Judiciary Police officers arrested a 27-year-old photography director surnamed Sou and a 28-year-old photographer surnamed Sam, both local residents, on 18 May 2022.[1] Officers stopped Sam at 5:40 p.m. as he collected a parcel at an express pick-up point in the central district and found 377.1 grammes of cannabis in boxes of chocolates and biscuits.[1] A search of the studio found seven grammes of cannabis and 9.92 grammes of psilocin and psilocybin, the active substances of the magic mushrooms grown there.[1] The police valued the cannabis and mushrooms at about 300,000 patacas.[1]

The Judiciary Police said the parcel had been sent from a country in Oceania through Hong Kong after an intelligence exchange with Hong Kong Customs.[2] The same statement said the parcel held cannabis weighing around 337.1 grammes.[2] The two men told police they had bought the drugs online and had grown them in the studio, which had operated for about a year.[2]

The police sent both men to the Public Prosecutions Office, Macau’s prosecution service, on charges of illegal production of narcotic drugs, illegal trafficking and improper possession of utensils or equipment.[2] The Macau Post Daily reported that the men were held on trafficking and drug abuse charges, while police said Sou and Sam refused to cooperate and the case was still under investigation.[1]

Macau’s Court of Final Appeal cut Sou’s combined sentence to three years and six months, treating the mushroom growing as the lesser offence of production and trafficking.[3] Macau’s Court of First Instance convicted Sou of illegal production of narcotic drugs over the mushroom growing and gave him a combined seven-year prison term.[3] The top court reasoned that Macau’s daily-dose reference table does not list psilocybin or psilocine, so police could not show how much of the controlled substances the mushrooms contained.[3]