Market stalls selling magic mushrooms helped kickstart demand for the powerful mind altering drug in the late 1990s, a report said today.
The study by the European Union's drugs agency found the deadly fungi was openly available from "smartshops" promoting herbal highs, websites and markets encouraging young people to try it out.
It said 5 per cent of 15- to 24-year-olds have taken hallucinogenic mushrooms and that 20 per cent of school kids said it was easy to get their hands on them.
Despite it being made illegal to sell the fungi in January of this year, the report warned shops were looking at selling alternative, legal, types of mushrooms to give users a high.
The warning comes as an inquest is to resume into the death of a 33-year-old man who fell from a fourth floor apartment in Dún Laoghaire after eating magic mushrooms.
Colm Hodkinson bought a box of the mushrooms for €25 to take at a Halloween party in 2005, but less than an hour after eating them he was dead.
The inquest into his death is due to be heard at Dublin County Coroner's Court sitting in Tallaght tomorrow by Dr Kieran Geraghty.
Six EU countries have tightened their legislation on hallucinogenic mushrooms since 2001 to coincide with recent increases in prevalence of use:
Denmark, The Netherlands, Germany, Estonia, the United Kingdom and Ireland.
PA