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.

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The International Therapeutic Psilocybin Rescheduling Initiative (ITPRI) has launched a campaign on January 11 to see medical mushroom reform happen on a global scale.

The organization argues that the antiquated 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances Act is long overdue for some changes. While the Act was created to target drugs that are harmful, ITPRI argues that recent therapeutic evidence and effectiveness of psilocybin warrants a change in scheduling.

“In most countries, legal control of psilocybin results from its Schedule I status under the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances,” ITPRI wrote in a press release. “Meant for dangerous drugs which create an especially serious risk to public health and whose therapeutic value is little to none, Schedule I drugs are subject to strict limits on their scientific and medical use. Schedule I licensing, safe-custody, security, manufacturing, quantity, and import/export restrictions result in a level of regulatory control and oversight that is drastically more onerous than for the Convention’s other three schedules. As a result, researchers wishing to study psilocybin face numerous regulatory hurdles which add significantly to the cost, complexity, and duration of research and can negatively impact ethical approvals, funding and collaboration.”

According to ITPRI, the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances Act describes a Schedule I substance as “Substances whose liability to abuse constitutes an especially serious risk to public health and which have very limited, if any, therapeutic usefulness.”

Despite the growing potential of psilocybin as a medical treatment, progress has been hindered by the UN’s 51-year-old agreement. Professor David Nutt, head of Imperial College London’s Centre for Psychedelic Research and Founder of Drug Science, described the setback. “Psilocybin’s Schedule I status has severely limited—and continues to limit—neuroscience research and the development of treatments for patients.” Drug Science is one of many partners supporting this effort, including Beckley Foundation, MAPS, Mind Medicine Australia, Nierika A.C., Open Foundation and Osmond Foundation.

ITPRI’s plan is to inspire nations of the UN to initiate a review. “To ensure equity of access to psilocybin as a global public good, ITPRI is engaging, educating and mobilizing officials and other stakeholders without the ecosystem of UN institutions, member state permanent missions and NGOs that will be critical to achieving a review and change in scheduling,” the organization says of its rescheduling plan. Once the process has begun, the World Health Organization (WHO) will present a critical review, which could result in a recommendation to reschedule if two-thirds of the member countries agree.

ITPRI Co-founder and Chair of the Board of Directors, Christopher Koddermann, expressed the certainty that the ITPRI’s new campaign will help move things along. “Given today’s scientific understanding of psilocybin’s high potential therapeutic value and low risk of dependence, a change of its status as a Schedule I drug is long overdue.”

In December 2020, the UN Commission for Narcotic Drugs has voted to reclassify cannabis, and more recently, the UN voted against a ban on kratom in December 2021. Furthermore, many states and cities in the U.S. have embraced decriminalization of mushrooms to allow medical patients to gain easier access to psilocybin mushrooms as a treatment. The state of Oregon was one of the first to embrace psilocybin mushrooms legalization.

Businesses such as Dr. Bronner’s are going all-in to support psilocybin legalization, both in Connecticut as well as throughout the U.S. Canada has even eased access for mushrooms as well, thanks in part to the rising amount of evidence that suggests its potential as a medicine. The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed consideration of psilocybin therapy last year. All of this and more are contributing factors to the world’s changing view of psilocybin as medicine.

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