Spores and grow kits across Europe, column by column

Spores are named as prohibited in the drug lists of five countries: Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Norway. Germany covers them when they are meant for growing a drug. In the other 26 countries in our grid we found no law, ruling or public body that deals with spores directly, so those cells stay unverified. Grow kits follow a similar pattern, with one country where they are explicitly legal to buy: the Netherlands.

Why spores are a separate question

Spores carry no psilocybin. A laboratory study of Psilocybe cubensis found none of the active compounds in its spores (Gotvaldová et al., 2021). A law that only lists the substance therefore does not reach spores by itself. A law that lists the organism, its parts or "material for growing it" does.

A grow kit is different again: it is substrate already colonised by mycelium, the living network of the fungus. Mycelium can contain psilocybin, as the truffles formed from it show, and once mushrooms appear, the kit produces a controlled drug in every country of the grid.

Spores: the column at a glance

Germany's wording is the clearest example of the conditional approach. Annex I of the Narcotics Act covers "biological material" suitable for growing psilocybin fungi when misuse for intoxication is intended (BtMG, Anlage I). Spores held for another purpose fall outside that wording; spores bought to grow mushrooms fall inside it.

In Spain, the harm reduction programme Energy Control writes that holding and selling spores is not a crime (Energy Control). That is a statement by an NGO, not by a court or ministry, so the grid keeps the Spanish cell unverified.

Grow kits: the column at a glance

Sweden is a practical example. Swedish Customs announced in March 2026 that grow kits for psilocybin mushrooms can be seized and count as an attempted drug offence, and that truffles are classed as narcotics. In Czechia, Supreme Court guide values from 2014 count mycelium on substrate as drug material, with 40 grams as the line above a small amount.

In the Netherlands

Dutch smartshops sell grow kits openly. The Trimbos Institute explains that buying and owning a kit is legal because you are not buying mushrooms, and that whoever has mushrooms come out of it holds List II drugs (DRUGSinfo, Trimbos). For spores we found only a 2015 Supreme Court tax case that treated spore syringes like seeds for VAT purposes, which says nothing about criminal law. The Dutch spores cell stays unverified for that reason.

"No rule found" is not permission

An unverified cell means the law is silent on that item, not that the item is allowed. In each of these countries, growing psilocybin mushrooms is an offence, and several laws also punish supplying or holding material meant for growing drugs. Hungary's Criminal Code, for example, punishes acquiring or supplying material for growing drugs (§ 182), and Croatia bans holding "means for making drugs". Shipping spores or a kit to such a country, for the purpose of growing, is the start of an offence there.

This site does not offer spores or grow kits. The only products on it are fresh truffles for a stay in the Netherlands, listed in the truffle guide.

Where the data comes from

Each status in this sheet is the same as in the spores and grow kits columns of the grid; the country records give the article, the source and the date we read it.