The San Francisco Board of Supervisors last week voted to pass a measure to decriminalize natural psychedelics such as magic mushrooms, giving its unanimous approval to a proposal to reform city policy on the drugs that show promise in the treatment of several serious mental health conditions.

The ordinance calls on the San Francisco Police Department to make the enforcement of laws prohibiting the possession, use, cultivation, and transfer of entheogenic plants and fungi including psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca by adults “amongst the lowest priority for the City and County of San Francisco,” according to the text of the proposal. The ordinance also requests that city resources not be used for “any investigation, detention, arrest, or prosecution arising out of alleged violations of state and federal law regarding the use of Entheogenic Plants listed on the Federally Controlled Substances Schedule 1 list.”

The measure notes that psychedelics “can benefit psychological and physical wellness” and “have been shown to be beneficial” for people dealing with addiction, trauma, and anxiety. Additionally, the ordinance encourages the State of California to reform its laws to decriminalize natural psychedelic drugs statewide.

Psychedelics for Mental Health

The proposal was introduced in July by Supervisors Hillary Ronen and Dean Preston with the support of Decriminalize Nature, a group working to end the prohibition of entheogenic plants and fungi. Noting that the natural drugs have the potential to treat serious mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction, grief and end-of-life anxiety, the group said that there “is an unmet need in San Francisco’s communities for the compassionate and effective care that these medicines provide.”

“I am proud to work with Decrim Nature to put San Francisco on record in support of the decriminalization of psychedelics and entheogens,” Preston said in a statement after the measure was approved by the Board of Supervisors on September 6. “San Francisco joins a growing list of cities and countries that are taking a fresh look at these plant-based medicines, following science and data, and destigmatizing their use and cultivation. Today’s unanimous vote is an exciting step forward.”

After introducing the measure earlier this year, Preston noted that the measure would bring San Francisco policy in line with the movement to look at psychedelics in a new light after decades of stigma and criminalization.

“The law hasn’t evolved at all since then, and these substances are treated the way they always have been,” Preston said. “At the same time, the scientific community has been expanding their study and research into their therapeutic use.”

With the vote from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the city is the largest municipality in the country to enact a psychedelics decriminalization measure. Denver was the first city in the nation to decriminalize psychedelics in 2019, and since that time others including Washington, D.C., Oakland and Santa Cruz, California, Ann Arbor, Michigan and Easthampton, Massachusetts have adopted similar ordinances. And two years ago, voters in Oregon approved pioneering legislation to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic use.

The San Francisco ordinance is similar to a California bill introduced by Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener that would have decriminalized psychedelics statewide. After facing opposition, the legislation was amended to drop the decriminalization provisions and instead only authorize a study of the drugs.

“While I am extremely disappointed by this result, I am looking to reintroducing this legislation next year and continuing to make the case that it’s time to end the War on Drugs,” Wiener said after the bill was gutted. “Psychedelic drugs, which are not addictive, have incredible promise when it comes to mental health and addiction treatment. We are not giving up.”

Joshua Kappel, founding Partner and head of the Entheogens and Emerging Therapies division of the law firm Vicente Sederberg LLP, lauded the unanimous approval of the ordinance by the Board of Supervisors after the vote.

“This is a great step forward for any city, but it’s surprising it took San Francisco over 3 years after Denver and Oakland decriminalized certain plants and fungi,” Kappel wrote in an email to High Times. “Hopefully, this paves the way for meaningful reform at the state level.”

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St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones signed a cannabis decriminalization ordinance this week, saying the measure will help address racial disparities in the city’s enforcement of cannabis prohibition laws. Jones approved the measure, which was passed by the Board of Alderman last month, at a signing ceremony held at City Hall on Monday.

The new ordinance, Board Bill 132, repeals city laws related to the possession of small amounts of cannabis and drug paraphernalia within the City of St. Louis. The mayor’s office noted in a statement that the measure is consistent with Amendment 2, the 2018 ballot measure that legalized medical marijuana in Missouri after receiving the approval of 82 percent of St. Louis voters and more than 65 percent of the vote statewide.

Jones noted that the ordinance is the latest step in her “mission to put the public back in public safety,” noting that over the last three years, almost 600 have been arrested in St. Louis for marijuana-related charges. Of them, nearly 500 were Black.

“We are seeing a major shift in the way our country sees not just marijuana, but how it connects to public safety, incarceration, and economic opportunity in our communities,” Jones told reporters. “This law will help reduce racial disparities in our policing, make our city safer, and make St. Louis more competitive in hiring for city positions.”

Monday’s signing ceremony was attended by aldermen representing communities from across St. Louis. Alderman Bret Narayan, the bill’s sponsor, thanked the mayor and his colleagues, noting that the measure will also have other benefits for the city. 

“It’s rare that we see so many people from so many different backgrounds unite around a single cause, which is exactly what we have done here,” said Narayan. “This law represents the clear will of the people of St. Louis. It will allow for our law enforcement officials to use their resources on the most pressing issues in our region, help with labor shortages in our City departments, and will also help prevent our injured first responders from falling into the pitfalls of opiate addiction.”

Cannabis Decriminalization Measure Draws Wide Support

The measure was passed by the Board of Alderman on November 23. Narayan said at the time that the bill had broad support from city leaders.

“It has the buy-in from the public safety director,” Narayan said. “It has the buy-in from the director of personnel. We have talked to basically every stakeholder along the way.”

The St. Louis cannabis decriminalization measure also has the support of activists and representatives of Missouri’s growing medical cannabis industry. Tom Muzzey, the CEO of SWADE Cannabis, which operates five dispensaries within the city limits, said that “policy reform is vital, and we recognize that states and local jurisdictions are struggling to address the existing issues of social, economic, and racial inequity associated with cannabis.”

“As a leader in the industry, we believe it is our responsibility to assist with the narrative and offer guidance for all parties involved,” Muzzey continued. “Together, with our partners, we are committed to fighting for the changes needed to create a more just and equitable industry.”

Although the bill changes the city’s cannabis enforcement policy, Dan Viets, the executive director of the Missouri chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), noted that the new ordinance does not provide full protection from prosecution.

“If we only repeal the local ordinances, police still have the option to pursue charges under state law,” Viets said.

Viets said that the focus on cannabis reform must continue at the state level, noting that “19 states now have already legalized adult marijuana use.” Advocates of legalization are currently in the process of collecting the 170,000 signatures needed to put a recreational cannabis initiative on Missouri’s ballot for the 2022 election.

“It’s not a radical proposal at all,” Viets said. “It’s one which will result in much greater control of marijuana regulation. Taxation and legalization are better for everyone.”

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Two U.S. senators recently sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging the Department of Justice to decriminalize cannabis at the federal level. In the letter, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called on Garland to remove cannabis from the nation’s list of drugs regulated under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

“Decriminalizing cannabis at the federal level via this descheduling process would allow states to regulate cannabis as they see fit, begin to remedy the harm caused by decades of racial disparities in enforcement of cannabis laws and facilitate valuable medical research,” Warren and Booker wrote in their October 6 letter to Garland. “While Congress works to pass comprehensive cannabis reform, you can act now to decriminalize cannabis.”

The Democratic senators wrote that under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), Garland has the authority to “remove a substance from the CSA’s list, in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).” Booker and Warren said that the move would be in line with public opinion, noting that 91 percent of American adults support legalizing marijuana for medical or recreational use, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

The senators’ letter also notes that more than two-thirds of the states have initiated cannabis reform, with 36 legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana. Of them, 18 have also passed laws that legalize cannabis for adult use. The reforms have come without a spike in traffic accidents, violent crime, or use by teenagers “paving the way for much-needed action at the federal level.”

Racial Inequality and the War on Drugs

Warren and Booker also cited data from the American Civil Liberties Union that showed that Black Americans are three times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people, despite similar rates of usage among the groups. The effects of the disparate enforcement of cannabis prohibition laws include not only arrest, prosecution and incarceration, but also collateral damage such as the loss of jobs, housing, eligibility for financial aid, child custody and immigration status.

“Federal cannabis policy has disproportionately affected the ability of people of color in the United States to vote, to pursue education, and to build intergenerational wealth,” Booker and Warren maintain. “You can begin to repair the harm that the criminalization of cannabis has wrought on communities of color by using your statutory and regulatory authority to deschedule this drug.”

The senators also noted in their letter that legalization will facilitate cannabis as a treatment option for serious medical conditions including chronic pain, PTSD and terminal illnesses. Noting that federal agencies including the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse have acknowledged that THC and CBD have proven medical applications, Warren and Booker argued that the decriminalization of “cannabis is crucial to facilitating scientific research and would be invaluable to doctors and patients across the nation.”

Summing up their rationale for marijuana policy reform, Booker and Warren urged “the DOJ to initiate the process to decriminalize cannabis.”

“Doing so would be an important first step in the broader tasks of remedying the harmful racial impact of our nation’s enforcement of cannabis laws and ensuring that states can effectively regulate the growing cannabis industry, including by assisting small business owners and those most harmed by our historical enforcement of cannabis laws,” they continued.

Keeping a Campaign Promise

Rescheduling cannabis under the CSA or removing it from the list entirely by action from Garland and the executive branch would allow the Biden administration to follow through on pledges to reform marijuana policy during the 2020 presidential campaign. While running for office, President Joe Biden promised to “decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions.”

In an April press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki reiterated Biden’s support for cannabis reform at the federal level. But she noted that the president prefers marijuana decriminalization over full legalization.

“The president supports leaving decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the states; rescheduling cannabis as a Schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts; and, at the federal level, he supports decriminalizing marijuana use and automatically expunging any prior criminal records,” Psaki told reporters. “He also supports legalizing medicinal marijuana.”

Critics, however, say Biden’s stance on cannabis is behind the times.

“His policy on marijuana is a very antiquated one, very out of date,” Martiza Perez, director of national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, told the Portland Press Herald. “I think that’s just his personal belief. If he were persuaded by science, the science tells us that marijuana does have positive therapeutic and medical effects, but he still seems very reluctant to just embrace it.”

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