Magic mushrooms in Seattle

Magic mushrooms in Seattle, in short

Possessing psilocybin is a crime in Seattle: a gross misdemeanor under Washington law, punishable by up to 180 days in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both for a first or second conviction,¹ and since 2023 a crime under the city's own code as well.³ On October 4, 2021, the City Council voted 9 to 0 to make entheogens a lowest enforcement priority, but a resolution doesn't change the law.² There's no licensed psilocybin shop anywhere in Washington, and the nearest legal sessions are in Oregon.

The team behind this almanac also runs My Mushroom Dispensary, an online shop for adults 21+. We say so here because it's the honest place to say it: buying psilocybin online or by mail is illegal under federal law and in every state, whoever sells it, and nothing on this page changes that.

The law today

Washington lists psilocybin and psilocyn in Schedule I of its Uniform Controlled Substances Act, as it has since the act took effect in 1971.⁴ For decades, possession was a strict-liability felony. On February 25, 2021, the state Supreme Court struck that statute down in State v. Blake,²⁰ and the Legislature rewrote it: since July 1, 2023, knowing possession or public use is a gross misdemeanor, and the law encourages prosecutors to divert cases to assessment, treatment or other services.¹ Selling, sharing or growing remains a class C felony.²¹

Seattle's council can ask for more than it can change. Resolution 32021 asks that entheogen activity be among the city's lowest enforcement priorities.² Ordinance 126896, signed September 20, 2023, then wrote the state possession offense into city code, with diversion as the "preferred approach".³ King County passed a similar priority motion for unincorporated areas on March 24, 2026, and its recitals name Olympia, Port Townsend, Tacoma and Jefferson County among the places that have supported decriminalizing entheogens.⁵ Pierce County's council asked for the same low priority on September 1, 2026.²² Federal law, which bans possession everywhere, hasn't moved.⁶ The visitors' entry covers the airport, ferries, parks and the Canadian border, and the myths entry checks the claims that circulate.

How Seattle got here

The story starts with mushrooms, not laws. The Puget Sound Mycological Society was founded in Seattle in 1964 by a small group that included the University of Washington mycologist Daniel E. Stuntz.¹⁷ In 1973 Stuntz collected, on the UW campus, the specimen that became the type of Psilocybe stuntzii, and the paper naming it recorded students' use of the mushroom spreading from the campus to The Evergreen State College.¹² Two gatherings in Washington state parks followed: the "First Psychotropic Mushroom Foray" at a Washington state park over Halloween weekend in 1976, with about 120 people,¹³ and the Second International Conference on Hallucinogenic Mushrooms at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend in October 1977, with more than 260 registrants.¹⁸

The history entry tells the whole story, from those years to the 2021 resolution and the state-funded study at UW. The timeline lists every dated event we could confirm, and you can download it.

What was named here, and the danger in the woods

Several psilocybin species were described from Northwest collections,¹⁹ and the University of Washington herbarium holds the type collection of P. stuntzii.¹² The species entry gives the naming history: who described each species, when and where. It is not a field guide, and deliberately so. Deadly mushrooms that carry amatoxins grow in the same region: Seattle and King County's health department calls death caps common in Western Washington.²³ Their poison shows no symptoms for the first 6 to 24 hours; vomiting and diarrhea follow, then an apparent recovery, then liver failure, typically 3 to 5 days after the meal.¹⁴ If someone has eaten a wild mushroom, call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 right away, before symptoms start.

Research in Seattle

In 2023 the Legislature passed SB 5263, which set up a psilocybin task force and directed the University of Washington to run a psilocybin therapy pilot program for groups including veterans and first responders, subject to funding.⁸ The resulting study, PsiloStudy, started on June 1, 2025, plans to enroll about 40 people and was no longer recruiting as of this edition.⁹ UW Medicine and Fred Hutch researchers have run psilocybin trials with clinicians and with people with cancer, and VA Puget Sound is a site in a trial sponsored by the VA's Office of Research and Development.¹⁰ The research register lists every trial and study we found, and the Northwest's part in microdosing history has its own entry on the Stamets stack.

Where psilocybin is legal nearby

Oregon licenses psilocybin service centers for adults 21 and older, with no residency requirement; the psilocybin is taken on site with a licensed facilitator, and nothing can be taken home.⁷ The nearest centers in Oregon's licensee directory are in Portland, 173 to 178 road miles from downtown Seattle.⁷ Oregon counted 5,935 clients served in 2025, and 1,753 of those client records listed another U.S. state as home.¹⁵ Colorado had 47 approved healing center licenses as of October 30, 2026.¹⁶ Clinical trials are the other legal route. The psychedelics entry covers what's legal in Seattle beyond psilocybin, from prescribed ketamine to the narrow religious exemptions, and Seattle by the numbers collects the figures.