Magic Mushrooms have played a part in ancient and contemporary cultures. From priests and shamans, who used them in religious ceremonies and sacred rituals, to 20th Century so-called hippies and ravers, who have enjoyed their psychedelic and psychoactive effects. Today Magic mushrooms  are used by an increasing number of people. Recent medical research has found that their active compounds might even have a role to play in treating anxiety and depression.

In the UK, the first mention of them was in the London Medical and Physical Journal in 1799, which describes a family unwittingly picking magic mushrooms from the banks of the Thames for breakfast - which must have led to some fascinating at-the-table conversation.

In 1958, Albert Hoffman, a Swiss scientist who would go on to invent LSD, discovered and isolated psilocybin and psilocin as the 'active' ingredients of magic mushrooms.

Recreational use of magic mushrooms in the UK appears to have developed in the late 1970s as, at the time, a legal alternative to LSD.

They've recently become popular again after peaking during the rave culture of the 1990s and mid-2000s. According to a recent Home Office report, the number of young people taking magic mushrooms has doubled from 49,00 in 2016/17 to over 100,000 in 2018/19.

But it's not just young people that have been increasingly turning to mushrooms. According to the annual Global Drugs Survey, UK respondents who use magic mushrooms have increased from 13.7 per cent in 2014 to 19.3 per cent in 2019. The same report highlighted that use of other hallucinogens like DMT, ketamine and LSD between 2015 and 2020 had also doubled.

This two-sided A6 picture-based drug card illustrates what magic mushrooms look like, how they make you feel and the potential risks associated with using them.