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The Massachusetts Senate has approved a bill focused focused on military veterans that includes provisions to create a psychedelics working group<\/a> to study and make recommendations about the potential therapeutic benefits of substances like psilocybin and MDMA.<\/p>\n About a month after the House approved its version of the legislation\u2014based on a proposal initially introduced by Gov. Maura Healey (D)\u2014the Senate unanimously approved an amended version of a separate House measure in a 38-0 vote on Thursday. The two chambers must now reconcile their respective bills before the final version potentially goes to the governor\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Honoring, Empowering and Recognizing Our Servicemembers and Veterans (HERO Act)<\/a> is a wide-ranging proposal focused on veterans, but it\u2019s cleared both chambers in different forms with the psychedelics policy reform provisions attached. The House version was also amended earlier to include a section that would create a pilot program to examine medical cannabis as an opioid alternative for veterans.<\/p>\n The psychedelics measure wouldn\u2019t immediately create a framework for legal access, but it would require the Executive Office of Veterans\u2019 Services (EOVS) to convene a working group to study \u201calternative therapies for mental health treatments for veterans\u201d and exploring \u201cwhether psychedelic therapy is associated with improved outcomes among veterans with diagnosed mental health disorders.\u201d<\/p>\n The panel would need to \u201cevaluate literature, research trials and expert opinions to determine in psychedelic therapy is associated with improved outcomes regarding mental health treatment for veterans.\u201d And it would be required to issue recommendations \u201cregarding the provision of psychedelic therapy to treat veterans with mental health disorders in Massachusetts.\u201d<\/p>\n The working group would need to file a report with findings and recommendations with the clerks of the House and Senate and two joint legislative committees no later than January 1, 2025.<\/p>\n While the different versions of the HERO Act that have moved through the legislature must be reconciled in a bicameral conference committee, the psychedelics provisions are nearly identical, with the minor exceptions such as specifications on who would serve on the working group and that the newly Senate-passed measure as amended discusses veteran mental health treatment \u201cin the commonwealth\u201d while the other references \u201cMassachusetts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cToday we reaffirmed our commitment here in Massachusetts to respect, empower, and support those who have sacrificed for our nation and returned home,\u201d Sen. Adam Gomez (D) said, WWLP reported<\/a>. \u201cBy increasing their health care and mental health benefits, promoting businesses to hire veterans, and expanding support services for active veterans and their families we start to make inroads on issues that have a direct impact on the lives of our service members, benefitting them and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe legislation passed by the Senate today makes comprehensive and critical additions to the HERO Act to ensure that we are not only supporting Massachusetts veterans but also our active-duty service members and their families as well,\u201d Sen. John Velis (D) said.<\/p>\n The passage of the HERO Act<\/a> comes after a Massachusetts joint legislative committee advised the legislature not to pass a broader psychedelics legalization initiative<\/a>. But activists are in the process of collecting additional signatures to put the reform before voters on the November ballot.<\/p>\n Lawmakers were required to consider the psychedelics measure, spearheaded by the campaign Massachusetts for Mental Health Options (MMHO), after the state certified advocates had submitted enough valid signatures in an initial petitioning round last year. The legislature had until May 1 to make a decision before the campaign was cleared to collect another 12,429 signatures by July 3 to secure ballot placement.<\/p>\n Last month, the Special Joint Committee on Ballot Initiatives issued a majority report that formally recommended against passing the measure as drafted.<\/p>\n \u2014 The campaign\u00a0first filed two different psychedelics reform initiatives in August<\/a>, and after the state attorney general determined that\u00a0they both met the constitutional requirement for ballot placement<\/a>\u00a0the following months, activists decided to pursue the version that included a home cultivation option.<\/p>\n Eight cities across Massachusetts have enacted policies to locally deprioritize enforcement of laws against psychedelics, an effort that has been led by BSNM:\u00a0Salem<\/a>,\u00a0Somerville<\/a>,\u00a0Cambridge<\/a>,\u00a0Easthampton<\/a>,\u00a0Northampton<\/a>,\u00a0Amherst,<\/a>\u00a0Provincetown<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Medford<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a different Massachusetts legislative committee advanced a bill in February that would\u00a0legalize psilocybin therapy in the Commonwealth and set up a framework to license facilitators<\/a>\u00a0who would supervise medical, therapeutic and spiritual applications of the drug.<\/p>\n Rep. Mike Connolly (D) also filed a bill in 2021\u00a0that received a Joint Judiciary Committee hearing<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0studying the implications of legalizing entheogenic substances like psilocybin and ayahuasca<\/a>.<\/p>\n People\u2019s Use Of Alcohol Or Opioids Causes Greater Secondhand Harms Than Marijuana Consumption Does, Study Finds<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo elements courtesy of carlosemmaskype<\/a> and Apollo<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Massachusetts Senate Approves Bill To Study Psychedelics Therapy For Military Veterans<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The Massachusetts Senate has approved a bill focused focused on military veterans that includes provisions to create a psychedelics working group to study and make recommendations about the potential therapeutic benefits of substances like psilocybin and MDMA. About a month after the House approved its version of the legislation\u2014based onContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":76394,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76393"}],"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=76393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76395,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76393\/revisions\/76395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Massachusetts Senate Approves Bill To Study Psychedelics Therapy For Military Veterans<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"