• Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1095 -- 4/30/20 Table of Contents plus the l

    From Bobbie Sellers@21:1/5 to All on Thu Apr 30 14:00:25 2020
    XPost: alt.drugs, alt.hemp, rec.drugs.psychedelic
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    Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1095 -- 4/30/20
    Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/1095

    A Publication of StoptheDrugWar.org
    David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org
    "Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

    Table of Contents:

    1. WITH PSYCHEDELIC LEGALIZATION ON THE HORIZON, HOW SHOULD WE GET THERE
    FROM HERE? [FEATURE]
    Checking in with last weekend's virtual Psychedelic Liberty Summit. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/apr/30/psychedelic_legalization_horizon

    2. MEDICAL MARIJUANA UPDATE
    There's a push on to allow state-legal marijuana businesses to get
    pandemic aid relief, Arkansans are heading across the state line for
    cheaper, more accessible medical marijuana, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/apr/29/medical_marijuana_update

    3. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
    Even during the pandemic, corrupt cops keep going down. A former Ohio
    DARE officer is in big trouble and so is yet another Baltimore police
    officer. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/apr/29/weeks_corrupt_cops_stories

    4. PUSH TO ALLOW MARIJUANA BUSINESSES PANDEMIC AID, BLOODY GUN BATTLES
    IN MEXICO, MORE... (4/23/20)
    A push is on in Congress to secure coronavirus pandemic relief aid for
    the legal marijuana industry, a poll suggests that a DC psychedelic decriminalization initiative could win -- if it can make the ballot --
    and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/apr/23/push_allow_marijuana_businesses

    5. PLAINTIFFS IN MJ SCHEDULING CASE VS. DEA LOOK TO SUPREME COURT, NJ
    VOTERS READY TO APPROVE LEGAL MJ, MORE... (4/24/20)
    A New Jersey poll shows strong support for approving a November
    marijuana legalization initiative, California state government agencies
    are moving to ease the pandemic burden on marijuana businesses, the
    Supreme Court is being asked to rule on whether marijuana's designation
    as a Schedule I drug is unconstitutional, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/apr/24/plaintiffs_mj_scheduling_case_vs

    6. PERU COCA PRICES PLUNGE AMID PANDEMIC, LOUISIANA POT POLL SHOWS STATE
    NOT THERE YET, MORE... (4/27/20)
    A Navy destoryer on an anti-drug mission is forced to return to port,
    Peruvian coca growers are taking a financial hit during the pandemic,
    Montana GOP elected officials are opposing an effort to get electronic signature-gathering for a marijuana legalization campaign, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/apr/27/peru_coca_prices_plunge_amid

    7. US VIRGIN ISLANDS GOVERNOR URGES PASSAGE OF LEGALIZATION BILL, CALL
    FOR PANDEMIC RELIEF FOR MARIJUANA BUSINESSES, MORE... (4/28/20)
    The clamor grows for including state-legal marijuana businesses in
    coronavirus pandemic in federal economic relief packages, Arkansas
    medical marijuana patients are heading to Oklahoma for cheaper prices
    and easier access, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/apr/28/us_virgin_islands_governor_urges

    8. CORONAVIRUS DOESN'T HALT COLOMBIA COCA OFFENSIVE, MT COURT HEARS
    PLEAS FOR ELECTRONIC SIGNATURE-GATHERING, MORE... (4/29/20)
    Whether Montana marijuana legalization campaigns can use electronic signature-gathering is now in the hands of a state judge, an Indiana
    judge orders the return of a Land Rover whose case changed federal asset forfeiture law, Colombia's campaign against coca continues despite the pandemic, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2020/apr/29/coronavirus_doesnt_halt_colombia

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    With Psychedelic Legalization on the Horizon, How Should We Get There
    from Here? [FEATURE]

    by psmith, April 30, 2020, 12:48pm, (Issue #1095)
    Posted in:

    2020 Business Decriminalization Decriminalization Marijuana --
    Personal Use Marijuana Legalization Medical Marijuana News Feature
    Psilocybin / Magic Mushrooms Psychedelics

    At this point, it's almost a commonplace to say that a psychedelic
    renaissance is underway. Microdosing has been a thing for years now,
    scientists around the world are reporting exciting spiritual and
    therapeutic research results, and venture capitalists are beginning to
    edge their way into what they hope is the next lucrative drug commodity
    market.

    magic mushrooms (Creative Commons)
    But also bubbling up is a social and political movement to free
    psychedelics (and their users) from the fetters of drug prohibition.
    Beginning with Denver, a handful of cities across the country have
    passed what are in effect municipal decriminalization ordinances, with
    the Decriminalize Nature campaign promoting similar efforts in dozens more.

    This year, Oregon and the District of Columbia have psychedelic reform initiatives still in the signature-gathering phase. While hobbled by the
    impact of the coronavirus pandemic, both could still make the ballot
    this year. (A similar campaign in California recently bit the dust,
    citing said pandemic.)

    The late April Psychedelic Liberty Summit sponsored by the Chacruna
    Institute for Plant Medicines, was yet another manifestation of the
    rising interest in psychedelics. "We provide public education and
    cultural understanding about psychedelic plant medicines and promote a
    bridge between the ceremonial use of sacred plants and psychedelic
    science," the institute says in its mission statement. It envisions "a
    world where plant medicines and other psychedelics are preserved,
    protected, and valued as part of our cultural identity and integrated
    into our social, legal and health care systems."

    Originally set for San Francisco, the two-day series of wide-ranging
    panels and presentations instead went virtual in the face of pandemic
    social distancing requirements. "Attendees" viewed remotely as panelists covered topics ranging from "Sacred Peyote Conservation" to "Psychedelic Medicalization: Unpacking the Landscape of Drug Development and Commercialization" to " How Can We Ensure Respectful, Safe, Ethical,
    Inclusive and Sustainable Sourcing for Psychedelic Plants and
    Materials?" and beyond.

    Numerous panels were devoted to advancing the cause of ending
    psychedelic prohibition, and weighing heavily on those involved were
    questions about just how to proceed. Should reform initiatives target a
    single psychedelic, as the Oregon therapeutic psilocybin initiative
    does, should they target all psychedelics or only natural ones (sorry
    LSD and MDMA), or should the target be broader drug decriminalization?

    Similarly, what role should private investment capital play? Are there
    lessons to be learned from the commodification of cannabis under
    state-level legalization? And just how should legal or decriminalized psychedelics be made available to the public? Attempts to answer these questions were a central theme of the summit, and what was clear was
    that although reform thinkers share a common general goal, there's a
    breadth of opinion about the details.

    For Dale Gieringer, long-time head of California NORML and one of the
    authors of the groundbreaking 1996 Prop 215 campaign that legalized
    medical marijuana in the state with bare-bones language, psychedelics
    are a different ball game.

    "I don't think marijuana and psychedelics should be legalized on the
    same model," said Gieringer. "Marijuana is pretty safe even for novices,
    but psychedelics need to be treated with more respect. This is not
    something that should just be sold over the counter to adults from the
    very get go; first time users should be informed of certain cautions,
    and we need a new paradigm for distributing psychedelics, maybe
    something more like drug user clubs, with nonprofit organizations -- not commercial operations -- in charge of manufacturing, distributing, and educating users on the use of psychedelic drugs, as well as being
    responsible for any harmful effects of the drugs."

    Gieringer pointed back to Prop 215 and the reefer revolution it
    unleashed as he urged initiative campaigns to keep it simple.

    "I advise the movement to be cautious about overprescribing elaborate regulatory regimes. We didn't do that with marijuana; we just had a set
    of principles that people shouldn't be arrested for using or cultivating
    for personal use. We did that deliberately; we knew it was going to be
    very complicated in a federal system and we left it to government to
    fill in the details," he said.

    "Prop 215 was a very short initiative," Gieringer reminded. "The Oregon initiative has 71 pages and you still can't have psilocybin mushrooms in
    your house or use them outside one of these organizations that gets set
    up under the initiative."

    That's the wrong approach, he suggested: "We should go back to a broad initiative that embraces the notion that people should be able to use psychedelics for spiritual, medical, and personal illumination in
    general, and leave it to the state and federal government to fill in the details."

    And not just do it one hallucinogen at a time.

    "We ought to approach this more broadly and not just do one drug at a
    time," he argued. "If we do psilocybin, what about peyote? What about ayahuasca? What about everything else? I favor a broader approach making psychedelics available to people want them on a private use basis. Let's
    think globally and act locally and wait for our eggs to hatch here.
    Let's go for simple initiatives that give people direct access to psychedelics."

    Any such movement for psychedelic legalization or decriminalization --
    as opposed to broader drug legalization or decriminalization -- will
    need to be self-generating and self-supporting, argued Sean McAllister,
    a Denver-based attorney who was chairman of the board for Sensible
    Colorado when that group led the nation's first successful marijuana legalization initiative in 2012 and a consultant for Decriminalize
    Denver, the group behind the city's 2019 psilocybin initiative.

    "Unlike cannabis, psilocybin has only been used by an estimated two to
    five percent of the population, and only one tenth of one percent are
    current psychedelic users," he noted. "That's a much smaller pool, and
    any drug reform initiative requires the support of those who do not use.
    We're asking the majority to protect our rights, so we have to convince
    the majority our movement makes sense and won't endanger the public
    safety or health."

    By including reporting requirements for psilocybin-related law
    enforcement encounters and other public safety and public health impacts
    via the mayor's psilocybin review panel, on which McAllister sits, the
    Denver initiative was helping lay the educational groundwork for doing
    that convincing, he argued.

    "We'll write a report at the end of the year assessing the impacts of
    the initiative, but really nothing has changed," McAllister reported.
    "Law enforcement was concerned people would be dealing psilocybin on the streets and getting high on the streets, but our community is pretty self-regulating. There's been no explosion or public health or public
    safety problems. We hope that our report will be of great value to other
    cities looking to decriminalize psilocybin and to the movement as we
    attempt to change laws across the country."

    But that movement won't be able to count on the largesse of traditional
    drug reform funders, McAllister warned, noting that statewide initiative campaigns cost millions of dollars.

    "There is just not that much interest in psychedelics only," he said.
    "The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) believes in legalizing all drugs; it
    doesn't believe in drug exceptionalism. The Multidisciplinary
    Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is primarily focused on MDMA
    and PTSD. We don't have tens or hundreds of thousands of people in
    prison, so we don't have the same social justice issues around
    psychedelics. The ACLU isn't going to lead our movement. We have to step
    up and build our own organizations and come together as a movement."

    "There are a lot of benefits to decriminalizing psychedelics that we
    need to study further, and it's fascinating to see all these movements
    for decriminalization popping up around the country, but at the same
    time I'm ambivalent about it because there's also simultaneously a
    movement to just decriminalize all drugs," said Jag Davies, who has long
    stints as a communications specialist for the DPA and MAPS under his belt.

    "And I don't think drug decriminalization is as big a deal and as
    revolutionary as it's made out to be," Davies continued. "Right now, we
    have a national poll showing 55 percent support for decriminalizing all
    drugs."

    Even though the argument that "marijuana is safer" was used to great
    benefit in the Colorado marijuana legalization campaign, Davies warned
    of its hazards.

    "One of the mistakes made with marijuana reform messaging is framing it
    as a safe or safer drug," he argued. "All drugs are the same in that criminalization isn't an effective policy and is counterproductive to
    public health, but at the same time there will be some difference in how
    we think about policies. We need to think about who is benefitting and
    who is left behind. The benefits of decriminalizing more dangerous drugs
    are much greater," he added, pointing out that the other Oregon
    initiative would do just that.

    In any case, psychedelic warriors should be part of a greater effort,
    Davies said.

    "Drug decriminalization is perhaps a more effective strategy to reduce
    the harm in the long term," he said. "Even if you're a psychedelic exceptionalist, it's beneficial to join forces with the broader drug
    reform movement and the criminal justice movements and get the buy-in
    from those communities before you make your move."

    David Bronner, the Cosmic Engagement Officer (CEO) of Dr. Bronner's
    natural soaps, straddles both worlds. He has long supported broad drug
    reform efforts and this year is putting a million dollars into the
    Oregon therapeutic psilocybin initiative.

    "Having a well-structured therapeutic model makes it accessible to the
    average person who is not familiar with psychedelics," Bronner said.
    "The Oregon model is very much about accessing therapy and likewise
    making sure there is only minimal taxation -- enough to cover the cost
    of the program -- but keeping it limited in size and scope, so you can
    make a good livelihood but not have a hundred chain clinics."

    "These are preventative measures so we don't see what happened with
    cannabis and with there being some kind of controls," he added. "The
    polling says people aren't familiar with mushrooms and want to see
    strict controls on access, that it can't be accessed outside the
    therapeutic model."

    What Bronner was alluding to -- the undesirability of turning something ineffable like marijuana or psychedelics into just another capitalist
    commodity -- Steve DeAngelo addressed head on. And he's particularly well-positioned to: A long-time marijuana movement activist, he founded
    one of the first dispensaries in the nation, Harborside in Oakland, but
    also the Arcview Group, the first dedicated marijuana investment
    network, creating a Faustian bargain with profit-seeking capital.

    "With Arcview, we hit on the energy of free enterprise to power the
    social change we wanted, and a lot of the progress we made is because we
    did invite the investor class in, but it came at a cost, a significant
    cost," he said. "Prior to Arcview inviting the investor class in, the
    movement was driven by people who loved cannabis, but we attracted a lot
    of people whose motivation was not love of cannabis but love of making
    money."

    "I expected the energy to come but was a little taken aback at the
    urgency and ferocity of it," DeAngelo continued. "Cannabis lovers took investment money and then ceded control to investors. I saw a lot of
    people who had spent their lives representing the plant start to lose
    power, their livelihoods, and their influence over how to explain
    cannabis to the rest of the world. I fear we could see a lot of the same
    thing with psychedelics. If that happens, the way these substances are
    taught to the world is going to change. We could see a model for
    psychedelics more geared to return for investors than toward a
    meaningful experience for an individual or for positive social change."

    "Psychedelics have always been part of my path and one lesson I learned
    is that intention drives result," DeAngelo said. The consciousness with
    which we approach something will have a profound influence on what
    happens. On a psychic level, on a cosmic level, a different vibration is created when psychedelics are evangelized for the aim of making more
    money than with a motive of love and sharing and bringing about social
    change. I'm much more comfortable with a message from people who love psychedelics than people who love money."

    And so it goes as the nascent psychedelic liberation movement emerges.
    There is great debate over tactics and strategies, but a commonality of
    purpose linked to human liberation and social justice. The path forward
    is uncertain, but it is one we will make as we walk it.


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