Magic truffles on Dutch radio

Magic Truffles in Amsterdam

I found this little article "Amsterdam tourist mad about truffle trips" Magic Truffles are even on the website of Radio Netherlands Worldwide. It contains some nice info about the mushroom ban, the truffles it self and the use of magic truffles by tourist.

What I like is that it also brings up the way of registration of the ambulance calls when some on has a 'bad trip'. It is less than most officials will tell you, 20 calls instead of 69 in a year. You can ask your self how do they know it was the magic truffles that caused the panic attack. Some 'Tourist' are using every thing at once, alcohol, weed and some times hard drugs in combination with hallucinogenics. All of these substances can cause the panic.

Sold in giftshops: "Bad advise"

Because of the popularity of the truffles they are sold even in souvenir and gift shops along the typical postcard and wooden shoes. Just to make a lot of profit owners of these shops and even in some smartshops will give no advise on the use of truffles or the downsides of the sclerotia and sell it to everybody.

Use of truffles

To end with some advise. When you want to use magic truffels do it at home or in a relaxed and familiar environment. Make sure you do not drink alcohol. Think happy thoughts!  Read the page responsible use for more information. And buy at a smartshop that gives some good advise or even better at our webshop.

Read the article :

Amsterdam tourists mad about truffle trips

The ‘trip truffle’ has replaced banned magic mushrooms in Amsterdam’s smart shops - outlets which sell legal ‘drugs’. Trip truffles aren’t against the law, but neither are they entirely without risk - especially when used by ‘three-day tourists’ to Amsterdam.

Magic mushrooms – hallucinogenic fungi – were made illegal in the Netherlands in 2008, after several incidents, in which some people died. The only reason that you can still legally buy trip truffles, or sclerotia, is that – unlike magic mushrooms – they grow underground.

So technically they’re not mushrooms. They are hallucinogenic though, but a lot less so than magic mushrooms, says August de Loor from the drugs advice agency, Stichting Adviesbureau Drugs.

Fewer call-outs
Amsterdam’s GGD health service says ambulances were called out 69 times last year to deal with people having bad trips. “There have been markedly fewer incidents and these are less serious than in the days of magic mushrooms,” confirms GGD spokesperson Sanne van Meeteren.

Paul van Oyen, who represents the smart shops which sell the truffles, argues that the number of incidents is even lower:

“It’s not true that there were 69 emergency call-outs last year. The GGD has added the incidents involving illegal magic mushrooms to those involving sclerotia. There were actually less than 20 ambulance call-outs for sclerotia problems.”

Just too much
Bad truffle trips almost always involve tourists getting panic attacks. “In 59 percent of the cases, the problems can be dealt with on the spot by talking, reassuring and arranging for somebody to stay with the person,” Ms Van Meeteren explains.

Drug expert August de Loor says that most cases involve what are known as ‘three-day tourists’.

“They want to cram everything they’re not allowed to do in their own country into their three days in Amsterdam - binge drinking, smoking marijuana in ‘coffeeshops’ and doing magic mushrooms on top of all that. It’s just too much. They also take the magic mushrooms in Amsterdam’s busy city centre, with all the noise and trams. That’s the very worst place possible!”

Gap in the market
A smart shop owner in Amsterdam says trip truffles have filled the gap in the market created by the banning of magic mushrooms.

“I think there are still as many smart shops as there were back then. I’ve even seen truffles being sold in souvenir shops. Mind you, they should only really be sold in smart shops, because there you’re given proper instructions about how to use them. So that’s the only difference. We still have the same number of visitors and customers; as many Dutch people as foreigners. So actually nothing has changed.”

He advises against using trip truffles in cooking. They’re not the same truffles as their expensive French and Italian counterparts. But more importantly, if you cook them, their all-important hallucinogenic properties are lost.

Source: www.rnw.nl/english/article/amsterdam-tourists-mad-about-truffle-trips on  21 July 2011 RNW