MAGIC MUSHROOMS SLIP THROUGH JAPAN DRUG LOOPHOLE

TOKYO (Reuters) - In a country known for some of the Western world's
toughest drug laws, dealers of hallucinogenic ''magic'' mushrooms
brazenly tout their wares in Japan.

Sidewalk vendors hawk mind-altering fungi on the streets of Shibuya,
Tokyo's hip center of fashion, while magazines run advertisements for
Hawaiian toadstools and Peyote cacti.

Thanks to a bizarre legal loophole, psychedelic substances have
mushroomed into a major money-spinner and stores, known as ''head
shops,'' with names such as Herb on Air, Whoopee! and Psychedelic
Garden are sprouting up all over the capital.

``You can't be punished for possession. Magic mushrooms are not
listed in the drug law,'' a Justice Ministry official said.

A Tokyo customs official confirmed the loophole that lets dealers
import vegetable matter that would be considered Class A narcotics in
many countries. ``The plants themselves aren't illegal. There's no
law prohibiting their import.''

In a society not known for recreational drug use, such laxity is the
exception to the rule. Even some over-the-counter cold medicines such
as Sudafed are routinely seized by Japanese customs officers because
of the stimulants they contain.

``Japan is no paradise for druggies, that's for sure,'' said a user
of magic mushrooms, who declined to be identified. The 26-year-old
office worker described how she painstakingly raised her own magic
mushrooms at home using a spore-growing kit imported from Amsterdam.

Zapped With Hair Dryer

``My mushrooms were 10 times better than the stuff you can buy in
Shibuya,'' she said. ``That's mostly because the dealers dry them
with a hair dryer that effectively zaps most of the psilocybin out.''

Psilocybin, the chemical that gives magic mushrooms their
hallucinogenic properties, is specifically outlawed under drug laws,
as is mescaline from Mexico's peyote cactus. But unlike hemp, the
fungi and cacti themselves get off scot-free.

``If you know it's a magic mushroom and eat it, that's illegal. If
you don't know what it is and eat it, that's fine,'' said the branch
manager of a head-shop chain who identified himself only as Mr. A.
``It's all right to show and sell them, just not to encourage people
to ingest.''

He said about 20 people a day, from junior high school students to
retiress, buy mushrooms imported from Europe and Hawaii at his
basement bazaar in Tokyo's Shinjuku district. The shop also stocks
pipes and books on alternative culture.

Dealers know they walk a fine legal line. Police made their first
fungus-related arrest in 1998, nabbing a man in the western city of
Osaka for selling 2,000 bottles of capsules containing powdered magic
mushrooms, worth about $80,000.

But putting him in handcuffs took some wrangling. The man was
arrested not for hawking hallucinogens but for flouting a law
requiring people who sell pharmaceutical products to have a license,
said a police spokesman. He had taken out magazine advertisements
saying his mushrooms had ``a great effect on sex,'' the spokesman
added.

The same year, a 19-year-old employee of a Tokyo magic mushroom
dealer died of a drug overdose, although it was not clear exactly
what drug she had taken.

``Magic mushrooms are essentially poisonous mushrooms,'' said Katsumi
Kinoshita, chief of the Health Ministry's Pharmaceutical and Medical
Safety Bureau. He declined to say whether the ministry was
considering making them illegal.

Last month Japanese pop idol and TV star Hideaki Ito, 25, was rushed
to a hospital after police found him babbling incoherently in a
store, local media said. Ito said he had been given magic mushrooms
by a friend without his knowledge.

Unwelcome Publicity

The incident drew unwelcome publicity for a fledgling industry eager
to distance itself from illegal trafficking.

``It's shop policy not to talk to the media,'' said the manager of a
Shibuya magic mushroom emporium, declining to answer questions.
``They always paint us in such a bad light.''

Japan's ``yakuza'' organized crime syndicates control the vast
majority of narcotics trafficking, and their most lucrative product
is amphetamines, popular as a pick-me-up for those with fast-paced
lifestyles, police say.

``Rave'' drugs have also become popular. The Osaka customs office
reported this year that seizures of ecstasy, a controversial
stimulant and mild hallucinogen sometimes called the ``love drug,''
increased almost ninefold in 2000.

Perhaps Japan's most high-profile drug bust was in 1980, when former
Beatle Paul McCartney was arrested at Tokyo International Airport for
possession of 219 grams of marijuana. Held in jail for nine days
before being released and deported, he could have faced seven years
in prison.

``Japan's drug laws are the way they are because they were forced on
us willy-nilly by America after the war,'' said a magic mushroom
street dealer. The long-haired vendor said the occupation authorities
who gave Japan its new constitution and legal code lumped hard and
soft drugs together as dangerous and ''evil'' substances -- although
magic mushrooms slipped through.

``In Japan, the people who make the rules don't have a clue,'' Mr. A
said. ``To them, it's just fungus.''