Poison center study finds a sharp rise in young children swallowing psilocybin products

What happened?

On August 27, 2026, Nationwide Children's Hospital announced a study by its Center for Injury Research and Policy. The paper, "Unintentional ingestion of recreational drugs among young children, 2000-2024," was published in BMC Public Health on June 24, 2026.^{1, 2} It used the National Poison Data System, which collects calls to US poison centers, and covered 41,612 unintentional recreational drug ingestions among children under 6 from 2000 to 2024. Cannabinoids accounted for 85% of those ingestions, 58% involved children younger than 3, and 96% happened at a residence.^{1, 2}

What the paper found about psilocybin:¹

• Psilocybin and psilocin mushrooms and processed mushroom products made up 2.7% of all the ingestions.
• The psilocybin ingestion rate rose 1,466.7%, from 0.06 per 100,000 children under 6 in 2018 to 0.94 per 100,000 in 2024.
• For the whole psychedelic category, the rate of medical admission was stable from 2000 to 2019, then rose 1,600%, from 0.01 per 100,000 in 2019 to 0.17 in 2024. In 2023 and 2024, psychedelic ingestion rates were higher than every other recreational drug category except cannabinoids.
• Of the ingestions in the psychedelic category, 10.3% led to a hospital admission, including 3.5% admitted to a critical care unit, and 0.8% involved major effects.
• Compared with all other substances combined, psilocybin exposures carried a lower relative risk of major effects (0.10), medical admission (0.27) and critical care admission (0.25).

The hospital's release said the increases were especially steep for edible marijuana and psilocybin products, and that edibles may appeal to toddlers because they look like candy or food.²

Why does it matter if you're looking for a mushroom dispensary?

Gummies and chocolates are what many storefront "mushroom dispensaries" sell, and they end up in homes with small children. The authors themselves note that gummy and chocolate products have had labeling inaccuracies and that processed "mushroom" products are often coded as psilocybin in poison center records, which may overstate true psilocybin exposures.¹ In other words, a child who swallows a shop gummy may have taken something other than what the label says. Our guide to what testing found in shop gummies and chocolates covers those label studies.

If a child swallows any mushroom product, call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 right away, even if the child seems fine. Call 911 if the child is hard to wake, has a seizure or has trouble breathing. Keep the package so you can tell responders what was taken. Our help page lists these lines and what to tell responders.

What happens next?

The study does not separate shop gummies from whole dried mushrooms, so it can't say which products drove the rise. As of November 2, 2026, we had found no CDC report on mushroom product exposures published since August. We'll add new poison center or federal data here and to our testing guide as it appears.