Because of a loophole in regulations, hallucinogens can be sold legally in Japan. A few hundred feet from a po-lice station in downtown Tokyo is a small shop called Booty. It sells a selection of powerful hallucinogens, mainly to young Japanese in dreadlocks and scruffy hemp clothing who look like a cross between Rasta-farians and hippies. You can select from a half-dozen varieties that will make your head spin, like Psilocybe cubensis, a mushroom imported from the Netherlands ($10 a gram), Mexican peyote cacti ($120 for five grams), ayahuaska, a vine from the Amazonian jungle ($70 a dose) or ibogaine, a stimulant and hallucinogen from the Congo ($10 per gram). The owner of the shop, Yuichiro Morita, 27, insists he runs a strictly legal business. And the neighboring cops, as well as Japan's Justice Ministry officials, agree.
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