There are prisons in Texas with no A/C as recently as a few years ago. It's actually dangerous and several campaigns to make it illegal have been tried. Idk if any of them have been successful as of late, but I doubt it given our current system.
Yeah the mushrooms Mario eats are actually known to cause hallucinations of giantism. Meaning you see yourself as larger than you actually are. This implies everything Mario sees and does is a result of his trip, not him actually changing.