Seattle and Detroit Move Toward Decriminalizing Psychedelics

Though state laws in both places have not yet adapted, consumers of "entheogenic" plants and fungi are now less likely to be arrested and prosecuted in the two cities.

Two major cities, Seattle and Detroit, this fall approved measures aimed at protecting consumers of "entheogenic" plants and fungi from arrest and prosecution. Those new policies are part of a broader trend that began when Denver voters approved a groundbreaking 2019 ballot initiative making adult possession of psilocybin the city's lowest law enforcement priority and prohibiting the use of public money to pursue such cases.

A resolution that the Seattle City Council unanimously approved in October likewise urges police to leave psychedelic users alone, but its reach is broader than the Denver initiative's. It covers noncommercial "cultivation" and "sharing" as well as possession, and it applies to "any living, fresh, dried, or processed plant or fungal material, including teas or powders, that may contain currently scheduled or analog psychoactive indolamines, tryptamines, or phenethylamines, including, but not limited to, psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca tea, mescaline, and iboga."

Although Seattle's resolution endorses "full decriminalization" of "entheogen-related activities," it does not affect state penalties for producing, distributing, or possessing psychedelics. Under Washington law, psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and dimethyltryptamine are still classified as Schedule I drugs, meaning they are banned for all purposes. Low-level possession is a gross misdemeanor, which carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. A bill introduced in February 2021 would eliminate penalties for possessing "personal use amounts" of controlled substances, including psychedelics.

A ballot initiative that Detroit voters overwhelmingly approved in November made "personal possession and therapeutic use" of natural psychedelics by adults "the city's lowest law-enforcement priority." While the initiative purported to "decriminalize" those drugs "to the fullest extent permitted under Michigan law," low-level possession remains a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

A Michigan bill introduced in September 2021 would decriminalize possession and use of entheogenic substances, along with their noncommercial manufacture and delivery. The bill covers plants or fungi containing dimethyltryptamine, ibogaine, mescaline, psilocybin, and psilocin.

The year before Seattle and Detroit backed psychedelic tolerance, the city councils of Ann Arbor, Michigan; Oakland, California; and Santa Cruz, California, enacted similar measures. Also in 2020, Washington, D.C., voters approved quasi-decriminalization of entheogenic plants and fungi by a 50-point margin.

Oregon voters went further in November 2020 by passing a ballot initiative aimed at establishing state-licensed "psilocybin service centers" where adults can legally consume the drug under the supervision of a "facilitator" after completing a "preparation session." Another Oregon ballot initiative approved in the same election decriminalized low-level possession of all drugs, including psilocybin and other psychedelics.

Comments

[bvandyke]

Of course they are, hoping that the people will hallucinate and think they actually live in a better place than they do.

[Chumby]

Seattle and Detroit should just move.

[Pepin the short]

As a non resident of both areas I’ll allow it.

[Nemo Aequalis]

This would be more encouraging if I didn’t know the people behind these decriminalization movements are natural parasites, and sooner or later we’ll be getting a bill for the proceedings.

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[The_Edge]

The war on drugs was lost long ago. Time to treat drug & alcohol abuse as a medical problem, not criminal. (Portugal has a good track record in reducing drug abuse)

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Yes, that would be better than now, but all it really does is allow the government to define when use ends and abuse starts. And if they decide you are abusing, then it becomes criminal to not let the government treat your abuse.

[Roberta]

Such an orientation has potential to make things better, but also worse. The whole idea of drug “addiction” has been a major part of the propaganda for keeping them illegal. That’s why we’re getting progress like this on psychedelics: hardly anybody says they’re “addictive”, Meanwhile there’s no similar movement towards legal narcotics, cocaine, or amphetamine, and in recent time we’ve seen substantial regress on nicotine. The mere fact that people try and get to like these things qualifies them as “addictive”.

So, in the present instance, how would we get the powers that be to treat psychedelics “abuse” as a medical problem? How is the problem recognized, and what is to be done about it medically? Would it be like nicotine “abuse”, wherein Big Pharma would develop expensive “treatments” for it, no do-it-yourself or entrepreneurial types need apply?

There are other blunt-instrument or off-the-mark approaches we could try. We could just reduce law enforcement across the board, in the hope that the remaining priorities would be the ones most affecting public safety, rather than the state turning more to policing for profit. We could engender broad public revolt against establishment medicine in general, eschewing medicine and surgery for “alternative” and DIY treatments that might include drugs of “abuse”.

As fraught with traps as the above suggestions are, the alternative would be trying to get the world public to be more libertarian, and although we’ve made considerable progress on that in the past few centuries, that movement may have plateaued or even peaked already.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Two major cities, Seattle and Detroit, this fall approved measures aimed at protecting consumers of “entheogenic” plants and fungi from arrest and prosecution.

A few months ago I posted a link to a study showing that marijuana legalization has had zero effect on jail populations and prison sentences (which I predicted well over a decade ago).

Again, just so people don’t get confused, I am NOT saying that we shouldn’t be legalizing marijuana… or these psychedelics. Hell, I’m a FAN of psychedelics… But what I will say– especially about psychedelics is, ain’t no one getting “arrested” for shrooms.

*predictable rejoinder showing one case where someone was arrested for shrooms*

Any little exceptions you post don’t obliterate the rules. Yes, legalize, because psychedelics are fun and for the most part, harmless. And they sometimes have profoundly positive psychological effects. But if you think we’re going to empty the prisons because shrooms are legal, think again.

[Roberta]

What they’re not getting arrested for are the personal use amounts involved in the present legal changes. I have a friend who spent considerable prison time because he made a substantial business out of it. However, decriminalizing possession will indirectly help keep the big fish out of trouble, because the cops won’t have leverage to work up the chain.

[raspberrydinners]

This can’t be true. We know that Democrat led cities can’t do anything right.

[Pepin the short]

You can’t. Tell us when you’ve moved there to collect the bountiful results.

[RedvBlue]

What is wrong with Oregon? Who the hell wants to eat mescaline and hang out with a “facilitator”?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Oregon voters went further in November 2020 by passing a ballot initiative aimed at establishing state-licensed “psilocybin service centers” where adults can legally consume the drug under the supervision of a “facilitator” after completing a “preparation session.”

Leave it to these idiots to turn your LSD trip into a visit to the DMV.

[NOYB2]

Oregon has also decriminalized these drugs, so technically, they have gone further than other places.

Still, taking drugs at a government facility sounds pretty awful.

[Roberta]

But it sounds less awful than the government facility called jail.

[NOYB2]

I’m glad to see that SF and Detroit are addressing their most pressing problems. After all, both cities have a serious shortage of drug addicts and drug dealers that their governments need to address! /sarc

[Roberta]

Seems to me progress is faster with hallucinogens than it was with cannabis. This time we might not have to wait for a whole generation to die before we get another class of drugs legal. What might’ve helped is that that generation already died.

So what’s the over/under on when the first state allows recreational hallucinogens? I’ll set the initial line at 2033, and then 2 more states a year for the next 10.

[voluntaryist]

Crime is everybody’s concern. No one has a right to violate another’s rights, especially the state. Drug use is a right, an exercise of self ownership. That right gets violated by conflating drug use with crime. They are two separate events. If one follows another, e.g., a criminal wants mercy because of being drunk, the original fault began with the choice to use, knowing the risk. Therefore, the crime is still with that choice. To excuse a crime or fail to identify it as crime because the offender was temporarily in an altered state by choice, is irrational and unjust.

[NOYB2]

From a libertarian point of view, drug use doesn’t violate the NAP, so it should be legal. Simple as that.