Where can you get help or drug checking for psilocybin in NYC?

Who should you call right now?

Call 911 if anyone may be in danger, and don't wait to see whether it passes: when in doubt, call.¹ If someone ate or took something and you have questions, call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 or the NYC Poison Center at 212-POISONS (212-764-7667), both 24/7. For a mental health or substance use crisis, call or text 988, which replaced NYC Well in 2023. For support during or after a hard psychedelic experience, call or text Fireside Project at 62-FIRESIDE (623-473-7433), daily from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Pacific, which is 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. in New York.^{5, 6, 4, 1}

Poison Control connects you to your local poison center in over 100 languages.⁵ 988 is free and confidential by call, text or chat and helps with "alcohol or drug use concerns"; in New York City, Spanish speakers dial 988 and press 2, and Deaf and hard-of-hearing callers can dial 711, then 988.^{2, 3} Fireside Project is free and confidential too, but it "is not a suicide hotline," so outside its hours, or in a crisis, call 988 or 911.¹

When should you call 911 right away?

Call 911 at once if someone:

• has a seizure;
• can't be woken, or keeps drifting out of consciousness;
• has trouble breathing;
• has chest pain or a racing or irregular heartbeat;
• is so confused, frightened or agitated that they could hurt themselves or someone else.

If you're not sure, call. For thoughts of suicide, call or text 988, and call 911 if someone is in immediate danger.¹ Serious outcomes do happen: in the 2024 outbreak tied to mushroom chocolates, 73 of 180 cases were hospitalized, 38 needed intensive care, 29 needed a breathing tube, and 41 of the 144 cases with data (28.5%) had seizures.¹⁴

If a child ate a mushroom, gummy or chocolate, call Poison Control right away, and 911 if the child is very sleepy, hard to wake or struggling to breathe. A 3-year-old in Virginia who ate two mushroom gummies was hospitalized.¹⁵

Tell responders what was taken, when, and what else was used with it, and keep the package. CDC notes that common hospital urine drug screens don't usually detect the substances found in mushroom gummies.¹⁵ Stay with the person until help arrives.

Will calling for help get you in trouble?

New York's Good Samaritan law, Penal Law 220.78, protects people who call. In plain words:⁷

• If you seek help in good faith for someone having an overdose or "other life threatening medical emergency," you "shall not be charged or prosecuted" for a controlled substance offense under Penal Law article 220 or a cannabis offense under article 222, for underage alcohol possession, or for possessing drug paraphernalia, when the drugs, alcohol or paraphernalia were "obtained as a result of" seeking help.
• The person in trouble gets the same protection, whoever made the call.
• "Overdose" is broad: "an acute condition including, but not limited to, physical illness, coma, mania, hysteria or death," or anything "a prudent layperson" could reasonably believe is an overdose that needs care.
• Not covered: any offense "involving sale for consideration or other benefit or gain," and class A-I felonies. For a sale charge, seeking help is an affirmative defense for people with no prior class A-I, A-II or B drug felony conviction, but not when the charge is a class A-I or A-II felony. The law doesn't bar evidence against people it doesn't protect or prosecution for "other crimes," and police can still seize drugs.

Penal Law 220.03, the basic possession offense, adds that possession discovered because someone sought immediate health care for an overdose isn't a violation of that section.⁸ This summarizes the statutes and isn't legal advice; the penalties guide covers every charge.

What can NYC drug checking test, and where is it?

The NYC Health Department runs drug checking at six harm-reduction sites, where "you can bring powders and pills" to a trained technician. It can't test mushrooms: "Plant matter and most liquids cannot be tested."⁹ The state's program says its machine "cannot test organic matter like cannabis or mushrooms" and can't test drugs in foods, such as candies or brownies, either.¹⁰

Each site has a drop box for anonymous samples, and technicians send results to the contact details left with the sample. Schedules change, so call ahead; questions go to drugchecking@health.nyc.gov.⁹

No site is listed in Queens or on Staten Island.⁹ The service began as a pilot at five syringe service programs from November 2021 to December 2023 and continued as a public health program in 2024, using an infrared spectrometer (FTIR) and test strips, with lab confirmation. Of 2,608 samples collected from November 2021 through December 2024, 1,746 had lab results; 1,027 contained an opioid, and 449 of those (43.7%) also contained xylazine. The published results don't mention psilocybin or mushrooms.¹¹

What does OnPoint NYC offer?

OnPoint NYC runs two harm-reduction sites, in East Harlem and Washington Heights (212-828-8464). It has operated overdose prevention centers since November 30, 2021, and offers drug checking with the Health Department, syringe services, drop-in centers with meals and hygiene facilities, buprenorphine, and HIV and hepatitis C testing.¹²

Who do New York psilocybin trials screen out?

Psilocybin trials in New York screen people out for specific conditions. Their exclusion lists aren't medical advice, but they show who researchers leave out. Three recruiting trials, one at NYU Langone and two at Mount Sinai, exclude people with:¹³

• a psychotic disorder or a history of mania (all three), or bipolar disorder (both Mount Sinai trials);
• a parent, sibling or child with schizophrenia or a related psychotic disorder, or with bipolar disorder (all three; NYU's trial names bipolar type 1);
• serious suicide risk: active suicidal thoughts with intent or a medically significant suicide attempt in the past 12 months (NYU), any suicide attempt in the past 2 years (the Mount Sinai depression trial), or recent suicidal behavior (the Mount Sinai trauma trial);
• heart disease or an abnormal heart rhythm (all three), or high blood pressure (NYU and the Mount Sinai depression trial); NYU's trial also excludes seizure disorders, an overactive thyroid and insulin-dependent diabetes, and the trauma trial excludes epilepsy and insulin-dependent diabetes;
• pregnancy or breastfeeding (all three);
• medications the studies don't allow, which in the Mount Sinai depression trial include antipsychotics, serotonergic antidepressants, mood stabilizers, MAO inhibitors and drugs that prolong the heart's QT interval;
• psychedelic use in the past year (two trials) or "recent" use (the third).

One trial warns interested people not to "stop, taper, or otherwise change prescribed medications before speaking with the study team."¹³ If any of this applies to you, talk to a clinician you trust. Our clinical trials directory lists all 30 psilocybin and analog studies with a New York site.

Are smoke-shop shrooms safe?

Lab tests of smoke-shop mushroom gummies and chocolates keep finding drugs that aren't on the label: in Virginia, 4 of 6 bags of "nootropic" gummies contained unlisted psilocybin or psilocin, and CDC warned such products "might contain undisclosed and potentially harmful substances."¹⁵ The city's drug-checking sites take powders and pills, and the state's program says drugs in candies and other foods can't be tested.^{9, 10} Our guides to smoke-shop mushroom gummies, Amanita muscaria and New York's psilocybin law have the details.