A separate bill to legalize the use of psilocybin in Massachusetts has been advanced by a Massachusetts committee. The bill would establish a framework for licensing facilitators that would oversee medical, therapeutic, and spiritual uses of the drug.
H.3605, a measure from Rep. Nicholas A. Boldyga(R), requires the state Department of Public Health establish a licensing system for facilitators and independent training schools to train them. The state Department of Public Health would have to establish a licensing process for both facilitators and “independent training schools” to instruct them.
The Joint Committee on Public Health of the legislature voted Wednesday to approve the bill.
The facilitators would also have to be at least 21 years old, Massachusetts residents, graduates of high school, and not guilty of any felonies in the five years preceding their application for a license. The proposal would allow them to possess up five grams of the psilocybin. This weight does not include “water or fungi materials that are part of the Psilocybin.”
The bill states that participants 18 years and older “may utilize psilocybin in facilitated sessions by a properly-licensed psilocybin facilitate for therapeutic, religious, or medicinal purposes.”
The health regulators will make additional rules and regulations regarding licensure.
Facilitators will be required to pay a licensing fee of $155 every two years. This is significantly lower than the licensing fees in Oregon, which was the first U.S. State to legalize the facilitated psilocybin service.
The licensing process will follow the same rules as those that govern licensed counselors in the state. The bill waives fees for EMTs and paramedics as well as veterans who have received an honorable discharge.
This bill is both good for policy and good politics #massachusetts #psychedelic
Bay Staters for Natural Medicine 8 February 2024
In April , regulators in Oregon granted the first license to a psychedelic facilitator licensed by a state. The Massachusetts bill is designed to address complaints that services can be expensive.
This measure is one of the three reforms of psychedelics proposed by Boldyga last year. These included others to reschedule MDMA while federal approval was pending and set a cap on price for therapeutic access.
This development follows the adoption by local leaders of a resolution in the city Medford to reduce the priority of arrests for psychedelic plants, and to urge county prosecutors not to pursue cases involving possession, cultivation or the distribution of these substances.
Medford, Salem, Somerville and Cambridge are the eight Massachusetts cities to adopt this policy. Amherst, Provincetown, Northampton, Easthampton and Easthampton have also adopted it.
, the activist-backed initiative, now before state legislators, would, on the other hand, create a regulatory frame work for lawful, supervised access to psychoedelics in licensed facilities. The initiative would legalize possession and gifting psychedelics like ayahuasca and psilocybin, but not commercial retail sales.
The legislature can now choose to either enact the reform or propose a replacement, after activists have collected the initial batch of voter signatures. They also have the option of not acting at all. If lawmakers do not legalize psychedelics before May 1, activists will have until July 3, 2019 to collect at least 12,429 valid signatures in order to place the proposal on the ballot for November 2024.
Separately, Gov. Maura Shealy (D), last month, drew the attention of lawmakers to testimony surrounding a bill she introduced to create a psychedelics working group that would investigate the therapeutic potentials of substances like psilocybin.
A second bill would allow the Department of Public Health (DPH) to conduct an extensive study on the therapeutic potential of synthetic psychedelics such as MDMA.
Rep. Mike Connolly, (D), also filed a 2021 bill that was heard by the Joint Judiciary Committee in . The hearing focused on the implications of legalizing substances such as psilocybin or ayahuasca.
A new study finds that 8 out of 10 Canadians say psilocybin therapy is a’reasonable choice’ for end-of-life care
Photo courtesy Wikimedia/Mushroom Observer.
The first time Marijuana moment published the post Massachusetts Lawmakers Pass Psilocybin Law to Legalize for ‘Therapeutical, Spiritual and Medicinal Purposes.
