Treasury Secretary Yellen ate magic mushrooms in China (but didn’t trip)

In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday, Janet Yellen opened up about eating at a chain restaurant in Beijing called Yi Zuo Yi Wang, a dish that made a splash on Chinese social media last month.

A post on Weibo, the popular Chinese blogging platform, detailed what Yellen’s group ordered that day, including “Jian Shou Qing, an unusual but highly sought-after mushroom valued for its unique properties,” according to CNN .

These traits can include hallucinations – unless the mushrooms are cooked and prepared in a specific way, which was the case when Yellen dined there.

“So I went with this large group of people and the person who arranged our dinner filled the order,” Yellen told Burnett, as quoted by HuffPost. “There was this delicious mushroom dish. I wasn’t aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties.”

Yellen said she “learned that later.”

“I’ve read that if the mushrooms are cooked properly, which they certainly did at this very fine restaurant, they have no effect,” Yellen added. “But we all loved the mushrooms and the restaurant, and none of us felt any ill effects from eating them.”

After Yellen’s diplomatic visit there last month, the Beijing court was sold out.

Jokes aside, we’re probably approaching the day when a cabinet official will actually talk about a hallucinogenic experience.

A growing number of politicians and policy makers are receptive to changing laws surrounding psychedelics, particularly for therapeutic treatments.

Last month, President Joe Biden’s younger brother, Frank Biden, said the president was open to psychedelic treatment options.

“He’s very outgoing,” Frank Biden said.

“Say it like that. I don’t want to speak; I’m talking brother to brother. Brother to brother,” he added. “The question is: is the world and the US ready for this? In my opinion we are on the cusp of an awareness that needs to be created in order to solve many of the problems in and around addiction, but more importantly, to realize that we are all one people and we need to come together .”

But President Biden has also been reluctant to endorse full legalization of cannabis, which worried some of his fellow Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Ocasio-Cortez said last month she was concerned that Biden’s position on marijuana could undermine her bipartisan efforts to expand research into psychedelics.

“I believe the President has taken a regressive stance on cannabis policy,” she said. “And if there’s a step backwards on cannabis policy, it’s likely to be worse on everything else.”

Despite this “regressiveness,” Biden took some of the strongest cannabis reform moves of any president in history last fall when he issued pardons for state cannabis offenses.

“As I have said many times during my presidential campaign, no one should go to jail for using or possessing marijuana. Sending people to jail for marijuana possession has turned too many lives upside down and incarcerated people for behaviors that many states no longer prohibit. Criminal records for marijuana possession have also created unnecessary barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities. And while white and black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, black and brown people have been disproportionately arrested, prosecuted and convicted,” Biden said in the announcement at the time.

In addition to the pardons, Biden said he has also “requested the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to initiate the administrative process to expeditiously review how marijuana is regulated under federal law.”

“Federal law currently classifies marijuana under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, the classification for the most dangerous substances. This is the same timeline as heroin and LSD, and even higher than the classification of fentanyl and methamphetamine — the drugs driving our overdose epidemic,” Biden said.