Accidentally poisoning a character with a natural herb or supplement can be just the thing to spice up your plot and keep readers guessing. And these kinds of scenarios create believable twists. Numerous severel illness have occured over the years from contaminated or adulterated ‘natural’ products, such as kratom or echinacia, with deadly consequences, such as life-threatening hemorrhages, severe infections, and even heart attacks.
Recently, the trendy use of hallucinogenic mushroom-based candies, such as chocolates and gummies, has been associated with numerous hospitalizations, and even death.
While these real-life events are unfortunate, they offer writers unique and realistic ideas to put characters in harms way.
Brief History/Social Trend-
Hallucinogenic mushrooms, better known as “Magic Mushrooms,” contain psilocybin-the chemical responsible for hallucinations. Recently, ‘shrooms’ have become very popular with consumers to treat depression, although they’re not FDA approved. Safe doses are unkown, despite the public push to legalize them. Some US states have decriminalized psilocybin, although in most states it remains illegal.
To get around this, resourceful entrepreneurs have tapped into other hallucinogenic chemicals in mushrooms with effects similar to psilocybin, but that aren’t specifically illegal. One of these chemicals is muscimol. One California company (Diamond Shruumz) has blended muscimol mushrooms into candies (such as chocolates) in both micro (tiny) and ‘extreme/mega’ doses.
The Perils
In 2023, severe illness and hospitalization occured in a number of people that had eaten a Diamond Shruumz product. Reports climbed through mid-2024, resulting in the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issuing a warning. The FDA has launched an investigation into the deaths and issued a product recall (6/2024). But products sold before the recall continue to cause illness.
The most recent tally of cases:
113 illnesses
42 hospitalizations
2 deaths potentially related (under investigaiton)
28 states
The Culprit?
Muscimol, the ‘legal’ hallucinogenic mushroom chemical, is strongly suspected. Muscimol is not FDA approved for food and is potentially toxic. And all the symptoms suffered by patients are similar to those that would be caused by toxic levels of muscimol.
How to use this information in a plot:
How will my character get the drug?
Your character can easily get these potentially toxic and dangerous candies or mushrooms.
Naturally growing mushrooms-
Accidental poisoning from picking the wrong mushroom is always a plot option. Many wild mushroooms are poisonous and plenty of campers have picked the wrong ones, as in this report. Your character’s beloved dog can also fall prey, although keep in mind that no one ever loves a dog story that goes south (Yes. I’m still scarred from Old Yeller).
Purchased ‘edibles’-
For stories taking place before the recall, your character could easily have purchased her chocolates, gummies, or other mushroom-infused candies online or in stores that sell hemp-derived products, like CBD and delta-8 THC (a legal cousin to marijuana).
Does your story take place after the recall? The candies can still be in a pantry or medicine cabinet at home. Someone might offer the candies at a party or rave. Even teen characters are not immune to the risks, potentially getting the treats from a friend at school or at a private party.
Finally, your character could believably order muscimol-infused candies using a social media app, much like a number of illicit street drugs.
How will my character act and feel?
With a wide variety of symptoms and dangers, you can choose how sick your character feels and if they survive.
Lower dose-
The candies are advertised to ‘improve focus and energy,’ but your character is more likely to feel a little giddy with some mild perception changes—such as small light trails that follow objects when she turns her head. This can make her world look a little “sparkly.” But the dosing is not precise, so even a bag marked “microdose” can believably cause unexpected hallucinations or more serious side effects (see below), spinning your character’s day into unexpected turmoil.
High dose-
If she takes a high dose (accidentally or on purpose), her problems can begin to escalate.
She might complain of stomach pain, feel nauseous, and vomit. She can become drowsy, confused, and have trouble following conversations. This can worsen, with her blood pressure and heart rate dropping dangerously low until she passes out, slips into a coma, or dies.
Or she might become agitated and irritated, her heart racing and her blood pressure climbing. She may begin to sweat profusely. Her muscles can twitch or contract painfully. She can collapse from seizures and become unconscious. Want to make her situation more dire? She believably could need to be on a ventilator in a hospital ICU to help her breathe until her seizures have stopped.
How long will this effect my character?
Generally, since mushrooms or candies are eaten, they need to absorb in the stomach first, so give your character a good 20-30 minutes (and even up to 2 hours) before the first effects appear.
Start with some mild symptoms (dizzy, lightheadedness, sparkling objects) after about 30 minutes. Then, as the scene unfolds, more dangerous symptoms can appear.
If you want a more sedated picture, think of everything slowing down in the character …like brain fog, drowsiness, stumbling, and possibly passing out. She might talk to people that aren’t there. You can add in a seizure before (or as) the character passes out. If you want, the character can slip into a coma (after about 3-4 hours).
Want an agitated character instead? Your character can breathe rapidly and act stressed, and irritated. She’ll be confused when she’s talking and might see things or talk to people that aren’t there. She might claw at her chest, as her heart painfully beats. Her hand can shake as she holds or reaches for objects. Ultimately, she can collapse from a seizure, her muscles thrashing and contracting uncontrollably. Your character can even have a heart attack.
Do you want your character to survive? Have her slowly get better over several hours. If she’s been sick enough to go to the hospital, by the next day she could be well enough to send home (although there have been reports of hallucinations, psychotic behavior, or coma lasting for a couple of days).
If you don’t want her to survive…well, there are a lot of ideas there to play with!
Sample Scenario:
Mia stumbles, grabs the counter.
“Are you ok?” Jade asks.
Mia leans over, vomit spilling from her mouth.
Jade sees the half-empty bag of mushroom gummies on the counter. “Oh, no. Mia, how many of those did you eat?”
Suddenly, Jade screams as Mia collapses to the floor, her body writhing uncontrollably, foam gurgling from her mouth.
Now you try it:
Writing Prompt 1: Write a scene where one of your own characters eats some muscimol mushrooms or candy containing muscimol. How does the character get them? Why does your character eat them (and how many)? How do the symptoms unfold? Does your character survive?
Writing Prompt 2: Write a scene where your character is served hors d’oeuvres at a party, not realizing the ‘bon bons’ were actually hallucinogenic mushroom-infused chocolates. (This is similar to ‘brieing’, where ecstacy is stuffed inside brie cheese and served at upscale parties-for more information, see Chapter 9, Club Drugs, in The Grim Reader.)
Want to explore more ideas?
Get tips for making sure your perilous scenes will sound credible:
My blog posts at On We Merrily Stumble. offer tips for a variety of drug-related or herbal scenarios to put your characters in danger
Subscribe to my newsletter for writing tips and links to writing resources sent right to your mailbox (never spammy!)
And check out The Grim Reader: A Pharmacists Guide to Putting Your Characters in Peril. It’s jam packed with tips and examples to help you create believable plot twists using truth serum, knock-out drugs, hallucinogens, club drugs, and much, much more.
Here’s an article with great information specifically concerning poisonous mushrooms.
Happy Plotting!
The post Plot Believable Peril With Mushroom-Infused Candy first appeared on Miffie Seideman.