City officials in Berkeley, California have reportedly moved to decriminalize both psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca.

According to Psychedelic Spotlight, the city council there “unanimously” approved a measure to “officially deprioritize arrests for possession and use of psilocybin and ayahuasca…creating a new paradigm as dozens of cities across the United States move to recognize these naturally-occurring compounds’ mental health potential.”

SFGATE reported last week that the city council was slated to vote on the measure at Tuesday’s meeting.

The road to this psychedelic drug reform effort began in November, when the Berkeley City Council said that it would consider the measure.

The original resolution sought to decriminalize a host of psychedelics; along with psilocybin and ayahuasca, it also would have applied to LSD.

The measure that was ultimately approved on Tuesday was titled: “Resolution Supporting Entheogenic Plant Practices and Declaring that the Investigation and Arrest of Individuals Involved with the Adult Use of Entheogenic Plants on the Federal Schedule 1 List Be Amongst the Lowest Priority for the City of Berkeley.” 

It states that “the City of Berkeley wishes to declare its desire not to expend City resources in any investigation, detention, arrest, or prosecution arising out of alleged violations of state and federal law regarding the use of Entheogenic Plants,” and declares “that it shall be the policy of the City of Berkeley that no department, agency, board, commission, officer or employee of the city, including without limitation, Berkeley Police Department personnel, shall use any city funds or resources to assist in the enforcement of laws imposing criminal penalties for the use and possession of Entheogenic Plants by adults of at least 21 years of age.”

“For the purposes of this resolution, Entheogenic Plants are defined as plants and natural sources such as mushrooms, cacti, iboga containing plants and/or extracted combinations of plants similar to ayahuasca; and limited to those containing the following types of compounds: indole amines, tryptamines, phenethylamines,” the resolution continues.

The measure was pushed by a grassroots group called Bay Staters for Natural Medicine, which “led the effort to decriminalize six Massachusetts communities including Cambridge and Salem,” according to the outlet.

“Living in Berkeley, I tried psilocybin mushrooms for the first time with trusted friends. These plant medicines helped me work through trauma and open my heart to other people for the first time,” James Davis, cofounder of Bay Staters for Natural Medicine, told Psychedelic Spotlight. “Even so, this measure strikes the right balance by acknowledging that this should be something people research cautiously for their own wellbeing. Not something that should be sold and traded like candy, as has unfortunately happened in Oakland, nor commercialized for massive profits like in Oregon and Colorado.”

While this reform effort launched in earnest back in the fall, SFGATE notes that “Berkeley has been considering psychedelic reform since at least 2019, but the measure stalled during the COVID-19 pandemic because of disagreements over how to handle synthetic psychedelics.”

“Cities across the country have moved to reduce criminal penalties for using and distributing psychedelic drugs in recent years, as advocates argue that criminalization of drugs is not an effective way to regulate these substances,” the outlet reported. “The Bay Area has been a leader in the psychedelic reform movement, with Oakland, San Francisco and Santa Cruz passing similar measures that make possession of psychedelics a lower priority for law enforcement.”

Berkeley has been in the vanguard of other drug reform efforts, with the city council voting in 2020 to allow cannabis consumption lounges and marijuana delivery.

The post Berkeley Decriminalizes Psilocybin, Ayahuasca appeared first on High Times.

The post Berkeley Decriminalizes Psilocybin, Ayahuasca appeared first on Paradise Found.

Salem, a city notorious for its 17th century witch trials, is creating a new reputation for itself by ceasing a modern-day witch hunt. As of this month, Salem is ending arrests for psilocybin mushrooms, Psychedelic Spotlight reports. It is now the sixth Massachusetts city to do so, after a 9-0 city council vote supporting the measure. Psilocybin is understood to be perhaps one of the safest drugs out there. Findings published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology shared that only 0.2% of magic mushroom users have sought emergency medical care after use. For those who had a lousy experience, it was a negative psychological (a bad trip) that resolved within 24 hours. In addition, you cannot die from a psilocybin physical overdose. (Comparatively, the World Health Organization reports that 3 million deaths yearly result from the destructive use of alcohol, representing 5.3% of all deaths.) 

The passage of the Salem measure comes after the FDA has classified psilocybin as a “breakthrough therapy” for depression. Salem resident and neuroscientist Miyabe Shields said, “This is a win for science and the neurodivergent community to advance life-saving research on the complex innerworkings of our brains,” Psychedelic Spotlight reports.

As too many people know (according to Columbia University, one in ten Americans have depression), the standard treatment for depression, medicines like SSRIs and SNRIs, only improve symptoms in about 20 out of 100 people, data from the National Library of Medicine shows. Psychedelic options such as psilocybin and ketamine are literal lifesavers for the many folks who do not respond to traditional pharmaceuticals. Additionally, while medicines like SSRIs take several weeks to yield results, psychedelics can reduce depression in a matter of hours. Speaking about the measure, as Psychedelic Spotlight reports, disabled Marine Corp Veteran Michael Botelho, an active organizer with both Bay Staters and New England Veterans for Plant Medicine who served in combat during the Gulf War, shares that: “Through the VA system, I was prescribed over 160 medications, including opiates, to cope with PTSD before finding psilocybin mushrooms. For the first time in nearly 25 years, I have been able to sleep, overcome addiction to opiates, and work again.” Certainly, more New Englanders experiencing depression will feel comfortable using psychedelic treatments now that the risk of arrest is off the table. 

Additionally, research shows that psilocybin has an influential role in the harm reduction movement. A study of 44,000 Americans in the U.S. Journal of Psychopharmacology discovered that psilocybin is associated with a 40% reduced risk of suffering opioid addiction. Data from the CDC shows that opioids were involved in 68,630 overdose deaths in 2020 (74.8% of all drug overdose deaths). This powerful property of psilocybin gained the Salem measure a surprising supporter. You don’t have to turn off N.W.A.’s “Fuck The Police,” but know that Lucas Miller, the Chief of Police for the City, endorsed the measure before the city’s final vote. “The indications that psilocybin could be helpful for opiate addiction is something that should not be ignored. We lose about 20 people in Salem a year to opioid overdose,” Miller says, Psychedelic Spotlight reports.

Salem may be the sixth Massachusetts city to end arrests for psilocybin mushrooms, but it won’t be the last. 

The grassroots group who deserves credit for successfully implementing the campaign, which was years in the making, Bay Staters for Natural Medicine, has partnered with Somerville, Cambridge, Northampton, Easthampton, and Amherst to pass similar measures. In addition, the organization is currently pushing state legislation, which includes An Act Relative to Plant Medicine, which would legalize home growing and sharing of psilocybin and related plants. 

The post Salem, Massachusetts Will No Longer Arrest People for Psilocybin appeared first on High Times.

The post Salem, Massachusetts Will No Longer Arrest People for Psilocybin appeared first on Paradise Found.

Two bills were filed in Massachusetts to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, mescaline, and ibogaine. The bills would end the prosecution of psychedelic substances in the Bay State.

The Boston Herald reports that companion bills were filed in the Massachusetts House and Senate. The House bill, “An Act relative to plant medicine,” or Bill HD.1450, was filed by Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa. The Senate bill, titled “An act relative to plant medicine,” Bill SD.949 was filed by Sen. Patricia Jehlen.

Adults ages 18 and older would not be prosecuted for personal amounts of psychedelics.

The bill would decriminalize “the possession, ingestion, obtaining, growing, giving away without financial gain to natural persons 18 years of age or older, and transportation of no more than two grams of psilocybin, psilocin, dimethyltryptamine, ibogaine, and mescaline.”

The bills would amend the state general law’s Section 50: Entheogenic Plants and Fungi.

The bill however does not allow for the sale of psychedelics: “‘Financial gain’ shall mean the receipt of money or other valuable consideration in exchange for the item being shared,” the bill adds.

“Mushrooms are life changing,” James Davis, co-founder of Bay Staters for Natural Medicine, said in a statement. “From depression to addiction to painful cluster headaches, they are a tool that people should use in a caring community.

“There’s no better way to promote intentional and mindful use than to decriminalize minor amounts for home growing and sharing without enabling commercial sale,” Davis added.

“Humans have used psychedelic plants and fungi, non-addictive by their nature, for spiritual relief for more than 13,000 years: from Northern Africa and the Americas—to Greece and the Middle East,” Bay Staters for Natural Medicine states on their website. “President Nixon banned these plants as Schedule One “drugs” through the Federal Controlled Substances Act without scientific basis to purposefully criminalize Black Americans and anti-war protesters. We work to reverse these policies and stop for-profit corporations from monopolizing the facilitation market to needlessly charge desperate people thousands of dollars.”

The statewide move comes after a handful of cities decriminalized psychedelics at the city level. Somerville, Cambridge, Northampton, and Easthampton, for instance, voted to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms and other entheogenic plants.

The reasons to decriminalize are growing: The global market for psychedelic drugs including psilocybin, ketamine, and LSD is expected to grow to nearly $12 billion per year before 2030, according to data from a recent market analysis. In a report released last Thursday, Brandessence Market Research revealed that the psychedelic drug market is anticipated to reach a valuation of $11.82 billion by 2029, growing from an estimated $4.87 billion in 2022.

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is undergoing somewhat of a renaissance. Belief that psychedelics could help control the opioid epidemic is growing. A 2017 Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine study, involving 44,000 participants, found that psychedelic use was associated with a 40% reduced risk of opioid abuse. A more recent study that suggested an even stronger reduced risk—55%.

Meanwhile, Tryp Therapeutics signed a letter of intent earlier this month with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, to fund and conduct a Phase 2a clinical trial. The team of researchers will be investigating the effects of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of patients aged 21 and older who are suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).

More states are moving to loosen laws surrounding psychedelic use for therapeutic purposes. Colorado and Oregon decriminalized psilocybin mushrooms.

The post Two Bills to Decriminalize Psychedelics Filed in Massachusetts appeared first on High Times.

The post Two Bills to Decriminalize Psychedelics Filed in Massachusetts appeared first on Paradise Found.