Autistic young man in Germany facing years behind bars for self-medicating with mushrooms
Max Libert (name changed) is an autistic young man living in Bavaria, the most conservative of Germany’s 16 federal states. His country has very recently approved a compassionate use programme under which patients suffering from treatment resistant depression may undergo Psychedelic Assisted Therapy using Psilocybin in one of two specialised mental health institutions. And yet, Max is facing up to 15 years behind bars for the victimless “crime” of self-medicating with a species of mushrooms containing this very compound. How is this even possible? And what can we do to help him defending his rights and his liberty, beyond donating for his legal defence?
Meet Max Libert from Bavaria (name changed). His ‘crime’: Max is autistic, as his psychiatrist confirmed. Throughout his life, Max has been struggling with the challenges that come with being on the spectrum. Since 2018, he additionally suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For years, he was trapped in a cycle of fear, nightmares and social withdrawal. Then, through publications such as How to Change Your Mind and by learning about the renaissance of psychedelic science, he discovered the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. He began to study the subject intensively and experimented with microdosing psilocybin-containing mushrooms.
The results were life-changing.
His nightmares disappeared, the debilitating fear vanished without a trace, he developed a new hunger for life. He was able to master the social challenges of everyday life without being completely exhausted at the end of the day (a huge problem for many autistic people).
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Autistic people uniting around psychedelics
Max isn’t the only autistic person to experience such a dramatic shift. In recent years, more and more autistic people have discovered the tremendous benefits of psychedelics for themselves and formed communities around this shared interest. For autistic people, who are often denied essential self-determination, this is an incredible achivement. Yet, due to the war on drugs never really having ended in most countries, any such activity continues to expose anyone involved to an entirely incalculable risk. Most of the time, nothing is going to happen, yet anything can happen to anyone at any moment. And when a few unfortunate coincidences coalesce, it does.
His partner also suffered from severe health problems for many years, including a neurological disorder and depression. In 2024, after noticing the positive effects of mushrooms in Max, she decided to stop taking her antidepressants and use psychedelics instead – with groundbreaking effects on her mental health. Impressed by the power of mushrooms, Max then began to delve into mycology, intending to cultivate and sell legal gourmet and medicinal mushrooms.
This could have been the happy ending of the story, if it hadn’t been for the Bavarian police. One day, they raided their shared home and found the “forbidden” mushrooms. Now, both of them are facing criminal proceedings that fundamentally threaten their livelihoods and their freedom. The Bavarian judiciary seems determined to completely destroy their lives as punishment for the “crime” of healing themselves, which caused no harm to anyone.
Bavaria: Home to Octoberfests and hypocrisy
In Bavaria (a region internationally synonymous with beer culture) CSU politicians have built a long tradition of condemning anything officially labelled a “drug,” while enthusiastically defending alcohol as part of the state’s heritage. CSU Secretary-General Martin Huber, speaking on the ZDF talk show Markus Lanz, dismissed comparisons between alcohol and cannabis, framing beer as a pillar of Bavarian identity:
“One cannot simply say: ‘Because alcohol is also dangerous, therefore we should legalise cannabis.’ And I won’t let anyone trash Bavarian folk festivities, Bavarian tradition and Bavarian joie de vivre like that.”
—zdfheute.de
The contradiction is glaring: a substance with well-documented societal harm is normalised under the banner of cultural tradition, while individuals who self-medicate with psychedelics—even in cases of severe, treatment-resistant mental illness—risk years in prison. Alcohol, according to a 2010 study by David Nutt et al, published in The Lancet, is the drug which causes the most harm to society at large, yet the governing CSU party. remains in its state of denial.
This case is a prime example of how absurd and irrational drug policies are, not only in Germany. While a number of countries, including Austria and Portugal have in recent years moved to decriminalise possession of of mushrooms containing psilocybin, Germany is not one of them. Psilocybin continues to be listed in the annex of the Federal Narcotics Act (BtMG) as a “non-tradable controlled substance”, this even though the German government has invested millions into researching its therapeutic potential – with groundbreaking results. If, instead of mushrooms, he had used an LSD derivative, that is legally sold in Germany — currently 1S-LSD — there would have been zero legal repercussions at all.
Get up, stand up for your right!
Three months ago, after the raid, Max started a crowdfunding campaign, trying to raise the resources needed for his legal defence and for paying off crippling fines, which are likely to be imposed. Despite his efforts, support, including from within the psychedelic community, has so far been very limited, leaving Max and his partner deeply scarred, both financially and emotionally.
Their story is a reminder that when people realistically have no alternative to self-medication and the judicial responds by punishing them, we must not allow it to go ahead. We must stand up and unite against this injustice. And we need to reflect on how our public policies need to change in order to truly serve those affected by trauma and mental health challenges.
This is what PsychedeliCare is stands for: to ensure that no one is criminalised for seeking healing, and that psychedelic-assisted therapies, whose effectiveness is increasingly recognised by science, become widely and safely accessible across Europe. Max’s case must not be allowed to repeat itself. By standing with him, we are also standing for a future where healing is respected as a human right.
Support Max by donating to his crowdfunding campaign, either at his German page or the English page.
Sign the European Citizens Initiative for psychedelic-assisted therapies in Europe
