Among all of the different strains of Magic Mushrooms Canada, there is no other one with a more thrilling backstory worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster than Envy. Named after Sigmund Freud’s controversial psychosexual theory, this rare subspecies of Psilocybin Cubensis is known for its strong potency which provokes intense and thoroughly introspective psychedelic experiences, thus earning a respectable reputation amongst mushroom enthusiasts and mycologists. They are also notoriously difficult to cultivate due to their light-ineffective sporulation which makes them even rarer and harder to find around.

The Origin Story
According to the legend, Envy mushrooms originated in the depths of the Amazonian Rainforest and were first discovered in the early 1970s by the famous ethnobotanist and psychedelic drugs enthusiast Terrence McKenna. With the help of indigenous guides, he found a big batch of these mushrooms in the rainforest. Around that time mushrooms were already banned from most countries but McKenna found a loophole he could take advantage of: The mushroom spores weren’t prohibited by the Psychotropic Substances Act because they didn’t contain any psychoactive ingredients (like psilocybin) yet. So he took some spores and hid them in between two microscopy slides and managed to smuggle them back into his home in the state of Colorado without being detected.

He then sent some samples to some of his colleagues and mycologists. Amongst them was the medical doctor Steven Pollock, also a mushroom enthusiast. He received culture from McKenna and then immediately started to refine and propagate it on an agar medium. In ongoing cultivation and genetic profiling that took several years Pollock suddenly encountered an odd-looking mutation featuring a thicker and denser stem and a pale shorter cap. By isolating this specimen and doing another process of propagation he successfully gave origin to what we nowadays know of as the Envy strain.

The Plot Thickens
Because of his unquenchable desire for researching and expanding the knowledge and understanding of magic mushrooms in Canada so that we could use them to treat many different mental illnesses with precision and efficacy, Pollock was determined to build the very first mushroom cultivation and research laboratory. However, due to his lack of funding for the project he and his partner Michael Forbes founded a company called “Hidden Creek” in which they sold mushroom cultures by sneakily advertising in the back of popular magazines.

The operation was being successful but it wasn’t generating enough income for the project so Pollock had to involve himself in a wide variety of illegal endeavors which included growing and selling cannabis, performing surgeries on wounded people who didn’t want their gunshots reported by the police and prescribing pharmaceutical drugs to anyone who requested it.

By 1981 Pollock was being heavily surveilled by the DEA, the state pharmacy board, and other law enforcement departments. On January 31st of that year, his house was mysteriously raided and Pollock was later found dead with a gunshot on his head. Police reports are inconclusive as to who was responsible for his assassination but several conspiracy theories have been around ever since.

The Aftermath
Luckily for enthusiasts of magic mushrooms in Canada, by the time of Pollock’s mysterious and quite tragic death Envy had already been distributed and grown worldwide. Without the intrepid and bold determination for science and well-being that both McKenna and Pollock showed back then we wouldn’t be able to enjoy one of the most unique strains of mushrooms you can get.