Coloradans may be asked to legalize psilocybin in November 2022 election

Think about if Coloradans affected by anxiousness or post-traumatic stress dysfunction had a authorized solution to deal with their illnesses with psychedelic mushrooms. Advocates say it’s not that far out.

Residents could possibly be voting in November to legalize psilocybin and psilocin, the psychoactive compounds in magic mushrooms, to be used in therapeutic settings after advocates mentioned they’ve collected sufficient signatures to qualify the query for the poll.

On Monday, Kevin Matthews and Veronica Perez of Pure Drugs Colorado, the marketing campaign behind the legalization effort, submitted a petition with 222,648 signatures supporting Initiative 58, also known as the Natural Medicine Health Act, to the Secretary of State’s workplace.

The state nonetheless must confirm the signatures, so it’s not a completed deal but, however given it requires about 125,000 legitimate signatures, Pure Drugs Colorado believes the query might be in entrance of voters this fall.

If it passes, the Pure Drugs Well being Act would successfully set the stage for a authorized mushroom market by tasking Colorado regulators with creating guidelines across the cultivation, manufacturing, testing, transport, gross sales and buy of psilocybin and psilocin.

Whereas the measure restricts gross sales to designated “therapeutic facilities” which might be licensed by the state — so that you wouldn’t be allowed to stroll right into a retailer or dispensary and purchase ‘shrooms over-the-counter — it additionally expands decriminalization for possession, use, and gifting statewide. As a result of it units up a brand new framework for therapy facilities, regulators would additionally outline the {qualifications}, training and coaching necessities obligatory for facilitators who administer the substances.

“The largest takeaway I hope folks perceive is that these pure medicines have been utilized by people for 10,000 years and within the final 20 to 25 years there was a major quantity of medical analysis at universities like Johns Hopkins and UCLA that actually exhibit the efficacy of pure medicines,” mentioned Matthews, who led Denver’s decriminalization initiative in 2019, by cellphone. “Coloradans deserve entry to those unbelievable therapeutic choices often because we’re dealing with a disaster of psychological well being within the state proper now.”

Relating to decriminalization, the measure means locals wouldn’t be arrested for possessing, utilizing or rising a “private quantity” of psilocybin or psilocin, nor gifting shrooms to adults ages 21 and up. (The time period private quantity shouldn’t be outlined and as one native rabbi not too long ago discovered, rising 30-plus strains of psychedelic mushrooms can nonetheless lead to legal costs.) That ensures extra Coloradans may have entry to those rising medicines, Perez mentioned.

RELATED: Mushroom rabbi grows ceremonial psilocybin for Denver congregation — however is that authorized?

“There are lots of people in Colorado who’ve been harmed by the well being care system and so they’re not going to be those who can get entry via therapeutic facilities. They wish to sit with a knowledge keeper or a sitter of their residence. Then we even have a regulated mannequin for individuals who do need the guardrails,” she mentioned. “That’s what makes the measure so stunning is we’re assembly essentially the most quantity of individuals the place they’re at.”

The measure requires laws to be in place and for the state to start accepting license functions by Sept. 30, 2024, and in addition establishes a Pure Drugs Advisory Board to seek the advice of with lawmakers all through the method. If adopted, Colorado could be the second state to legalize shrooms behind Oregon.

Initiative 58 builds on latest enthusiasm round psilocybin, which has yielded promising ends in treating depression, PTSD, anxiety among the terminally ill and even nicotine addiction in college research. And it’s not the one one – advocates with Decriminalize Nature Colorado have been campaigning in help of a competing poll measure, Initiative 61, which goals to decriminalize entheogenic crops and fungi, together with psilocybin, dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and ibogaine, with out establishing a authorized market.

Nicole Foerster, a pacesetter of the competing marketing campaign, was not instantly accessible for remark, however expressed considerations about who a regulated market would go away behind earlier this yr once they filed the proposed initiative. It’s unclear what number of signatures Initiative 61 has collected to this point.

“With out decriminalization and the safety it permits for affected communities to extra successfully set up, regulatory fashions will make it troublesome for essentially the most deprived teams of our inhabitants to proceed to entry the pure medicines they safely use to heal,” Foerster mentioned in a January assertion. “To deal with this we’re advocating for a easy change to present legal guidelines round these managed substances.”