Pete Pearson had three reasons for trying psilocybin, or "magic mushrooms," for the first time at age 75.

"I hope it will keep me from losing my mind," he told CBC's White Coat, Black Art. "I hope it will keep me from being a complete jerk to everybody, and being so hard on Susie" — his wife.

Pete had been diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a progressive lung disease that makes it difficult to breathe. The average survival prognosis is three to five years and he'd already passed that. Now, the physical limitations were triggering a toxic stew of anxiety, frustration and depression known as "end-of-life distress."

So, on Jan. 3, 2026, at about 11 a.m., Pete drank a tea containing five grams of natural psilocybin. He stretched out on the hide-a-bed in the front room of his house in Mooretown, Ont., facing the St. Clair River.

Eight hours later, he emerged from his psychedelic trip with a new lease on the time he has left. "I cannot believe how much my outlook on life has changed."

And the anxiety? "It's gone."

But that "complete turnaround," as Pete describes it, happened only after a futile attempt to access psilocybin legally through Health Canada — a process that lasted the better part of a year and caused Pete's already debilitating anxiety to go "through the roof." In the end, he got psilocybin illegally for about $40.