…allowing… uses… of psilocybin…
Compared to the gradual collapse of marijuana prohibition, psychedelic policy seems to be shifting remarkably fast. While states began banning cannabis a century ago, culminating in the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, prohibition of psychedelics was enacted in the late 1960s… [for example, in Virginia], proposing to make psilocybin, the hallucinogenic substance found in “magic mushrooms,” available for medical purposes and reduce possession of the psychedelic drug from a felony to a misdemeanor. Del. Dawn Adams… a nurse practitioner, and state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi filed similar measures last year to end the felony possession penalties for psilocybin and other psychoactive substances.
Denver voters approved a ballot initiative making marijuana possession arrests the city’s lowest law enforcement priority in 2007, five years before statewide legalization. Denver’s similar initiative dealing with psilocybin passed just three years before Colorado voters decriminalized consumption of five psychedelics, along with related activities, and two years after Oregon became the first state to legalize psilocybin. Given the long history of incremental cannabis reforms, I did not expect marijuana legalization to happen as soon as it did. I was surprised again by the seemingly sudden success of psychedelic reform in Oregon and Colorado. But maybe Americans, despite their general resistance to principled thinking about public policy, have learned something about the folly of trying to dictate which psychoactive substances people may consume, especially when that legal regime transforms naturally occurring intoxicants into contraband.
Original Article (ABC8 News & Reason):
Lawmaker proposes allowing medical uses of psilocybin in Virginia & California bill builds on reforms that could herald the surprisingly fast collapse of psychedelic prohibition
Artwork Fair Use: Lasy
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