14 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY september 7-13, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com Psychedelics are having a moment. A nationwide push to bring magic mushrooms and other psychedelics into the mainstream is gaining traction, and some Californians want in. While hallucinogens are often associated with the drug culture of the 1960s, today’s movement is largely about using them to help treat the nation’s ballooning mental health crisis. Growing research portrays the drugs as a promising tool in helping people heal from various mental illnesses, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Several proposals in California seek to make psychedelics more accessible for therapeutic and personal use. These include one legislative proposal that would decriminalize the use of certain natural hallucinogens and two pending initiatives for next year’s ballot, one that would legalize the use and sale of psilocybin mushrooms and a second that would fund a $5 billion agency to research and develop psychedelic therapies. One recent UC Berkeley survey offers a glimpse of where the public stands on these types of reforms. More than 60 percent of those surveyed supported psychedelics for therapeutic use, and 78 percent supported making it easier for researchers to further study psychedelics. Meanwhile, 49 percent said they supported removing criminal penalties for personal use. Some researchers, doctors and parents urge caution around personal use because psychedelics aren’t for everyone and potential risks are still not all that well understood. The bill to decriminalize plantbased psychedelics passed an Assembly committee by a vote of 9-3 on Sept. 1. Senate Bill 58, by State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, would ensure that people do not get arrested for possessing and ingesting specified quantities of psilocybin and psilocin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms; mescaline; ibogaine and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT. The bill does not, however, legalize the sale of any of these substances. “A huge number of people right now in California are using psychedelics, despite the fact that it is banned,” Wiener said during an Assembly Health Committee hearing in July. Decriminalizing these substances, he argued, promotes responsible use: “If you think you’re doing something wrong, you’re less likely to seek information or talk to someone about how to be safe.” His bill would also order the state’s health agency to form a workgroup that would make recommendations regarding supervised medical use of these psychedelics—although any psychedelic-assisted therapies first need approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This is the second time Wiener has tried to decriminalize psychedelics; the first failed last year. This time around his bill is narrower in that it excludes synthetic psychedelics, such as LSD. If Wiener’s bill makes it through the Legislature and across the governor’s desk, California would follow Oregon and Colorado, where voters have already decriminalized psychedelics. Some cities in the Golden State are a step ahead. Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Berkeley, have already passed measures that order law enforcement to back off arresting people for using plant-based psychedelics. Supporters of decriminalization point to promising data about some psychedelic-assisted therapies now in end stages of clinical trials, such as the use of MDMA (commonly known as ecstasy) to treat symptoms in patients with PTSD. Additionally, psilocybin, found in hallucinogenic mushrooms, is being studied for treating depression. For example, early data from the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, has shown that psilocybin therapy can reduce major depressive disorder symptoms for up to a year. Researchers believe public attention on the worsening mental health crisis during the Covid-19 pandemic may also play a role in this renewed interest in psychedelics. “Suddenly you’ve got this discussion about mental health issues in a way that, at least in American culture, we really hadn’t been discussing,” says Jennifer Mitchell, a neurology professor at UC San Francisco who is working on developing psychedelic therapies and collecting safety data. Mitchell opposes SB 58 because she believes access to psychedelics for therapeutic use should come before personal use. Currently, psychedelics are only allowed for clinical research. If therapies are approved by the FDA, those lessons, she argues, could then help inform safety guidelines for personal access. “[Psychedelics] are actually exceedingly safe physiologically; psychologically, is where we get into trouble,” Mitchell says. “Because if you take a drug and think you can fly, you’re capable of self harm. If you take a drug and think you can breathe underwater, you are capable of self harm. And those are the types of reasons why when you take a psychedelic, we want you to be in a facilitated environment where you’re being watched.” One powerful voice opposing Wiener’s bill is a coalition led by mothers who have lost a child to an adverse reaction after ingesting psychedelics. Kristin Nash, for one, has shared the story of her son who died two months before his college graduation. Nash has shared that in 2020, Will took two grams of psilocybin mushrooms and in his altered state mistook a jar of protein powder for a water jug and suffocated. Nash now runs a foundation named after her son, William, through which she works to raise awareness and advocate for harm reduction efforts, such as better training for college campus responders. Nash is not against allowing veterans and others to use these substances for treatment, but she’d like to see the bill amended so it includes safety measures for personal use. “I don’t believe people should be arrested for possessing and using mushrooms,” Nash says. “These are being used whether we legalize them or not. And so I would argue that we need these safeguards. When we make this policy shift, we know that use will increase further, that adverse events will increase further, and so I feel like we don’t have to choose between social justice, equitable access and safety, we can do all of those things.” California voters may hear more about psychedelics next year even if Wiener’s bill fails, as advocacy groups attempt to qualify ballot initiatives for the November 2024 election. One group, Decriminalize California, is looking to legalize hallucinogenic mushrooms. Its proposal goes further than SB 58 by legalizing not only possession, but also the sale and commercialization of these substances. If approved by voters, the measure would go into effect in January 2025. “Originally we wanted to go for all psychedelics, but the problem was there wasn’t enough public comprehension about what else was out there,” said Ryan Munevar, campaign director at Decriminalize California. A separate measure would ask voters to approve $5 billion in bonds to create a government agency that would focus on psychedelic research with the goal of developing therapeutics. The idea, according to proponents, is to dedicate more resources to research that shows promise but has for long been underfunded. This story is reprinted from CalMatters, where it first appeared. Psych Out Psychedelic therapies show promise. Is California ready to bring them into the mainstream? By Ana B. Ibarra news A growing body of research shows that psilocybin therapy—from hallucinogenic mushrooms, as shown above—can relieve symptoms of mental illness. “A huge number of people right now are using psycheledics.” Daniel Patrick Martin \ shutterstock
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