But Fairfax Media has spoken to a number of Australian teenagers who have been buying and eating the drug this week with little effort. While the signs advertising the drug that once bestrewed the area have been torn down, dealers now pester passersby on the street and cajole willing buyers to shops concealed behind local tailors and tattoo parlours. Others will throw nocturnal youngsters on the back of a scooter and take them to a safe selling point out of town, away from patrolling police. An 18-year-old girl from the Sunshine Coast said she had been taken to "a little room with blenders" in Kuta this week to throw down a mushroom shake. "You ... hallucinate, so like, I was looking down at cigarette ashes on the tiles for half an hour watching them change to blue and red. It looked like heaps of ants running around. It comes more three-dimensional out at you."

She said she had also been offered marijuana, Xanax, "pseudos" and "crack". The Australian government issued a warning last week about the change in the law that has mushrooms illegal and reminding travellers the drug could "cause major health problems such as severe hallucinations, erratic behaviour, anxiety and even psychosis". Under the neon lights of Jalan Legian, Kuta's main party drag, Fairfax Media has been offered magic mushrooms dozens of times this week. A local dealer said the going rate for a packet of mushrooms was 100,000 rupiah (about $10). One local was handing out business cards for 24-hour delivery of "top super magic mushroom", promising his trade was "100 per cent legal". Another vendor based above a Kuta tattoo parlour was enticing Schoolies with the opportunity to feed the drugs to a caged monkey.

Paul Mergard, the Bali co-ordinator of the Red Frogs schoolies volunteer service, said he had known people to hallucinate for three of four days after taking the drug and was "super pumped" it was now illegal. "It's been one of our biggest issues over the past couple of years because it has horrific effects on people," he said. "Last year we had a kid running around thinking he was a lizard." Two years ago, a schoolie in Bali punched a woman in the face while under the influence of magic mushrooms. Gede Ganefo, the head of Denpasar's drug unit, said police had been warning locals since early September that it was illegal to sell and consume magic mushrooms. "For three months we relay this to the community," he said. "We put up flyers, billboards, banners [and hold] meetings."

During the three-month "socialisation period", he said, anyone caught selling or consuming the drugs would receive a warning and be advised of the illegality. Beyond that period, those caught would be charged and prosecuted, with punishment ranging from rehabilitation to the death penalty. Earlier this month, local police raided a 300 square metre magic mushroom production shed in Kuta. A member of the local civilian defence force was quoted in local press as saying "tourists who consume these mushrooms lose control and can appear naked in public. It has happened that tourists will climb up on roofs and refuse our requests to come down, throwing roofing tiles at us for trying to save their lives." With Amilia Rose

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