CRACK DOWN -- DUTCH COURT RULING CURTAILS MUSHROOMING DRUG SALES

AMSTERDAM -- Dutch smart shops, the '90s version of the euphemistically
named coffee shops of the hippie era, could face a bad trip after a recent
court order banning their most popular item.

Dried magic mushrooms, whose active ingredients psilocybin and psilocyn,
induce a mild euphoria or hallucinogenic haze, were ordered off the shelves
last month in a case before a Den Bosch court designed to test the limits
of Dutch Opium Laws.

But the ban need not spell a nightmare for Conscious Dreams, strife in
Magic Valley or collapse at Inner Space, just some of the 200 pyschedelic
smart shops that draw thousands of trippers to the Netherlands each year.

The court decided against outlawing the sale of fresh mushrooms, the
unprocessed and slightly weaker version of the same substances.

Its decision, far from clearing the mist surrounding the sale of the
natural recreational drug, seems to have added a gray area to the
psychedelic scenery.

Hans van den Hurk, owner of the Conscious Dreams chain of smart shops and a
defendant in the case, said he would remove the dried mushrooms from his
stores but continue to stock the fresh ones.

"It's clear that you're not allowed to prepare the mushrooms although it's
legal to have them," Van den Hurk, who is appealing against his sentence of
240 hours of community service, said. "What's still not clear is whether
you're allowed to grow them."

Other smart shop owners also want to know where they stand.

"It's not clear what the final outcome will be. It's really difficult to
give answers to our members," said a spokesman for VLOS, an association of
Dutch smart shop proprietors.

"We've advised our members for several years not to sell the dried
mushrooms," he added.

Van den Hurk opened Amsterdam's first smart shop in 1993 as a gallery that
also sold "smart drinks": high-energy herbal beverages loaded with
vitamins.

His company started by importing the popular Red Bull drink at a time when
the Dutch still banned the sale of foods with added vitamins.

Since then there has been an explosion in the number of smart shops and the
selection of mind-altering products they stock.

Conscious Dreams' Kokopelli store on the fringe of Amsterdam's Red Light
District also features psycho-active cacti, including peyote, once used by
native American tribes to induce visions. As a matter of store policy, the
cacti are sold only in their natural state.

No figures are available on the quantities of magic mushrooms sold annually
in the Netherlands, but Van den Hurk estimated an average-sized smart shop
would turn over $120,000-145,000 a year.

Dutch policies of tolerance toward the small-scale sale and use of
so-called soft drugs such as cannabis coupled with free market forces have
been the driving forces behind the surge in smart shops.

But their rapid rise has also brought them to the attention of the police.

Conscious Dreams' Amsterdam store was raided in 1995, and police carted off
more than a kilo (2.2 pounds) of the mushrooms. After two years, however,
the case was closed and no charges brought.

Last month's mushrooms case was the first to come to court and dates from a
1997 raid on a smart shop in the southern Dutch city of Den Bosch.

Its owner, Van den Hurk and three others were arrested and charged with
trafficking in a banned substance, a conviction that carries a jail
sentence.

However Van den Hurk and his associates were able to walk free as the court
accepted research showing the mushrooms posed no significant threat to
public health.

It also ruled that the mushrooms in their natural state were not covered
under the Opium Act although their active ingredients are banned.

As such the mushrooms themselves are not illegal, but processing them to
release their banned substances is.

Van den Hurk, a former aid worker on a drug prevention program, believes
the mushrooms are best sold in shops.

"If you stop the sales now it will go directly into the criminal circuit
because the users want their mushrooms," Van den Hurk said.

Customers at Kokopelli are unaware of the legal tussle over the mushrooms
but agreed with Van den Hurk's assessment.

"Taking mushrooms is not something I would do very often," said one Dutch
woman, munching through a package.

But would making the mushrooms illegal create a deterrent to their use?
"No, it's still something I would try, at least once," she said.