California lawmakers on Thursday narrowly approved a bill supported by veterans and criminal justice reform advocates to decriminalize the possession and personal use of a limited list of natural psychedelics, including “magic mushrooms.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom will now decide the fate of Senate Bill 58, which would remove criminal penalties for the possession and use of psilocybin and psilocin, the active ingredients in psychedelic mushrooms, mescaline and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, known as ayahuasca. The bill also would require the California Health and Human Services Agency to study the therapeutic use of psychedelics and submit a report with its findings and recommendations to the Legislature.
Sure hope there’s going to be education available alongside the psychedelics for
saleacquisition. It’ll help people learn about set and setting, etc., but most importantly, education and prep will mean less bad trips and less idiots running their mouths to the anti-drug crowd.So this isn’t aimed at allowing the sale yet. This is just to remove the penalty of possession, this is the first step in being able to do studies on micro doses and therapeutic levels. And yes mushroom shops.
Technically the second step. First step was that the big CA cities already passed this. Now the rest of the state is following.
I bought magic mushrooms in Oakland this summer. Love my city.
Comically enough possession of Psychedelic mushrooms isn’t a charge in Florida. They had a ruling a while back that stated a standard person wouldn’t know how to tell the difference between a mushroom that was and was not containing psychedelic properties. Thus it is illegal to sell, deliver or etc but if you have a zip loc bag of a few mushrooms in your pocket they in theory would have to let you go because they would have to prove your mushroom swiss burger was intended to get you high vs just being enjoyable. Now if you have 10 1 oz bags of mushrooms, you will have a hard time arguing you didn’t have intent to sell.
As the article mentioned, recreational sales is still illegal. You’re just not going to jail if you’re over 21 and get caught with few caps on you. It also kicks off some efforts to study the drugs for therapy.
It’s also following in the footsteps of major CA metros who have been piloting this for a while.
If California is anything like Massachusetts then it’s a bit more complicated.
Over there several towns and cities have decriminalized and it’s on the state ballot much like California, but cannabis dispensaries in those towns and cities are already “gifting” mushroom chocolates and such to customers.
The law says they can’t sell it yet but they still manage to get it into the hands of paying customers
Well it only makes sense when an upstanding adult donates to the shop that they receive a going home gift.
less idiots running their mouths to the anti-drug crowd
Explain
Explain
There are easy ways to have a bad time using psychedelics (like not picking a controlled environment, not being prepared for that your trip will take some time). Knowing these things ahead of time/being prepared matters quite a bit in terms of your ability to have a safe, pleasant trip.
This sort of knowledge, sort of like “you shouldn’t plan to operate heavy machinery after drinking that cough syrup or those 7 beers” is key to responsible use- and it’s the irresponsible users that become the poster children for the ‘ban everything’ crowd.
You haven’t heard anti-drug people cite anecdotal stories as a reason to continue the war on drugs?
People who misuse or misunderstand a drug, take too much, or mix it with other substances are the D.A.R.E. crowd’s favorite thing to point as supporting evidence.
Example: Take a small dose of PCP or a simulant, it can be fine for someone knowing the risks and weighing them against their needs. Take too much of PCP (and be predisposed to violence) and you’ll end up doing crimes, or in the hospital for serotonin syndrome.
So let’s say violent Vince takes too much of a drug and ends up assaulting people on the street. He ends up in the news and we all get to hear forever about why PCP turns anyone who tries it into an invincible cannibal zombie.
Does that make more sense?
Note: I’m not arguing for the legality of PCP.
I’m a little disappointed that the appropriations committee required further studies before it goes into effect. Originally it was supposed to be effective immediately, but now it doesn’t start till January of 2025.
Either way, this is great news for so many people struggling with mental health conditions. Really happy to see it. I’m thinking this transition will happen a lot faster than marijuana.
One note of caution, Gavin Newsom has refused to comment on this bill so far. No one really knows where he stands and so he could veto it. We just don’t know.
Similarly, I think it’s dumb that places are always starting with decriminalization instead of legalization. Let’s be honest. We all know why they do both of these things. They’re scared of not appearing hard enough on “crime”. They know that there’s a ton of scared voters who associate drugs with bad things and they are afraid of losing those voters.
We see the same thing happening in countless places with marijuana, too. Despite many places having already proven that legalization works and does not, in fact, open a portal to hell.
If we accept that shrooms shouldn’t be illegal, it doesn’t make sense to keep them illegal for longer. Similarly, it doesn’t make sense that it’s still illegal to sell them. Like, are they expecting that they just magically appear in the hands of consumers? No, I think they know exactly what they’re doing and it’s all just catering to the older voters who scare easily.
I agree with you in principal. But maybe we need baby steps to allow time for the general population’s attitudes to change.
I live in Massachusetts, next door to “lovely, historic Concord, the Birthplace of the American Revolution”. Marijuana has been legal, not just decriminalized, here for years and years. There was a proposal to open a cannabis shop in Concord a couple of years ago, and the locals were in a tizzy. I remember one comment in particular: “Do we really want busloads of SCHOOLCHILDREN unloading at the corner of Main St and Walden St [town center] and seeing a WEED shop?!?!?”
My response? “Oh, you mean near all the places that serve ALCOHOL for CONSUMPTION on the PREMISES?”.
They didn’t get it.
People have weird attitudes about these substances because they used to be illegal. Slowly moving them to illegal instead of just yanking off the band-aid helps. Not in all cases, obviously see above🙄), but in many.
good news!
also another sad example of how arbitrary the word “natural” is. LSD derives from the (very “natural”) ergot fungus, MDMA from sassafras - but I guess they’re not included because [mumbles something about test tubes]
Hallelujah!
I’m gonna open a place that looks like a movie theater but the seats are more spaced out, and you smoke dmt. You pay like $50 for a ticket and get the most interesting movie experience ever.
Its natural so it must be good for u right, right… XD
Psilocybin mushrooms have been used medicinally on this continent to treat mental health since before colonialism by white people.
And the LD 50 on it would require you to eat about fifty pounds of mushrooms before you might die (of course, your stomach would burst before this happened).
Do people freak out when psilocybin is taken unskillfully? Absolutely. Psilocybin is a powerful tool. And like a surgeon’s scalpel, it can hurt when used poorly. And heal when used skillfully.
So no, it’s not good because it’s natural. It’s good because it’s good. And when applied mindfully, it has the potential help heal a lot of people.
I think the point is that it isn’t bad for you, or at least not any more so than alcohol.
As far as I’m concerned, we should either make drugs legal or alcohol illegal. The double-standard makes no sense.
I agree with most of what you’re saying aside from the part about making all drugs illegal.
The drug war is more about political violence than it is about keeping America safe, for one. A Nixon aide is on record describing how the drug war was about disinfranchising people who may stop his reelection.
For, two. Bodily autonomy is a right. Remember, the bill of rights is not meant to be all inclusive. And it’s not our job to prove our rights but the governments job to justify its power.
In this case, the government has utterly failed to justify this power. We’ve criminalized medicine that can cure addiction and consumerism. And put people in prison, destroying families. Both hippies just trying to grow some shrooms to share with friends, and suffering addicts who need medical help.
And for three, prohibition doesn’t work. We’ve seen this proved again and again in multiple countries and now over a full century.
It’s time to end this civil war that destroys families, and robs people of their political power. A war started so the second most corrupt president in history could angle for a second term.
This issue isn’t about safety. But control.
I think they should all be legal, but I also think laws should be consistent. If we’re going to make drugs illegal, include alcohol, cigarettes and caffeine or legalize the rest.
They should be consistent for sure.
But drugs is a word man made up. Kids get high on sugar and social media can be as addictive as meth.
So, we should make it all legal. And regulate it so people stop dying of fentanyl.
Full stop.
Because trying to police dopamine rewards that come from things outside ourselves is a very slippery slope.
Depends on the drug. Stuff like Marijuana or those Psychedelics, sure. Cocaine and Heroin on the other hand… aren’t really comparable to stuff you can “”safely”” take for decades.
So continue throwing people in prison for using them?
Prison is a different issue. I think they should seize the drugs and direct them to a rehabilitation center (or force them if it’s repeat offenders). Prison is for dealers.
But what constitutes a dealer? Because we throw people in prison now who are intending to sell a single vial of meth for $20 (or whatever Meth costs). They might be addicts who are so desperate for money that they’re selling their own supply. Don’t those people also need help? This is the problem with the drug war- it’s too vague. And there’s no real way to not make it vague.
Even if it was someone desperate for money, they still tried to sell a very dangerous drug to another human. That’s not ok, in my opinion.
That’s where I draw the line: if you’re only harming yourself you need help. If you’re trying to fuel others’ addiction, it’s jail. At most if it’s clear that the person has a huge drug issue you could force the rehabilitation center in that case as well (but again, the first time. If you still sell meth after that you’re asking for it).
Considering I had a friend with cancer sell me some of his weed so he could pay his medical bills that month, I can’t say I’d agree.
Arsenic is natural, so…
And arsenic is legal and all of the drugs in reference are non-toxic.
So thanks for proving that the drug laws are about political violence, and not about keeping us safe.
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We tried that already. For decades. And all we got was a disastrous war on drugs, millions of lives needlessly ruined, and the largest prison population on the planet.
Not all drugs are bad. There are some that are obviously terrible and ruin lives. There are also some that help with a wide variety of physical and mental health issues though.
Even if you’re just thinking all drugs are bad, dumping people in jail for drug use/possession doesn’t fix anything. Time and money would be better spent on rehabilitation in that scenario.
Decriminalizing possession helps keep people out of jail, opens the door for proper studies on effects, and can help people with chronic conditions. I have heard that microdosing shrooms is apparently helpful with treating depression. It would be nice to see more information on that.
Re: Microdosing
Unless something recent came out that I missed the few studies on micro dosing suggest it’s no better than placebo. Which isn’t to say it’s not effective, we do need more studies here.
Macrodoses of about 20-30mg (which is between 1g and 3g of mushrooms depending on potency), in clinical settings, have shown very strong evidence in the treatment of treatment resistant depression and end of life anxiety, and good evidence in treatment of anxiety disorders as well as alcohol and tobacco addiction.
Personally, I like 10-20mg once or twice a week for habit change*, and larger doses for getting out in the woods by myself and just being. I guess you could call it ego dissolution but I’ve done it enough times that when I’m in the right headspace it doesn’t feel like I’m losing anything but becoming part of everything. Listening to the birds and insects, it’s easy for me to completely forget myself on tryptamines like psilocybin and DMT.
*Psilocybin helped me quit smoking.
That’s interesting to read, thanks for sharing. I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the subject, I had just heard that about microdosing before.
Huberman Labs podcast has done a lot of episodes on psilocybin and psychedelic research. The current understanding of the main mechanism of action is really cool.
Basically, psilocybin helps different parts of the brain communicate better. Of course, this can be undesirable if repressed trauma surfaces and their’s no one there capable of helping the person process the trauma.
But it’s also amazing because it can help us tune back into how children process information, openly and innocently, because that part of the mind is still there. Hiding under our egos (which we develop mostly as teenagers). Assuming we feel safe enough of course, to let our survival mechanisms (ego) go for a bit.
You’re right. They absolutely need to ban coffee, tea, alcohol and tobacco. Can’t wait
/s
Fr, crazy that people still drink coffee/soda, and that we literally have “drug stores”. What a world we live in…
/s
Backwards take, attempting to ban substance use is the driving reason behind international drug running organizatons buttfucking the US market.
Fuck that. I’d be miserable without coffee, Benadryl, acetaminophen, and especially paroxetine.
Psilocybin is medicine and Nixon outlawed it as a political weapon. It was never a war on drugs, it was always a war on personal freedom and the voting rights of people who might threaten Nixon at the ballot box.
Sorry you don’t believe in liberty and personal freedom. Or the right to bodily autonomy, especially when it comes to medicine. That really sucks and I hope you work on it soon!
Damn that sucks, its really disheartening to see drugs getting legalized when they should be banned
As a 🦅Conservative®🦅, I must say I agree! Banning drugs was how we got around The 13th Amendment not letting us have slaves.
A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism’s physiology or psychology when consumed.
Sure, let’s ban every medicine, why not
Except this isn’t legalization and it’s still banned. Also who decides what drugs are bad and which are good?
