

Growing kits are illegal to possess in the UK, and she says: “The thought that the company now has my name and address in their records makes me nervous, as did the fact that they mailed the kit to me through the post.” And although I believe completely in what I’m doing, these are still class A drugs.” She has agreed to meet me on the proviso that I keep her identity a secret. There is, however, one major danger in Rosie’s mind – its illegality. “If anything, my awareness is sharpened.” “But it definitely doesn’t impair my ability to parent,” she says. She is scrupulously careful to keep her mushrooms far out of the reach of her pre-teen children. Otherwise, she says, the only down side is, “I can’t take it after 5pm or I can’t sleep.” In the very early days, she got the dosage slightly wrong and found herself, “not tripping at all, but staring at a tree for slightly longer than passersby would find normal”. She gave up booze, went online and found a company in Holland selling kits for growing your own magic mushrooms. Rosie wondered whether it might have a positive effect on her mental health. That changed about a year ago, when friends began talking about microdosing. It was the only thing that helped block out the sadness.” “But if I felt bad, my mind would immediately travel to the next drink I could have. “I wasn’t getting blind drunk and peeling myself off pavements,” she says. But inside, I was a mess.”Īntidepressants failed to work, so she stopped taking them after the birth of her second child, comforting herself with alcohol instead. And for many years, I was functioning very well, outwardly. “Therapy helped hugely – it got me out of a seriously bad place and to a functioning one. “I’ve done the traditional treatments,” she tells me. The study’s participants did, however, report lower levels of stress and depression. In fact, after six weeks of microdosing, a small increase in neuroticism was noted. Yet while some clear changes were noted – decreased mind-wandering, for example – the study found no evidence of increased creativity or life satisfaction. All 98 participants expected its benefits to be “large and wide-ranging”. There is, the study noted, “a perception of microdosing as a general panacea that is able to improve virtually all aspects of an individual’s life”. The latest study, published in February in the open- access journal Plos One and led by cognitive scientist Vince Polito, tracked the experience of 98 microdosers who were already using psychedelics – a class of drugs including LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms). Yet the scientific evidence remains shaky. While both drugs are illegal in the US and the UK, increasing numbers claimed that tiny amounts were making them more focused, creative and productive. While a “full” tripping dose of LSD is about 100 micrograms, online forums began to buzz with ambitious tech workers from Silicon Valley eulogising the effect of taking 10 to 20 micrograms every few days. Unlike the hippies who flocked to the city in the 1960s, these new evangelists of psychedelic drugs were not seeking oblivion. It’s a trend that first emerged in San Francisco less than a decade ago. In other words, says Rosie: “You don’t feel high, just… better.” Not clean-eating or mindfulness but microdosing – taking doses of psychedelic drugs so tiny they are considered to be “subperceptual”.
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At parties and even at the school gates, they have told me about a new secret weapon that is boosting their productivity at work, improving their parenting and enhancing their relationships. Over the last 12 months, I have been hearing the same story from a small but increasing number of women.

I move from a place of anxiety to a normal state of confidence, not overconfidence.” I weigh out about 0.12g and then just swallow it, like any food. “People take well over a gram recreationally. “I’ll take a very small dose, every three or four days,” she says, weighing out a thumbnail of powder on digital jewellery scales, purchased for their precision. Inside is a grey powder her finely ground homegrown magic mushrooms. She drops a bag of groceries on to her kitchen table, and reaches for a clear plastic cup, covered by a white hanky and sealed with a hairband.

Rosie has just returned from the school run.
