In other words: no one… [ought to] go to jail for fungus. The shrooms won. In a nail-biting, first-of-its kind result, Denver voters decided to decriminalize a psychedelic: psilocybin mushrooms. “The last day has been the trip of my life,” said Kevin Matthews, head of the Decriminalize Denver campaign. “We won!!” With this initiative, city…
The measure made the possession, use or cultivation of the mushrooms by people aged 21 or older the lowest-priority crime for law enforcement in the city of Denver and Denver County. Arrests and prosecutions, already fairly rare, would all but disappear. Voters in Denver, a city at the forefront of the widening national debate over…
On average, 50 people were arrested in each of the last three years by Denver police for the sale or possession of psilocybin… Eleven of those cases were prosecuted. “One of the folks very much involved with our campaign was one of those people,” says Sovine-Miller. “[He] was arrested and thrown in jail, and still…
The initiative… [will] not… [allow] the mushrooms to be sold under Denver’s cannabis businesses. “It’s a signal to the rest of the country that at least here in Denver we are ready to start remove some of these substances off the controlled substances list,” said Kevin Matthews, 33, who organized the decriminalization campaign. “A lot…
Things looked bad for the initiative late Tuesday, as it trailed behind in the results. But on Wednesday, the final tally came in — and showed Initiative 301 had narrowly won with just less than 51 percent of the vote. Denver will become the first US city to effectively decriminalize mushrooms containing the psychedelic psilocybin,…
*Four Mesoamerican mushroom stones, each nearly two thousand years old, in nocturnal contemplation *Psilocybin pelliculosa sharing the same habitat with deadly Galerinas. Initiated Ordinance 301 Yes/For: 89,320 votes at 50.56%No/Against: 87,341 votes at 49.44% Initiated Ordinance 301 (I-301) was designed to decriminalize the use and possession of mushrooms that contain psilocybin, a hallucinogenic compound. The…
*Gordon, in the foreground, and a white-clad Albert Hoffman hike a rocky trail through the Sierra Mazateca mountains in October 1962. (Courtesy Wasson Collection). The initiative [will] have to take roughly 55 percent of the remaining votes to win. Election Day voters closed the gap Tuesday night, 5/7/2019, making passage more likely than it appeared…
Kevin Matthews, the initiative’s campaign director, spoke about how proud he was of his team, win or lose. “This campaign started as an idea. It was an idea. And look at what happens when a group of dedicated, passionate people, most of whom had no activism skills whatsoever, put faith in themselves and the process…
Many ballots cast Tuesday — votes that tend to skew younger — remain to be counted when Denver Elections resumes work Wednesday. As of 1 a.m., when elections officials stopped counting for the night, Initiative 301 was behind 48.3 percent, or 68,711 votes, to 51.7 percent, or 73,450 votes. Original Article (Denver Post):Denver’s psychedelic mushroom…
…psychedelics will not usher in the revolution. They are no substitute for political education and organizing. The insights brought on by the experience are not guaranteed to be true or useful. There are no shortcuts to justice or good politics. But psychedelics have unprecedented potential to make people’s lives better. Will psychedelics save us? Not…
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