Berkeley, California officials have advanced a proposal to decriminalize certain psychedelics\u2014including synthetics like LSD, rather than focusing more narrowly on entheogenic \u201cnatural\u201d plants and fungi as has been the case with similar measures approved in other cities.<\/p>\n
The Berkeley Community Health Commission voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve the resolution, though some advocates oppose particular provisions.<\/p>\n
The measure, which is uniquely inclusive of LSD while excluding peyote and ibogaine from the list of covered substances, will next go before the City Council for consideration.<\/p>\n
At Tuesday\u2019s meeting, Commissioners made some changes to the proposal before passing it\u2014which built on a fundamental reshaping of the legislation from its as-introduced form in 2019\u2014but the latest changes have not yet been published.<\/p>\n
One of the major contentions from advocates who pushed for the introduced version concerns the commission\u2019s omission of provisions that would have deprioritized enforcement against gifting and sharing of the psychedelics among adults from the revised measure.<\/p>\n
City officials said in an attached report that the decision to leave those components out was related to concerns about inadvertently creating an environment for an illicit, gray market, which the commissioners said has occurred in neighboring Oakland after that city decriminalized psychedelics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn these gray markets, we see enterprising entrepreneurs opening commercial operations such as delivery services (advertised with fliers and posters), storefront dispensaries, pop-ups, and outdoor market booths, sometimes asking for \u2018suggested donations,\u2019 and sometimes not bothering at all with the pretense that they are merely \u2018giving away\u2019 the substances,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n
The resolution as it came before the commission calls on the local government to deprioritize \u201cthe enforcement of laws that impose criminal penalties for the possession of psychedelic drugs for personal use (with the exception of Peyote), and laws that impose criminal penalties for the cultivation, processing, and preparation of psychedelic-containing plants and fungi for personal use (with the exception of Peyote).\u201d<\/p>\n
It also says that Berkeley should work with external partners to \u201cprovide psychedelic harm reduction, education, and support resources to the Berkeley Community.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Berkeley City Council committee advanced psychedelics decriminalization in 2019<\/a>, sending it to the health-focused commission. But while that measure was initially drafted by the Oakland-based Decriminalize Nature, the organization has since voiced opposition to the commission-revised proposal.<\/p>\n\n