Californians have until Monday, April 15, to submit comments on a ballot measure which would grant statewide access to psychedelics and their use for therapeutic, spiritual and medical purposes. A doctor must recommend the use of these substances. Adults would be allowed to use and possess the substances at home, as well as grow entheogenic fungi and plants on their private property if this measure is passed.
Organizers have submitted the Psychedelic Wellness and Healing Initiative of 2020 to state officials in late November and they now have until the 27th of November to seek public comments to the attorney general of the state, according to Dave Hodges. He is a campaign organizer and founder of Church of Ambrosia in Oakland. He told Marijuana Moment that he had five days to complete his final update. “That’s December 1.”
The campaign has already made several modifications to the proposal that was initially submitted. Since the measure was filed, there have been two rounds of revisions. Hodges stated that the changes were “mainly technical.”
He said that his biggest concern was to make sure that adult cannabis use is not affected. Future entheogenic businesses approved under the proposal could still provide medical marijuana.
Hodges said that cannabis is listed as a hallucinogen under California law. This means that it would be affected if the change was made. Our initiative will allow medical entheogenic companies to provide medical marijuana, which we hope will help create the medical cannabis market and take medical cannabis away from the blackmarket.
One of the changes says that the Department of Public Health of the state “shall maintain” a list of all entheogenic substances and plants “where medical research, studies, and clinical trials have demonstrated a potential medical or therapeutic use.” A second specifies minors can only be prescribed entheogenic substances or plants for the treatment of “severe or life-threatening conditions.”
A second addition is the creation of “M-licenses”, under the state Business and Professions Code. All entheogenic business would need M-licenses to be able to engage in commercial activities around medical cannabis and psychedelic marijuana.
Tax section of the proposal has been changed to remove an exemption for psychedelics used spiritually. The current version specifies, however, that a local tax of up 10 percent can be applied if voters approve the purchase of psychedelics for “medical or therapeutic use”. The bill is silent on taxes for substances used to serve spiritual purposes.
A second change eliminates the direct exemption for entheogenic substances from laboratory testing if they are used solely for spiritual or non-commercial purposes.
Changes to criminal justice clarify that those convicted of activities that are not illegal now but will be after the changes in law “will be granted a recall of sentence or dismissal” within 180 calendar days of filing a request.
In a release from Tuesday, the campaign stated that the latest version of the initiative “emphasizes the safety of psychedelics and will allow doctors and mental healthcare specialists to recommend them to relieve the debilitating effects of a variety of conditions including depression, anxiety and addiction.
Hodges stated in a statement included in the article that “now is the time to provide safe, controlled access to medical care for patients who are in need.” “The only way to solve this problem is to stop ignoring it.”
Comparing the current California law on cannabis businesses, commercial psychedelics would have a relatively lax oversight. According to the proposal, psychedelics will be “regulated as closely as possible with non-psychoactive agriculturally grown products.”
These are the proposed changes to the Psychedelic Wellness and Healing initiative
- The simple use and possession at home of psychedelics would be legalized. This change would be applicable to all “hallucinogenic drugs” identified by California law. These include DMT, LSD mescaline psilocybin psilocyn MDMA.
- Adults can possess as much entheogenic substance for their own personal use in a year.
- The cultivation of psychedelic fungi and plants on private property would be legal, provided that it is done in private and without the public’s view. The proposal also limits the ability of state and local authorities to prohibit cultivation by using nuisance laws or “impracticable regulations”.
- Starting January 1, 2025 any entheogenic company can begin to cultivate, manufacture, or distribute psychedelics if it is located on land zoned commercial agriculture and has been approved by the California Department of Food and Agriculture as a food production site.
- Starting April 19, 2025 any California-based business with a state seller permit, which is required for most retail businesses, can begin selling psychedelics to patients who are qualified or their designated caregivers.
- The proposal states that “this Article shall not prevent any church or spiritual organization or indigenous group from using entheogenic substances or plants as a sacrament for their own religious or Spiritual practice.” No definitions are provided.
- If local voters approve, a municipal sales tax of up 10 percent can be applied to products containing psychedelics that are sold for medical and therapeutic purposes.
- The sale or use or endangered species or parts thereof will not be permitted “unless the producer is able to demonstrate that the species was produced in a sustainable manner and not harvested from the wild”, and it does not adversely affect the species’ natural habitat.
- Doctors could prescribe psychedelics to treat any “physical or psychological illness” that the substance can relieve. Specific conditions include: PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), depression, anxiety disorders, addictions, suicidality and spiritual development.
- No healthcare professional would be “punished or denied any rights or privileges for having recommended entheogenic substances or plants.”
- The Department of Public Health of the state could issue regulations to implement state frameworks, but “the rulemaking procedure shall not unreasonable delay implementation.”
- Businesses will be regulated as closely as possible to agriculturally produced non-psychoactive products, with the exception that warning labels in English or Spanish would be required for psychedelic packaging.
- The state must allow psychedelic research, such as allowing health care practitioners to prescribe and use psychedelics as well as use them themselves.
- Doctors can prescribe psychedelics for minors with “specific and appropriate” conditions that are “severe or life-threatening”. This is only possible with the consent from a parent, guardian, and the primary care doctor of the minor.
- The Department of Consumer Affairs and the Health and Human Services Agency of the state would have to adopt and implement qualification requirements for psychedelic assisted therapy “created” by an independent professional certification body.
- Voters could approve a municipal ban on psychedelics, or a limit to the number of businesses that can sell them. However, they cannot prohibit the activities of individuals or groups.
- According to the new law, the “simple presence” (or mere existence) of psychedelics could not be used as a basis for determining the risk of harm to children under state law. Nor could it be used in order to reduce parental rights or to justify the removal of the child from their home.
- Minors who engage in psychedelic activities without parental consent could face penalties. However, “the maximum punishment for such an offense shall not exceed a mandatory education program on drugs, and no conviction will remain on the record of a juvenile.”
- Adults who give entheogens (or other drugs) to a minor that is not a patient are guilty of misdemeanors and can be fined up to $3,000 or $1,500 on the first offense.
- A court would have to recall or dismiss the sentence of a person serving a criminal sentence for conduct that would fall under a lesser crime under the initiative. No hearing would be required. Records of certain convictions can be sealed after a person has completed their sentence.
The Attorney General’s Office is taking public comment on the draft measure until Monday.
Hodges said that the campaign was accelerated after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) vetoed SB 58 in early October, a bill that would have legalized psychedelics. In his veto, Governor Newsom said that he wanted to see the legislature send him a bill next year setting guidelines for regulated access to therapeutic psychedelics. He also asked the legislator to consider a potential framework for future decriminalization.
In a statement earlier this month, Scott Wiener, a D senator who backed the measure, said he would file a revised bill next year with Assemblymember Marie Waldron, a former leader of the GOP’s minority caucus. The new bill will be focused on regulated therapeutic accessibility. Wiener stated that the measure would be tailored to Newsom’s message of veto.
Separate ballot proposals would also legalize adult-use psilocybin. The state has approved the collection of signatures for this measure, which is backed by Decriminalize California. The reform has been on the ballot twice before, but the efforts have failed due to the difficulties in collecting signatures during the pandemic.
The organizers behind the third proposed California ballot initiative on psychedelics, which would create a 5 billion state agency charged with funding and promoting scientific research into substances such as psilocybin and MDMA withdrew it earlier this month, after a poll showed that voters did not support it.
Hodges told Marijuana Moment that he does not oppose any of the other proposals but he believes his Psychedelic Well-Being and Healing Initiative will best ensure access to Californians.
Hodges anticipates that signature collection will begin in December, after the changes have been finalized, and the official title and summary of ballots are released. He told Marijuana Moment in April that the campaign would need to collect 546,651 valid California voter signatures by the end of the year.
He said that if we missed the April 23 deadline but still gathered enough signatures within the 180 day window allowed by the state, then we would end up on the ballot in 2026.
Hodges expressed confidence when asked about the high costs of gathering signatures in California. Hodges said that he expected members of the Church of Ambrosia, a nondenominational interfaith organization which supports the safe use of psychedelics and their access to them, to support the reform financially.
He said, “We are confident that we can do it.” We have 100,000 church members who want to make these things happen. “It’s only a question of giving them a place to
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Image by Kristie Gianpulos
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