6 December 7 - 13, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents told the Observer. Fogg said the funding that was allotted in the city’s current pro- curement process for a new violence inter- rupter team won’t be enough to carry on the work of Dallas Cred. That’s why Fogg said the organization will keep using donor funds to pay for the work and will be on the lookout for other funding sources. The team has also had to scale back its efforts to just two parts of the city: Overton and Illi- nois, and Loop 12 and Jim Miller. Dallas Cred tries to focus on people who are at high risk of being involved in violence. According to the organization, that includes people who have recently returned home from jail or prison or are otherwise involved in the justice system; people who are affili- ated with gangs; and those who have re- cently lost someone to gun violence and could potentially retaliate. These individu- als are identified with help from law en- forcement and the community. “The goal is to identify these individuals, work with them, you know, fill their basic needs, help give them support and strategies to find alternative means to resolving con- flict and de-escalating situations,” Fogg said. The team also responds to violent inci- dents after they occur to prevent more vio- lence from taking place. “The interrupters, they get to the scene or get to the location where it happened, try to find out who’s in- volved and prevent any retaliatory violence from taking place, or an escalation,” Fogg said. “Sometimes, it’s a matter of putting some space and time between the incident and the individual’s reactions.” One of the challenges with the program is getting people to trust it. He said it can take up to two years for a community to start looking at the violence interrupters as a via- ble resource. “Community members don’t really dig in and buy in because they think it’s a short-lived thing,” Fogg said. “They’re not willing to invest their time if they think it’s just a one and done. But once the com- munity members realize that this is here to stay, that these folks are invested in the com- munity, it makes a tremendous difference. People know who the guys are with the or- ange shirts.” It’s reasonable to think that hard-earned progress could be lost with the scaled-back program, and perhaps even more so if a new violence interrupter program isn’t found soon. Fogg recalled once seeing a social media post about a violent incident in Dallas. He reached out to the Dallas Cred team to see if there was anything it could do. It turned out that a family member from one of the in- volved parties had already reached out to the team for help. Data from the organization shows that between May and December 2022, 100% of people who received Dallas Cred services after being engaged in a violent act did not retaliate. This time period also marked a 10% decrease in violent crime in the four ar- eas of the city that the team serves, accord- ing to the organization. Also since May 2022, Dallas Cred mem- bers were responsible for 63 violence inter- ruptions, worked closely with 75 of the city’s highest-risk individuals with service plans, and hosted 61 community events, including job fairs. The team also saw a recidivism rate of just 2.6% among the people it worked with. The group’s work isn’t always amplified. That’s because some of it happens in silence, Fogg said. “There are incidents that take place in the community that we engage in that law enforcement may never hear about,” Fogg said. “The peace, the mediations, that hap- pens in silence. Violence, we see that loudly in news reports. If someone’s shot, if some- one’s harmed, that’ll make the news. Peace- making happens in silence.” ▼ ‘SHROOMS TRIP CANCELED AMANITA MUSCARIA MUSHROOM GUMMIES AREN’T MAGIC. BY JACOB VAUGHN I f you’ve been in your local smokeshop lately, you might have noticed a new item on the shelves: amanita muscaria mush- room gummies. If you read up on these little guys, you might find people reporting vary- ing effects such as euphoria or a slight up- lifting feeling. One writer for leafly.com even said they can make you hallucinate and called ama- nita muscaria gummies the “delta-8 of mushrooms.” That wasn’t our experience. Amanita muscaria mushrooms are red with white spots. Unlike traditional magic mushrooms, amanitas don’t contain the hal- lucinogen psilocybin, which will send you to the moon and back if you take enough. Psilo- cybin was decriminalized in Oregon in 2020 and in Colorado this year, but it remains ille- gal in Texas. The psychoactive compound in amanita muscaria mushrooms is muscimol, which experts say is less hallucinogenic than psilocybin, according to leafly.com. Manufacturers have been able to take ama- nita muscaria extract and pack it into gum- mies with varying potencies. People have been taking amanitas for centuries. To avoid the mushroom’s toxicity, indigenous people in Siberia and current- day Scandinavia would feed it to reindeer and drink their psychoactive urine to feel its effects. Don’t worry, you won’t have to drink any reindeer pee — that’s where the gum- mies come in. They’re legal in every state ex- cept for Louisiana, but have started becoming more mainstream only in the last year or so. Cynthia Cabrera, chief strategy officer of the hemp manufacturer Hometown Hero, which also makes amanita muscaria mush- room gummies, described them more as a mood enhancer. Asked if they would make people hallucinate, Cabrera said with a laugh, “Hopefully not.” “It’s not the same as psilocybin,” she said. “It’s like with a lot of products. Every person is individual and different, so you do have to find your sweet spot.” She said these are the kinds of products their customers are asking for. “We’re a lifestyle brand company, and we hear from our consumers, our customers all the time that they’re looking for natural al- ternatives to just kind of help them feel bet- ter,” she said. “There’s not one product for everyone. We like to provide a variety of products so that people can find their own sweet spot.” So, if you’re looking to actually trip, you may just want to take a pass on the amanita muscaria mushroom gummies. Not sure what to expect on our first en- counter with amanita muscaria mushroom gummies, we prepared for a trip. The night’s schedule was open. Some high-inducing THCa hemp flower was on deck. Our stom- achs were empty, ready to absorb every inch of those sweet amanita gummies. We’d stopped by our local smokeshop, CBD American Shaman, to pick up some gummies made by a company called Kruz, as the shop didn’t carry any made by Home- town Hero. The Kruz gummies were mixed berry flavor, and each of the 10 in the pack was loaded with 500 milligrams of amanita muscaria extract. The packaging said one serving was one gummy. Again, not knowing what to expect, we took half of one and chewed thoroughly as the packaging in- structed. To ease us into whatever we were headed for, we hit a bowl of some THCa hemp flower. Suddenly, our heart started racing. Our mouth felt like we’d just got done sucking on a D battery and a couple of nickels. Was this it? Were we about to start tripping a mere 15 minutes after taking just 250 milligrams of amanita? No. It was just the hemp flower, mixed with the nerves we get every time we think we’re about to trip. As the night went on, we realized we weren’t headed to the moon. We couldn’t even leave the atmo- sphere. The half gummy felt like a dud. The night went up in THCa smoke, and we were left wondering if these gummies could quench a psychonaut’s thirst for even the mildest of trips. Maybe more will do the trick, we thought. We waited a day to rid our mind of whatever amanita was still left in there and tried a higher dose. This time, two gummies – 1,000 milligrams total of amanita muscaria extract – in the middle of a Saturday. We went on a walk, hoping to feel more at one with nature and to see some colors pop and some tracers trace. No battery and nickels feeling in the mouth this time. No racing heart. But definitely no trip. Our faith in these little gummies was waning, but we weren’t quite done experimenting. For our last bout with the amanita, we took four gummies (2,000 milligrams). The night was open, but we were starting to doubt how necessary it was to clear our schedule for the amanita. We played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III on Xbox to pass the time as we waited for the amanitas to take effect. About 30 minutes in, just like the previous two times, no feeling. About 45 minutes into the amanitas, we started to feel something: a slight uplifting feeling. But as soon as it started, it was over. Was it the amanitas we were feeling? Probably not. Was it all in our head? Probably. But even if that feeling was the amanita, it was nothing like we had hoped. Again, no popping colors and no tracers, no visuals at all. If, like us, you’ve heard or read that ama- nitas are the delta-8 of mushrooms, then maybe you’ll have better luck. We must’ve tried the wrong stuff. ▼ CULTS MOTHER GOD, CULT MUMMY ‘LOVE HAS WON’ LEADER AMY CARLSON HAD DALLAS ROOTS. BY SIMONE CARTER L ong before she was known as “Mother God” to some and a cult leader to oth- ers, her family knew her as Amy Carl- son. And it turns out that the controversial spiritual figure had Dallas roots. Carlson’s life and bizarre death are the subject of Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God, a new three-part HBO documentary series. The show includes photos and videos from throughout the guru’s time in Texas, where she lived before leaving her loved ones behind to move to Colorado. Carlson was the founder of a group called Love Has Won, which broadcast their hodgepodge brand of metaphysical gospel on the internet. Core members lived with her in the Centennial State and would hawk spiritual wares online. The group also ad- vertised energy healing and reportedly earned considerable money that way. Love Has Won attracted headlines in 2021 after authorities found Carlson’s body Unfair Park from p4 Wikimedia Commons Amanita muscaria mushrooms are red with white spots.
