T

he Denpasar Police said on Tuesday they had arrested two vendors of juice made from psilocybin mushrooms, more popularly known as magic mushrooms, marking the first arrests since the mushrooms were classified as a type 1 narcotic in 2014.

NS, 40, and KW, 35, were arrested at two different stalls on Jl. Kuta Theater on Thursday night. From the two suspects, police seized a total of 6.3 kilograms of magic mushrooms, as well as blenders used to make the mushrooms into a drink.

Deputy Denpasar Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. I Nyoman Artana told a press conference on Tuesday that KW and NS had run separate mushroom-selling businesses. KW runs a warung, while NS run a mobile-phone shop, and when police conducted raids on the warung and shop, they found the magic mushrooms stored in plastic boxes and bags inside refrigerators.

“Apparently they were not only selling magic mushroom juice. They also sold magic mushrooms in small plastic packages to other vendors or anyone wanting to buy the mushrooms,” Artana said.

Most of the pair’s customers, he went on, were foreign tourists, with one bottle of magic mushroom juice sold for between Rp 15,000 (US$1.14) and Rp 25,000,.

“They claimed to have been selling magic mushroom juice since 2013, and could sell 25 to 30 bottles per day,” Artana said.

Making a profit of Rp 5,000 per bottle, the suspects told police that they could earn Rp 750,000 to
Rp 1,000,000 daily.

Artana added that the vendors had also sold packages of around 10 mushrooms for Rp 5,000. “They buy the mushrooms from someone for Rp 200,000 per kg, so their profits are pretty considerable,” he said.

Artana said that magic mushroom had a hallucinogenic effect that could make people lose control of themselves. He alleged many strange case involving foreigners in Bali could be traceable to the use of magic mushrooms, including a recent case of a UK tourist jumping three floors to her death. However, he admitted that this was merely conjecture, as the police had never conducted laboratory tests for magic mushrooms in such cases.

Magic mushrooms used to be openly advertised and sold at food stalls and restaurants in Bali, especially in the Kuta area, often as juice or in omelets. With the new classification as a narcotic, magic mushrooms are no longer openly advertised, but remain available.

Denpasar Police drug division head Comr. I Gede Ganefo said that since the end of 2014, the Bali Police had actively disseminated information on the dangers of consuming magic mushrooms to the public, as well as restaurants, in Kuta.

“It appears mushroom vendors have continued to operate in spite of the ban,” Ganefo said.

He added that NS and KW could face a minimum 5 years imprisonment and a maximum life sentence for their crimes, as stipulated in Article 111 of the Narcotics Law.

Police are still working to ascertain who supplied the mushrooms to the suspects.

NS said that he had continued to sell magic mushrooms in the belief that they were still legal. “[The information] was vague - I thought we were still allowed to sell magic mushrooms,” he said.