Posted on 11/08/2022 8:43:44 AM PST by Red Badger
Ballot initiative would create state-regulated 'healing centers' where participants can experience the drug under the supervision of a licensed 'facilitator'...
(Headline USA) In a red-wave election year in which incumbent Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet faces the possibility of defeat at the hands of centrist GOP candidate Joe O’Dea, Colorado Democrats have devised a shrewd plan to rally their core base of washed-out hippies and homeless drug addicts.
Voters are deciding Tuesday whether theirs will become the second state, after Oregon, to create a legalized system for the use of psychedelic mushrooms.
Ironically, the Oregon policy, implemented in 2020, is one reason the deep-blue state may be facing the possibility of electing its own Republican governor in this year’s race.
Colorado’s ballot initiative would decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms for those 21 and older and create state-regulated “healing centers” where participants can experience the drug under the supervision of a licensed “facilitator.”
The measure would establish a regulated system for using substances like psilocybin and psilocin, the hallucinogenic chemicals found in some mushrooms. It also would allow private personal use of the drugs.
If passed, the initiative would take effect toward the end of 2024. It also would permit a state advisory board to add other plant-based psychedelic drugs to the program in 2026. Those include dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT, ibogaine and mescaline not derived from peyote, which is considered sacred by some Native Americans.
Proponents argued that Colorado’s current approach to mental health has failed and that naturally occurring psychedelics, which have been used for hundreds of years, can treat depression, PTSD, anxiety, addiction and other conditions. They also said jailing people for the nonviolent offense of using naturally occurring substances costs taxpayers money.
But critics noted the Food and Drug Administration has not approved the substances as medicine. They also argued allowing healing centers to operate and permitting personal use would jeopardize public safety and send the wrong message to kids and adults alike that the substances are healthy.
The move comes a decade after Colorado voted to legalize recreational marijuana, which led to a multibillion-dollar industry with hundreds of dispensaries popping up across the state.
Critics of the latest ballot initiative say the same deep-pocketed players who were involved in legalizing recreational marijuana are using a similar playbook to create a commercial market, and eventually recreational dispensaries, for dangerous substances.
The psychedelics that would be decriminalized are listed as schedule 1 controlled substances under state and federal law and are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use with a high potential for abuse.
Even so, the FDA has designated psilocybin a “breakthrough therapy” to treat major depressive disorder. The designation can expedite research, development and review of a drug if it might offer substantial improvements over existing treatments.
Colorado’s ballot initiative would allow those 21 and older to grow, possess and share the psychedelic substances for personal use but not sell them. It also would allow people who have been convicted of offenses involving the substances to have their criminal records sealed.
In 2020, Oregon became the first state in the nation to legalize the therapeutic, supervised use of psilocybin after 56% of voters approved Ballot Measure 109. But unlike the Colorado measure, Oregon allows counties to opt out of the program if their constituents vote to do so.
Oregon’s initiative is expected to take effect at the beginning of next year.
Washington, D.C., and Denver have partially decriminalized psychedelic mushrooms by requiring law enforcement officers to treat them as their lowest priority.
That’s actually true. We haven’t seen much about it because, according to the ads, it’s ALL about abortion.
Vote to destroy the American nation. Vote Democrat!
Deadbeat hippies just eat ‘shrooms. They don’t much care about the laws.
Hmmm. This facility looks like the Haight-Ashbury district. I wonder why?
Yes......................
It’s s three way race. Otherwise, the Dims win handily. There were two psilocybin related issues on my (Oregon) ballot; yea or nay on allowing psilocybin-related businesses to operate within 1) the city, 2) unincorporated areas of the county.
How well does it mesh with Fentanyl?
>>There were two psilocybin related issues on my (Oregon) ballot<<
Always an effective manner to bring out the Dim vote...
Setting has always been stressed when dealing with psychedelics.
I see what’s going on in Colorado however I haven’t been there in many years then I was wondering is it in a tail spin? Or just a college town or two acting up?
These are getting ahead of the issue before it becomes a problem. We just had heavy rains, and now get a chilly, relatively sunny few days. I could probably walk around a local park and find psychedelic ‘shrooms growing. And there are lots of people out looking. I don’t know that they’re inclined to vite.
Vote.
I know a guy that does ketamine therapy. Very successful professional.
So far as I know, nobody around here wants anything to do with fentanyl. It may be an additive in meth or heroin. Not long ago, there was a rash of ODs, some fatal, in the area. Fentanyl was suspected. I don’t know that anyone would want to combine mushrooms with fentanyl, if that’s what you’re asking.
Sometimes,fentanyl finds you...
I feel genuinely sorry for homeless vets. Served our country and then ignored and cast aside.
If something like this can help them then good.
My knowledge (from books) about such items ended with the revised edition of the Yage Letters (Redux) by William S. Burroughs. He was a big advocate of gun rights, too.
“Burroughs Quote. After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”
https://www.google.com/search?q=william+s.+burroughs+guns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDzMae2Z_7AhXcHTQIHXMMDGIQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1206&bih=584&dpr=1.33
Update: While Dims did well, overall in Oregon, the county (Coos) and all municipalities within, voted to ban psilocybin-related businesses.
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