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Be Wary of the Death Caps, The World’s Deadliest Mushrooms
Magic mushrooms are great but make sure you know what they look like!
It’s a good time for mushrooms right now.
We are living in the midst of a mushroom boom, where we can see mushrooms in almost every consumer category. From food, supplements, wellness, to fashion and home, mushrooms are everywhere. People are discovering the unique benefits that fungi can bring. If you live in the right place, you can even forage for mushrooms in your backyard.
Then there is also the rise of the psychedelic revolution, where nothing else but the humble mushroom sits at the very top. These magnificent psychedelic mushrooms are being microdosed by everyone from stressed out moms and tech billionaires to folks who have been struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. Magic mushrooms also enjoys the reputation of being one of the safest recreational drugs in the world, so more and more people are choosing to trip out on psilocybin instead of drinking wine or engaging in other harmful drugs.
That said, it must be noted how many different mushroom species there are. If you are new to the world of fungi and mycology, it is always wise to tread with caution because not all mushrooms are made the same way. In the same breath, we can say that not all mushrooms will be good for you. This is why foraging must be left to experts.
Enter the death cap.
Amanita phalloides, the death cap, has been notorious as the world’s deadliest mushroom for centuries now.
The death cap is native to Europe, and it’s widespread there. However, it is also commonly found around the United States, particularly growing around oaks, elms, and birches; it can also be found in gardens.
Its cap ranges in color; it may be pale brown, yellow, white, or green. Meanwhile, the gills are white, and the stipe (mushroom stalk) usually has a ring. Death caps can grow up to 15cm in height.
A white membrane typically covers the entire mushroom though it will eventually break.
Image source: Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria
What happens when you consume a death cap?
According to Scientific American, there have been reports from individuals who managed to survive after eating these mushrooms. They reported a pleasant taste, though it will result in unpleasant effects soon after: seizures, liver damage, vomiting, and death. In addition, Scientific American reports that the accidental ingestion of death caps takes the lives of hundreds of people each year.
It remains a mystery how and why the death caps are so deadly. What we do know is that the lethal compound in these mushrooms is called alpha-amanitin (AMA).
However, it doesn’t take much of this notorious mushroom to kill you: one would only need to ingest part of the cap, and that would already cause the liver to shut down completely. Without immediate medical attention, this can cause death. This is why foraging should never be done casually; if you intend to forage, always do so with an expert alongside you.
Antidote To Death Caps?
For many decades, individuals (including children) who accidentally ingested death caps had no hope due to the lack of knowledge among the scientific community. An antidote has never been made, until very recently.
Research that has been published just last month in Nature Communications reveals that Australian and Chinese scientists have successfully been able to develop an antidote that can save lives. A report says that the antidote already exists, and that it’s already been approved by the FDA. At this time, it has only shown to work on mice as well as human cells in the lab, but it could be beneficial in preventing many other accidental deaths in the future from people who ingested death caps.
The antidote is none other than indocyanine green (ICG), a common dye that is used in medical laboratories to analyze liver and heart function. The research team discovered that the ICG works to stop the alpha-amanitin from doing its job.
“So far, it remains unclear how exactly death cap mushrooms kill people,” explains Qiao-Ping Wang, the study’s co-author, and a professor at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Sun Yat-Sen University in China. “But it was thought to have the most toxic toxin, AMA, responsible for its cytotoxicity,” Wang tells Live Science in an email. Wang goes on to tell Live Science that AMA has been shown to prevent RNA transcription, which is the process that describes when a DNA strand is copied into a new molecule to create new proteins; RNA transcription is also “an essential biological process for cell function and survival,” Wang says.
Additionally, the research team consulted with the US FDA, who has a list of some 3,200 compounds that have been approved. They found that only indocyanine green was effective in preventing cell death caused by the AMA toxin.
During the tests, they used CRISPR, which is a technology used in genome editing, to produce human cells that contained various mutations. They then tested which of these mutant cells were able to survive after AMA exposure.
“We confirmed these findings in liver cells and liver organoids,” said Wang. Because the liver is the primary target of the AMA. “The results demonstrated that ICG can prevent liver damage as well as kidney induced by AMA. Importantly, ICG could improve survival after AMA poisoning,” Wang adds.
Conclusion
The world of mushrooms is no doubt fascinating, but it is also so vast. It takes years of experience and practice in order to be able to identify mushrooms correctly. Eating the wrong ones could be your last meal if you aren’t careful!
Source: https://cannabis.net/blog/medical/be-wary-of-the-death-caps-the-worlds-deadliest-mushrooms
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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