Charles Clarke’s “justification” (if it can even be called that) is because the government scientists advised him that the chemicals are similar to LSD.
People sometimes do bad things on LSD and end up in the mental home – so Mr Clarke thinks this will also happen with shrooms and therefore it should be banned.
Although the scientists are correct, rather curiously I have not come across that many bad trip reports of mushrooms compared to those from LSD. OTOH there have been various reports of the usual teenage freakouts being admitted to NHS emergency departments (usually after combining the shrooms with alcohol and other drugs…)
Frightening for the kids and a burden to the NHS; but rarely fatal and normally less dangerous than the effects of binge-drinking alone and getting into fights etc…
The MP Paul Flynn asked how many people had actually died from mushrooms (amongst other drugs); the answer given was one – in 1993. The records came from the NHS hospital emergency department admissions computers throughout the UK; and it is far more likely this one unfortunate was a poisioning due to misidentification of mushrooms picked in the wild; it is unfortunately easy to get deadly poisonous mushrooms as well as psychoative ones if you are not careful!
As far as “acts of violence with mushrooms” are concerned; the only way I think this could happen is if someone took a large tray of frozen (normal) mushrooms and cracked another person over the head with it. Perhaps Mr Clarke is intending to ban those as well (unless you have come across a burglar, in which case this practice is OK)….. 😉
