JAPAN TO OUTLAW SALES OF MAGIC MUSHROOMS IN JUNE

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Health Ministry said on Friday it would outlaw
hallucinogenic "magic" mushrooms starting in June, plugging a legal loophole
that has allowed the mind-altering fungi to be openly sold without penalty.

Sales and possession of mushrooms containing hallucinogenic elements will be
prohibited from June 6, a ministry official said.

"There have been concerns of abuse," he said. "Cases of young people doing
harm to their health have been on the rise."

Due to a bizarre legal twist, psilocybin--the chemical that gives the fungi
their "magic" properties--is illegal in Japan, but the mushrooms themselves
are not.

This has allowed vendors to hawk them from sidewalk stands and via the
Internet. Magazines can also run advertisements for such exotica as Hawaiian
toadstools without facing trouble.

In recent years, chains of "head shops" with names like Herb on Air and
Whoopee! have sprouted up in big cities, offering substances that would be
considered Class A narcotics in many countries.

In a society known for some of the toughest drug laws in the industrialised
world, such laxity is the exception to the norm.

Drug control is so strict in Japan that even some over-the-counter foreign
cold medicines are routinely seized by customs officers because of the
stimulants they contain.

The Health Ministry will issue an official notification on May 7 to inform
stores and the public of the ban, the official said. "That gives them about
a month for disposal," he said.

The branch manager of Psychedelic Garden, a head shop in Tokyo's
Nishi-Shinjuku district, said the ban came as little surprise.

"There's been talk of this for some time," he said. "We'll end sales on May
20. It's disappointing but it can't be helped."

In addition to mushrooms imported from Europe and Hawaii, the basement
bazaar stocks pipes, bongs, T-shirts and books on alternative culture.

Vendors currently walk a fine legal line. Although they cannot be arrested
for dealing of the mushrooms themselves, they are sometimes nabbed for other
violations, such as selling pharmaceuticals without a licence.