Drugs: Californians Want Legal Psychedelics Will State Let Them

[grarpamp]

US-CA Supplying The Good Stuff To Chill The Four Spammers Out

California Lawmaker Introduces Bill To Legalize Magic Mushrooms, Other
Psychedelics

Authored by Jamie Joseph via The Epoch Times,

A Democratic lawmaker in California introduced a bill Dec. 19 to
decriminalize the personal use of plant-based psychedelic drugs—such
as magic mushrooms, mescaline, and psilocybin—outside of school
grounds for people 21 and up.

    “Criminalizing drug use and possession accomplish absolutely
nothing other than to fill up our prisons with people who are
addicted,” said Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) outside of the
state Capitol Dec. 19.

    “We need to treat drug use as a health issue instead of a criminal one.”

Wiener, the author of Senate Bill (SB) 58, said that psychedelics—a
type of hallucinogenic drug—“have huge promise” when it comes to
helping those suffering from mental health issues such as opioid
addiction, depression, anxiety, and PTSD.

Sen. Scott Wiener speaks in front of the California State Senate on
Aug. 31, 2022. (Screenshot via California State Senate)

SB 58 will also allow the cultivation, transfer, or transportation of
fungi or other plant-based materials that can serve as ingredients for
these drugs, according to its text.

The bill may be heard on or after Jan. 16, 2023.

These drugs affect how people see, hear, taste, smell, or feel, and
can radically affect the user’s mood and thought, sometimes resulting
in psychosis, according to existing academic studies.

One veteran, Michael Young, said at the press conference he came home
to the United States with severe PTSD after 10 years of
counter-terrorism missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    “Psychedelics help heal the unseen scars from my years of service
in the war on terror,” he said.

    “This sacred medicine showed me how to put myself back together again.”

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, hallucinogens “can
cause users to see images, hear sounds, and feel sensations that seem
real but do not exist.” The effects of ingesting psychedelics
generally begin within 20 to 90 minutes and can last up to 12 hours in
some cases or as short as 15 minutes in others, according to the
institute.

Magic Mushrooms sit in a fridge in London, England, on July 18, 2005.
(Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

SB 58 is a comparably moderate version of a previous bill Wiener
proposed but failed to pass in 2021, which would have legalized not
only plant-based but synthetic psychedelics, such as MDMAs, LSD, and
ketamine.

Although it is rare for someone to die from an LSD overdose, “severe
injury and death has occurred as an indirect result of using LSD, in
that accidents, self-mutilation, and suicide have occurred … when
people are largely unaware of what they are doing,” according to the
American Addiction Centers.

The Heroic Hearts Project—a co-sponsor of SB 519 of 2021 and
psychedelic advocacy group for veterans struggling with PTSD—said
“psychedelic treatment options provided these veterans with a level of
relief and healing that many had come to believe was no longer
possible.”

Several law enforcement groups opposed the 2021 bill, including the
California College and University Police Chiefs Association,
California District Attorneys Association, California Narcotic
Officers’ Association, California Police Chiefs Association,
California State Sheriffs’ Association, California Statewide Law
Enforcement Association, and Peace Officers’ Research Association of
California, among other organizations.

The Peace Officers’ Research Association of California “believes many
of the penalties related to controlled substances work as a deterrent
or a reason for individuals to get the treatment they need to turn
their lives around,” according to a statement of opposition submitted
to the state Assembly Health Committee in July 2021.

    “Furthermore, [the association] believes this bill will cause an
increase in the selling and personal use of drugs, which will lead to
greater crime and arrests in our communities,” the statement read.

Under the CURES Act, signed into law in 2016 to expand medical
innovations, many hallucinogenic substances—including LSD, DMT,
mescaline, and psilocybin—are classified as Schedule 1 substances,
meaning they pose a high risk of abuse and are not accepted for
medical use.

In September, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously
passed a motion calling for law enforcement to deprioritize
investigations and arrests of adults found in possession of
psychedelics. This was a month after an Oakland church using magic
mushrooms as its form of communion was raided by police.