Decades ago the North Taranaki coast was known as the place to find magic mushrooms.

A respected Taranaki kaumatua has concerns that a resurgence of magic mushrooms growing along the coast could see the region again become known as a source of the drug.

On Sunday Grant Knuckey confronted a group of people picking magic mushrooms on Maori land around the North Taranaki coast.

Psilocybin mushrooms, commonly referred to as magic mushrooms, contain the psychedelic compounds psilocybin and psilocin, have similar effects to LSD and are a Class A drug.

ANDY JACKSON/Stuff.co.nz Taranaki Kaumatua Grant Knuckey is concerned about an increase in people searching for magic mushrooms.

Possession of a Class A drug carries a prison sentence of up to six months while the penalty for possession for supply is life imprisonment.

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Taranaki was long known as New Zealand's mushroom mecca and people often travelled from around the country to gather the hallucinogenic fungus in the 1980s and 90s, Knuckey said.

However as the lupin along the coast died off so did the mushrooms but both are now making a resurgence, Knuckey said.

"Back in the 90s a lot of people would have known people who died from its use.

"You would have made a fortune selling pies, they were coming from everywhere.

"They thought it was a day out and they would even bring their kids."

Knuckey had been attending a monthly meeting when he was alerted to what was going on.

"I didn't see them myself when I went through, I saw the ute but consequently other people who came to the meeting said nah they were picking things.

"Myself and a couple of others went to have a look and they certainly had a big bag of mushrooms with them which I confiscated."

He said the bag of mushrooms would have weighed about 1kg and the group could have intended to sell them.

Knuckey said he and others in the group would be keeping a vigilant watch on the land to keep the drug seekers out and would provide information to the police if necessary.

"We are just trying to keep them off our property, that's all we can do.

"We used to chase them off ourselves (back in the 1980s and 90s) but in the end there was just too many of them, so we just called the police.

"There's a lot of angry people out there in that world."

Knuckey said while the drug was cheap it was very powerful and could have serious effects on people's mental health.

"One guy was just bashing his head against a wall.

"They act in a funny way because they will act like someone who is really deranged."

Sergeant Bruce Irvine confirmed Taranaki had a reputation as being a good place for the drug to grow.

"We were regularly getting calls about people picking mushrooms and we would go out and catch them and they would be charged appropriately," Irvine said.

While mushroom picking was not as common now as it once was Irvine encouraged anyone who saw people foraging for the fungus to call police.

"The last thing we want to be doing is attracting druggies to our region."

Irvine said while getting caught with a Class A drug could result in a term of imprisonment the potential dangers of using mushrooms could be far worse.

"One of the problems is because not every single mushroom contains the drug or they contain them in different strengths, the consumer has no idea how much they are taking so they can get really messed up on them."