Mushroom Spore Kits May Be Illegal in Your Area – Or Not

Learn where to Get Spores For Your Mushroom Grow Kit

Mushroom Grow Kit – Mushroom Spore Kits – What’s A Spore Bag?

In this Qualityspores.store article, we’re going to discuss mushroom spore kits – and about what’s a spore bag, they’re sometimes marketed as mushroom grow kits or a grow kit. We’re going to cover why these products might be illegal in parts or all of the United States that don’t allow mushroom spore syringes or mushroom grow kits.

Mushroom Grow Kit Laws and States for Legality Information By State

As mushroom acceptance grows in the USA states and more people become aware of the many benefits of them and the cubensis strain of mushrooms, cottage industries like these are bound to crop up. And crop up they have. In recent months, we’ve seen a massive influx of vendors selling spore kits. As a service to our loyal audience, we wanted to provide a resource that explains what may or may not be legal in your state or community jurisdiction so you can answer questions about mushroom laws by state in the USA.

With that in mind, here’s a quick but important note for clarity on mushroom kits: everything for sale on Quality Spores is completely legal. Mushroom spore syringes are perfectly within the bounds of the law in all states with the exception of California, Idaho, and Georgia, which is why we cannot and do not ship mushroom kits to those states. You sort of need to generate your own mushroom growing kit combining legal quality spores and other substrate materials for starters. It’s all quite doable to create your own shroom grow kit that rocks!

Mushroom Grow Kit Legality

This article focuses on the legality of mushroom spore kits specifically (A.K.A., mushroom growing kits) and the best mushroom spores for growing legally in your state. As we’ll learn, legally speaking, there may be a very big difference between buying and selling spore syringes and selling ready-to-grow mushroom spore kits.

If you’re not already familiar with the current legislation surrounding mushroom spores and so-called mushrooms or for creating your own mushroom growing kit, you can read more about growing the strongest mushrooms strains or best mushroom strains, and about different aspects of cubensis in our pages or blog posts, plus learn details on special spores laws.

Mushroom Kit. Since clear understanding is critical whenever discussing the mushroom kit topic, let’s begin with some definitions:

spore syringe growing bundle

What is a Mushroom Spore Kit? What Do Mushroom Spore Kits Consist Of?

Mushroom grow kits when you’re buying a mushroom kit online usually include everything one needs to grow mushrooms (in jurisdictions where doing so is legal, of course).

Mushroom Kit Includes These Components From Spore Vendors and Sellers

While the contents and quality of mushroom spore kits and mushroom kit ingredients can vary wildly between mushroom spore vendors and sellers between companies, shroom grow kits usually come with a:

  • Mushroom Grow Box
  • Special Bag Designed for Colonizing Mycelium
  • Other accessories such as thermostats for monitoring temperature
  • Hygrometers for Measuring Humidity
  • High-Power microscopes to examine mushroom spores for microscopy are optional but recommended for serious mushroom research enthusiasts.
  • Cubensis Mushroom Substrates for Mycelial Colonization and the fruiting bodies themselves.

Mushroom Spore Kits

Many mushroom spore kits have other little extras as well, such as sterility-enhancing equipment like gloves, disinfectant, and facial masks. Whenever growing mushrooms of any kind – cubensis or otherwise – a clean working environment is a requirement to eliminate the risk of airborne contaminants.

Now, as the name implies, a mushroom spore kit will also include spores, usually in a syringe container. This is where the potential legality of the kit comes into question.. We’ll explore exactly why in just a moment, but let’s first clearly define the difference between a mushroom spore kit and a sole spore syringe or spore print.

How a Mushroom Spore Kit Differs From a Cubensis Spore Syringe or Spore Print

As detailed above, a mushroom spore kit contains everything needed for growing said mushrooms (including, in some cases, the spores themselves—although not always included in a mushroom kit, which is a detail that will become important to understand later.

Tip: For spores seller legality purposes it’s best to separate the quality mushroom spores from the mushroom spores grow kit.

We’ll primarily discuss spore syringes as they’re our area of mushroom spores expertise, but generally the same things we’re about to go over apply to spore prints too.

Medicinal Mushroom Spores and Syringes Containing Mushroom Spores

A spore syringe is exactly what it sounds like: a syringe containing mushroom spores. They might be cubensis spores, or spores from nearly any other kind of mushroom, such as gourmet mushroom spores or medicinal mushroom spores. The spores are suspended in a non-nutrient liquid solution, generally distilled water.

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It’s important that a spore syringe uses a non-nutrient suspension solution (whether it’s distilled water or otherwise), because if any nutrients are present, it could lead to the maturation of the spores where mycelium begins to form. In the case of something like a gourmet mushroom spore syringe, this would result in the spores being potentially ruined for future use (whether study or cultivation).

However, it’s of the utmost important that no nutrients be present for any kind of mushroom spores, because while spores do not contain illegal sustances—and are thus legal in 47 states—the mycelium of a cubensis fungi, and certainly the fruiting body, does contain illegal substances, which is very much illegal throughout the United States.

mushroom spore kit

Now, one would be forgiven for asking the following: if you can’t grow mushrooms with spores legally, what’s the point of buying syringes chock full of the things?

Studying Mushroom Fungi

It’s because many microscopists, mycologists, and other researchers are interested in studying these unique fungi during their formative spore stage of their lives. Examining spores under your microscope as a hobby is a rewarding and educational pastime, and that’s especially true for mushroom spores.

So-called mushrooms have so many different strains and varieties that they’re practically a dream for anyone interested in taxonomy. While they’re all a member of the cubensis species, there are remarkably notable differences between each strain, which is easily detectable when looking at their spores under the microscope. They are not for cultivation; this is why we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone at Quality Spores—our authentic spores are for researchers conducting legal activities only.

With this background knowledge, you’ll have an easier time understanding why some legal experts think that mushroom grow kits could be illegal, especially if they include cubensis spores. Let’s find out why:

Why Some Legal Experts Believe That \ Mushroom Grow Kits Could Be Illegal (and Under What Circumstances)

grow kits for cubensis mushrooms

Mughrooms Grow Kit Legality

If you’ve been following along so far, you may be starting to suspect why some legal experts believe that mushroom grow kits could be illegal.

Controlled Substances Act

One must start by examining The Controlled Substances Act, from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration under which a mushroom is classified as a Schedule I substance (yes, just like heroin—no matter how ridiculous an educated mushroom advocate or open-minded individual may find this, it is, at the time of this writing, the law).

In addition to outlawing certain substances, the Controlled Substances Act also outlines other laws. One of those laws is that it’s illegal to sell drug paraphernalia, which a mushroom grow kit may indeed qualify as.

“Mushroom growing kits” are entirely legal, since they don’t imply any potential use or possession of mushrooms (and where do you think shiitakes come from?). It’s similar to how one can purchase a bong or pipe, since these are classified as tobacco smoking devices.

Furthermore, it’s illegal to “attempt or conspire” to break any laws outlined by the Controlled Substances Act. Thus, it’s not a stretch to imagine that lawmakers could determine that mushroom spore kits—as they include everything needed to grow—could be doing exactly that. Being caught up in a conspiracy to “manufacture” a Schedule I substance is enough to ruin anyone’s day, wouldn’t you agree?

mushroom cultivation kit

Finally, unrelated to the Controlled Substances Act but entirely related to the law, it’s illegal to “aid and abet” a crime, which the vendor of a mushroom grow kit may be doing.

As you can see, this potential legality (or illegality) of a mushroom spore kit places a significant amount of risk on the vendor, but buyers are far from completely safe themselves.

For amateur microscopists, mycologists, and researchers—in other words, law abiding citizens—the risk of dealing with these kinds of “gray markets” just isn’t worth it, not when so many other convenient and safe options to conduct one’s research clearly within the bounds of the law exist.

Having said that, the obvious question is, of course, how do online sellers of mushroom grow kits “get away” with it?

The Devil is in the Details: How So Many Vendors “Get Away” With Selling Mushroom Spore Kits

Many vendors who sell mushroom grow kits are able to do so for several different reasons:

  1. The kit doesn’t include spores at all, or only includes spores containing fungi (such as, say, pearl oyster spores). In these cases, while the branding and implication of the product might suggest mushroom cultivation, the product falls into a gray “technically legal” area. Some legal experts may disagree, as we learned above with the notion of “conspiring to violate the Controlled Substances Act”, which such a product may be interpreted to be doing.
  2. The kit includes no marketing or branding which suggests that it may be used to cultivate fungi, in which case it’s simply a mushroom growing kit. No illegal spores are included. In this case, the seller or buyer is at no risk, since the product is unquestionably legal—people grow mushrooms all the time for perfectly legitimate purposes. Major retailers even carry mushroom cultivation kits as home science experiments or for amateur mycologists.
  3. The highest risk kits do include spores along with the rest of the growing materials. While technically a mushroom growing kit is legal (individually) and technically cubensis spores are legal, the obvious implication is that the product is intended for mushroom cultivation. This is where both buyer and seller could run into legal trouble.

As we mentioned in the beginning of this article, mushroom grow kits have absolutely flooded the market. Most of them fall into the first category described above, but an increasing number of these kits fall into the third category. The “shroom boom” of what we’ve called the special revolution 2.0 is still in its very early stages, and it may only be a matter of time before lawmakers (and those who enforce such laws) begin taking action against kits in the third category.

Why Mushroom Spore Syringes Are Safer and Easier to Obtain For Amateur Microscopy

mushroom grow kits

Since customers of Quality Spores are legitimate researchers, we suggest procuring your mushroom spores in syringe format only. If you also grow gourmet, medicinal, or ornamental mushrooms of legal varieties, we suggest ordering your supplies for those projects separately.

It may seem quite convenient to get everything you need for your various interests “all in one go”, but the risks far outweigh the rewards—if possible, we’d like to see the legitimate amateur microscopy and mycology communities avoid falling into any unfortunate misunderstandings. This is why you’re better off getting your research spores from a trusted member of the community like us. There are other benefits you get when you choose Quality Spores too—not the least of which is authenticity.

Buy 100% Legal Mushroom Spores at Quality Spores – Fast, Affordable, Discreet

At Quality Spores, we carry 100% authentic mushroom spore syringes. Each syringe is loaded with spores, guaranteed uncontaminated, and always viable. With the recent explosion of interest in mushrooms, there are many vendors online purporting to have “the real deal,” especially when it comes to more exotic or rare strains. Unfortunately, many of our customers have expressed to us that their experience with other sellers was less than ideal, which brought them to us—and now they’re totally satisfied.

If you’re interested in getting started in the amateur microscopy hobby and you’d like to order completely legal mushroom spore syringes—with no “gray” areas to speak of, unlike the kits we discussed to day—we invite you to visit our mushroom spore store.

You’re also encouraged to read more on this topic in our free eBook, available now:

Mushrooms, Psilocybin and YOU ebook by Quality Spores

GET YOUR FREE COPY: SPORE STORE eBook!

Get answers to your questions about mushroom spore legalities and discover the long history of our relationship with mushrooms. It is a great primer to get started in the world of mushroom spore microscopy and premium spores.

In addition to your free copy of the report, you’ll also get signed up to the Quality Spores mailing list so that you can receive additional information about amateur microscopy, mushroom spores, and even special coupons, discounts, and important site announcements. You definitely don’t want to miss it!