Another psychedelic renaissance is well underway. Fueled by science and medicine, traditional healing practices, plant-teachers and psychonauts, and our increasing awareness of the spiritual and desire for personal growth. Scientists and doctors at NYU, Yale, Harvard, John Hopkins, and other institutes around the world are conducting research and clinical trials and are publishing peer-reviewed articles on psychedelics. Psilocybin and other psychedelics are showing promising results for various conditions like therapy-resistant depression, PTSD, anxiety, end of life distress, and substance abuse disorders related to alcohol, opioid and tobacco, among others. Twice in 2019, the FDA granted “breakthrough therapy designation” to speed up the research and approval of psilocybin therapies to treat major depressive disorder (“MDD”).

Many of these psychedelics are on the Federal Controlled Substances list as Schedule I (psilocybin, LSD, MDMA). Some, like ketamine, are Schedule III. Meanwhile, an increasing number of countries world-wide are decriminalizing and/or regulating various psychedelics through different legal regimes (Canada, Netherlands, Jamaica, Austria, Costa Rica, Portugal, Brazil, among others). Right now, California and Oregon groups are gathering signatures for psilocybin decriminalization and regulation initiatives to qualify for the November 2020 ballot and, last year, a GOP lawmaker in Iowa introduced measures for psychedelics to make them more accessible for medical purposes. Oakland, Santa Cruz, and Denver have deprioritized certain psychedelics and Oakland and Denver are looking closely at what regulation might look like.

This is the first, in a series of Green Frontier Bulletins, discussing these emerging medicines and law. We’ll start with California’s Decriminalization Initiative. Plus, today is the deadline for signature gathering, so let’s look at what’s inside the proposed initiative.