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A Washington, D.C.-based psychedelics organization has issued about $50,000 in its first round of grants for various community groups to support efforts to educate and organize people around plant medicine.<\/p>\n
The Plant Medicine Coalition (PMC)\u2014founded by the head of the D.C. campaign<\/a> that got psychedelics decriminalization passed locally<\/a> in last November\u2019s election\u2014dolled out grants to about a dozen groups as part of its Community Grants Program. Funding for the grants was provided by Dr. Bronner\u2019s, a wellness company that\u2019s been involved in a number of marijuana and psychedelics reform efforts across the country.<\/p>\n This is just one part of PMC\u2019s mission to promote psychedelics reform as the movement continues to spread at the local, state and federal levels.<\/p>\n Arts collectives, mental health organizations and entheogenic education groups are among the new grant recipients.<\/p>\n Melissa Lavasani,\u00a0PMC<\/a> co-founder, told Marijuana Moment that the organization is hopeful about the impact of these grants\u2014but it\u2019s also using this opportunity to explore how to most effectively provide funding in the years to come.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to do something really impactful that had a quick turnaround,\u201d Lavasani said. \u201cThere are a lot of things that our organization is working on right now that are really long term, especially on the federal level.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to shift a really entrenched culture and government,\u201d she added. \u201cIt just takes a lot of grinding\u2014meeting after meeting\u2014and I wanted to do something important with these funds here locally because I do feel like there were a lot of loose ends\u201d after D.C. decriminalized psychedelics.<\/p>\n Overall, the money from PMC will support a diversity of initiatives. There will be workshops on community building within the psychedelics movement, courses on cultivating entheogenic substances, lecture series on scientific developments related to the substances and more.<\/p>\n Here are some quotes from recipients on what they aim to do with the funding<\/a>:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The Madison House:<\/strong> \u201cFounded by Master Life Coach H. Alejaibra Badu, The Madison House is a International Spiritual Health & Wellness Movement that stands to heal people from things that bind them mentally and emotionally. Finding freedom from the self-inflicted prison of the mind when it\u2019s over consumed by thought. Freeing yourself from the voice inside your mind that promotes fear, self-doubt, low self-esteem, anxiety, stress, anger, and pain. Freeing yourself from the perceptions of others that leave you in bondage. Freeing your whole self and authentic being. The Madison House belief is that if you are able to be freed from the things that bind you mentally and emotionally, then you can live your life on purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n Delicious Mushroom Growing:<\/strong> \u201cDelicious Mushroom Growing is a project that educates DC residents about how to grow mushrooms from manure and compost substrates \u2013 Oyster, Cremini\/Portabello\/Button\/Agaricus, and Shaggy Mane. It\u2019s a way to teach people about how to grow fungi medicine and get themselves on a the path towards healing.\u201d<\/p>\n Plant Medicine Lecture Series:<\/strong> \u201cThis lecture series will bring exciting speakers to D.C. to discuss the scientific, medical, and social aspects of psychedelics. The lectures will be offered in public venues, COVID permitting, and webcast as well. The events will also be excellent opportunities to meet other people in D.C. who are interested in psychedelics.\u201d<\/p>\n There are additional recipients who requested not to be publicly listed but are providing \u201ccritical education of the community, integration services, as well as providing stewardship of ethical plant medicine community building,\u201d Lavasani said.<\/p>\n Others are involved in \u201caddressing abuse and predatory behaviors in plant medicine circles (a problem that\u2019s become super prevalent lately) to provide a restorative process for healing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n While based in D.C., PMC is a national organization that hopes to build upon reform efforts that have already been accomplished and bring the issue to Capitol Hill, in part by pushing lawmakers to approve federal funding for research into the therapeutic potential of substances like psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca.<\/p>\n The group is also working to ensure the effective implementation of the city-level policy change while supporting other local activists as they push to change laws governing natural or synthetic psychedelics.<\/p>\n Both inside and outside of the nation\u2019s capitol, activists are hard at work pushing for psychedelics reform.<\/p>\n Just last week, for example, lawmakers in a fourth Massachusetts city voted in favor of a resolution\u00a0urging the decriminalization of certain entheogenic substances and other drugs<\/a>.<\/p>\n The action comes months after the neighboring Northampton City Council passed a resolution<\/a>\u00a0stipulating that no government or police funds should be used to enforce laws criminalizing people for using or possessing entheogenic plants and fungi. Elsewhere in Massachusetts,\u00a0Somerville<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Cambridge<\/a>\u00a0have also moved to effectively decriminalize psychedelics.<\/p>\n The local measures also express support for two bills introduced in the Massachusetts state legislature<\/a>\u00a0this year. One would remove criminal penalties for possession of all currently illicit drugs and the other would establish a task force to study entheogenic substances with the eventual goal of legalizing and regulating the them.<\/p>\n Separately, Seattle\u2019s City Council approved a resolution earlier this month to decriminalize noncommercial activity around a wide range of psychedelic substances<\/a>, including the cultivation and sharing of psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, ibogaine and non-peyote-derived mescaline.<\/p>\n In Michigan, the Grand Rapids City Council approved a resolution last month\u00a0calling for decriminalization of a wide range of psychedelics<\/a>.<\/p>\n Elsewhere in Michigan, the Ann Arbor City Council has already elected to make enforcement of laws prohibition psychedelics like psilocybin, ayahuasca and DMT\u00a0among the city\u2019s lowest priorities<\/a>\u2014and lawmakers recently followed up by declaring September\u00a0Entheogenic Plants and Fungi Awareness Month<\/a>.<\/p>\n After Ann Arbor legislators passed that decriminalization resolution last year, the Washtenaw County prosecutor announced\u00a0that his office will not be pursuing charges<\/a>\u00a0over possessing entheogenic plants and fungi, \u201cregardless of the amount at issue.\u201d<\/p>\n A local proposal to decriminalize various psychedelics\u00a0will also appear on Detroit\u2019s November ballot<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the same time that local activists are pursuing decriminalization, a pair of Michigan senators introduced a bill last month to\u00a0legalize the possession, cultivation and delivery<\/a>\u00a0of an array of plant- and fungi-derived psychedelics like psilocybin and mescaline.<\/p>\n \u2014 A bill to legalize psychedelics in California advanced through the Senate and two Assembly committees this year before being pulled by the sponsor to\u00a0buy more time to generate support among lawmakers<\/a>. The plan is to take up the reform during next year\u2019s second half of the legislative session, and the senator behind the measure\u00a0says he\u2019s confident it will pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n California activists were separately cleared to begin collecting signatures for a\u00a0historic initiative to legalize psilocybin mushrooms<\/a>\u00a0in the state.\u00a0Oakland<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Santa Cruz<\/a>\u00a0have already enacted psychedelics decriminalization.<\/p>\n The top Democrat in the Florida Senate filed a bill last month that would require the state to\u00a0research the medical benefits of psychedelics<\/a>\u00a0such as psilocybin and MDMA.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Texas enacted a law directing state officials to\u00a0study psychedelics\u2019 medical value<\/a>.<\/p>\n The governor of Connecticut signed a bill in June that includes language requiring the state to carry out\u00a0a study into the therapeutic potential of psilocybin mushrooms<\/a>.<\/p>\n Oregon voters passed a pair of initiatives last November to\u00a0legalize psilocybin therapy<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0decriminalize possession of all drugs<\/a>. On the local level, activists in\u00a0Portland are mounting\u00a0a push to have local lawmakers pass a resolution<\/a>\u00a0decriminalizing the cultivation, gifting and ceremonial use of a wide range of psychedelics.<\/p>\n A New York lawmaker introduced a bill in June that would require the state to establish an institute to similarly\u00a0research the medical value of psychedelics<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Maine House of Representatives\u00a0passed a drug decriminalization bill<\/a>\u00a0this year, but it later\u00a0died in the Senate<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Oakland, the first city where a city council voted to broadly deprioritize criminalization of entheogenic substances, lawmakers\u00a0approved a follow-up resolution<\/a>\u00a0in December that calls for the policy change to be adopted statewide and for local jurisdictions to be allowed to permit healing ceremonies where people could use psychedelics. Activists in the city are also hoping to expand upon the local decriminalization ordinance by creating a community-based model through which\u00a0people could legally purchase entheogenic substances<\/a>\u00a0from local producers.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Denver activists who successfully led the 2019 campaign to make the city\u00a0the first in the U.S. to decriminalize psilocybin possession<\/a>\u00a0have\u00a0set their eyes on broader reform<\/a>, with plans in the works to end the criminalization of noncommercial gifting and communal use of the psychedelic.<\/p>\n In a setback for advocates, the U.S. House of Representatives recently voted against a proposal from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) that\u00a0would have removed a spending bill rider<\/a>\u00a0that advocates say has restricted federal funds for research into Schedule I drugs, including psychedelics such as psilocybin, MDMA and ibogaine. However, it picked up considerably more votes this round than\u00a0when the congresswoman first introduced it<\/a>\u00a0in 2019.<\/p>\n Report provisions of separate, House-passed spending legislation also touch on the need to\u00a0expand cannabis and psychedelics research<\/a>. The panel urged NIDA to support expanded marijuana studies, for example. It further says that federal health agencies should\u00a0pursue research into the therapeutic potential of psychedelics<\/a>\u00a0for military veterans suffering from a host of mental health conditions.<\/p>\n There was an attempt by a Republican congressman to attach language into a defense spending bill that would promote research into psychedelics therapy for active duty military members,\u00a0but it was not made in order<\/a>\u00a0in the House Rules Committee last month.<\/p>\n NIDA also recently announced it\u2019s funding a study into\u00a0whether psilocybin can help people quit smoking cigarettes<\/a>.<\/p>\n An official with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also said at a recent congressional hearing that the agency is \u201cvery closely\u201d following research into the\u00a0potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelics<\/a>\u00a0like MDMA for military veterans.<\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), a longstanding champion of marijuana reform in Congress, said this month that he intends to\u00a0help bring the psychedelics reform movement to Capitol Hill<\/a>\u00a0\u201cthis year.\u201d<\/p>\n In May, lawmakers in Congress filed the\u00a0first-ever legislation to federally decriminalize possession<\/a>\u00a0of illicit substances.<\/p>\n Top Federal Drug Agency Tells Congress About Marijuana Research Barriers Caused By Restrictive Scheduling<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo elements courtesy of carlosemmaskype<\/a> and Apollo<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Psychedelics Group Issues First Round Of Grants For Community-Based Entheogenic Education In DC<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A Washington, D.C.-based psychedelics organization has issued about $50,000 in its first round of grants for various community groups to support efforts to educate and organize people around plant medicine. The Plant Medicine Coalition (PMC)\u2014founded by the head of the D.C. campaign that got psychedelics decriminalization passed locally in lastContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":50721,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50720"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50722,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50720\/revisions\/50722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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