California lawmakers on Thursday narrowly approved a bill supported by veterans and criminal justice reform advocates to decriminalize the possession and personal use of a limited list of natural psychedelics, including “magic mushrooms.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom will now decide the fate of Senate Bill 58, which would remove criminal penalties for the possession and use of psilocybin and psilocin, the active ingredients in psychedelic mushrooms, mescaline and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, known as ayahuasca. The bill also would require the California Health and Human Services Agency to study the therapeutic use of psychedelics and submit a report with its findings and recommendations to the Legislature.
You haven’t heard anti-drug people cite anecdotal stories as a reason to continue the war on drugs?
People who misuse or misunderstand a drug, take too much, or mix it with other substances are the D.A.R.E. crowd’s favorite thing to point as supporting evidence.
Example: Take a small dose of PCP or a simulant, it can be fine for someone knowing the risks and weighing them against their needs. Take too much of PCP (and be predisposed to violence) and you’ll end up doing crimes, or in the hospital for serotonin syndrome.
So let’s say violent Vince takes too much of a drug and ends up assaulting people on the street. He ends up in the news and we all get to hear forever about why PCP turns anyone who tries it into an invincible cannibal zombie.
Does that make more sense?
Note: I’m not arguing for the legality of PCP.