, a scale, and literature on chemistry and how to grow mushrooms."

Most of the jars (3,188 of them) contained grown dried mushrooms. In the remainder, spores were still growing.

The factory for cultivating, processing, drying and shipping occupied two of the three floors.

"The entry floor was a rather nicely appointed living quarters with a library and a stereo," Mangan said.

Police found evidence that shipments were being made to Colorado, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and possibly other western states.

Also seized was about half a trash-bag full of marijuana, apparently for personal use by the factory workers.

Three persons were arrested on the property. Charges against two of them later were dropped for lack of evidence, Mangan said.

Douglas J. Patterson, 23, resident of the house, was charged with four counts of possession and intent to deliver controlled substances. He appeared before Whatcom Country Superior Court Judge Byron Sweberg, who ordered him held on $150,000 bail and scheduled arraignment and entry of a plea Thursday.

Mangan said another occupant of the house is being sought and is believed to be out of the state.

It all grew out of "a good piece of police work," by two patrol officers, Dale Brandland and Warren Ochs, said the chief. They investigate house burglaries by juveniles who were caught with two boxes of mushrooms.

Officers armed with a warrant, raided the house about three hours later.

There was a fly in the ointment; The collected evidence included a colony of small flies and some spiders. "The flies are like gnats and they bite," said Rich Nolte, a notoverjoyed evidence-investigation officer.

Honolulu Star Bulletin. Friday March 19, 1982. Page !4.

PSYCHEDELIC MUSHROOMS FOUND BY FIREFIGHTERS

Oakland (AP)

Firefighters battling an apartment house blaze stumbled onto a psychedelic mushroom factory jammed with about 2,000 jars of spore cultures, police said yesterday.

"The whole apartment was just turned into a mushroom growing factory. There was no room to sit or sleep in the place" said Oakland vice officer Chuck Holland.

He estimated that the 8 to 10 pounds of dehydrated mushrooms taken from the four room apartment were worth about $100.00 an ounce. But he said Oakland police hadn't had much experience dealing with "magic mushrooms."

Seattle Post-Intelligencer. July 19, 1997. page B2.

SECRET DOOR LEADS TO HALLUCINOGENIC MUSHROOMS

Rochester

When Thurston County officials served a drug warrant on a secluded, rural Rochester property yesterday, they found nothing for the first three hours.;

Then a sharp-eyed detective noticed a secret metal door. It led to what is believed to be the biggest bust of psilocybin mushrooms in Washington state: 500 pounds of dried, processed bagged and mostly boxed hallucinogenic fungi. Its estimated wholesale value was $500,000.

A 33-year-old man was arrested. Authorities believe he is a prime wholesale mushroom supplier for the Puget Sound area.