Definitions

The words the register uses to describe the law, in plain terms.

Psilocybin law is written in categories, and the same word can carry a different legal meaning from one place to the next. The substances themselves also travel under common names that no statute uses. These are the terms of art we rely on when the register reports a status, together with the everyday words they answer to. Each describes what a word means as a name for a substance or as a category of law. None is a medical claim, and none is advice.

For how a status is assigned, verified, and dated, see the methodology.

Magic mushrooms, shrooms: Common names for fungi that naturally contain psilocybin. Neither term is a legal category. Drug schedules name the compounds, psilocybin and psilocin, and sometimes the fungus that carries them, so the register follows the statutory language: the record for "magic mushrooms" in a place is the record for psilocybin in that place.
Psilocybin and psilocin: The two compounds named in most drug schedules. Psilocybin is the compound present in the fungus; psilocin is the closely related compound it converts to, and a law that lists one usually lists the other. Some laws name the compounds without naming the fungus that contains them, and that gap is where genuinely contested legal positions come from.
Decriminalized: Possession or use is still prohibited by statute, but the penalty has been removed or reduced so it is no longer treated as a crime, or is made the lowest law-enforcement priority. Decriminalization changes the consequence, not the underlying prohibition, and it does not create a legal way to buy, sell, supply, import, or grow.
Growing your own: Decriminalization almost never covers cultivation. In many countries the statute that removes the penalty for possessing a small amount is a different provision from the one that covers growing, and growing usually stays in the criminal article, sometimes carrying the heaviest penalty in the law. Where a record does not say what cultivation carries, treat that as unstated rather than permitted. Seeds, spores, and growing kits are treated differently again, and a few laws reach them explicitly.
Legal / regulated access: A framework that permits some form of lawful access under government rules, such as licensing, registration, or a supervised program. What is permitted, and for whom, is defined by that framework and varies widely between jurisdictions. Legal in one place does not mean legal in another.
Medical use: A legal category that allows psilocybin to be used under medical supervision or authorization for specified purposes. The term describes the regulatory classification and the rules that govern it. It is not a statement about clinical results, and nothing on this site is medical advice.
Facilitated / supported access: A supervised model, such as those in Oregon and Colorado, in which a trained facilitator is present during a session under a licensed program. It is a regulatory framework, not medical practice: a facilitator is not acting as a physician, and supported access is not the same as a medical prescription.
Schedule I: The most restrictive classification under the United States Controlled Substances Act, and the tier where psilocybin sits at the federal level. Substances in this schedule are subject to the tightest legal controls. State-level reforms operate underneath this federal classification, which is why a state program can exist while federal law is unchanged.
Ballot measure: A law or policy question put directly to voters, rather than passed by a legislature. Several psilocybin reforms, including Oregon Measure 109 and Colorado Proposition 122, were enacted this way. A ballot measure that passes still relies on later rulemaking to define how the program actually operates.
Pending legislation: A bill or measure that has been introduced but is not yet law. A pending status means change is proposed, not in effect. Until a bill is enacted and takes effect, the current law is whatever it was before, and that is the status the register reports.
Effective date: The date a law or program actually takes legal force, which is often later than the date it was passed or signed. The register dates every status to the law as it stands, so a reform can be enacted well before the date access or a penalty change becomes real.

A status is only as clear as the words behind it. These are ours, stated plainly.