Local officials in King County, Washington have approved a resolution calling on police to make enforcement of laws against possession and personal cultivation of psychedelics among the \u201clowest\u201d priorities and requesting that they not use funds to arrest or prosecute people for using substances such as psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, mescaline and ibogaine.<\/p>\n
The Metropolitan King County Council on Tuesday voted 6-2 to pass the legislation requesting that \u201cinvestigation, arrest, and prosecution of any persons twenty-one years old or older engaging in the limited, noncommercial cultivation and possession of naturally occurring entheogens for religious, spiritual or individual personal use be designated as among King County\u2019s lowest criminal enforcement priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The measure, sponsored by Councilmembers Teresa Mosqueda and Rod Dembowski, says it \u201cfurther requests that county funds or resources not be used for investigation, prosecution, or arrest of persons twenty-one years old or older possessing or using entheogenic plants or fungi for religious, spiritual, healing, or personal use practices.\u201d<\/p>\n
It additionally notes that the council supports \u201cfull decriminalization of the limited, personal, noncommercial use and possession of naturally occurring entheogens by persons twenty-one years old or older in nonpublic places at the state and federal level\u201d and that members back \u201ccontinued research for entheogen-related alternative treatment modalities and structured medical models.\u201d<\/p>\n
While noting that psychedelics such as psilocybin can benefit people with serious mental health conditions and have been designated as \u201cbreakthrough therapies\u201d by the federal Food and Drug Administration, the resolution<\/a> also makes clear that the council does not encourage driving under the influence of psychedelics, using them in public places, distributing the substances to people under the age of 21 or commercially manufacturing them.<\/p>\n\n \u201cWe just want to reaffirm our county\u2019s commitment to helping invest in the health and well-being of all residents,\u201d Mosqueda said ahead of the vote.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyone who needs additional medical treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, for anxiety, for addiction issues that they may be facing, for traumatic brain injury, we don\u2019t want to have any additional barriers with potentially seeking medical treatment that could help them,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a number of studies affirm that depression, anxiety, PTSD, even substance use disorders, have a higher rate of success with the use of entheogens.\u201d<\/p>\n The King County council is not the first legislative body in Washington State to have adopted a measure in support of psychedelics reform. Officials in\u00a0Seattle<\/a>, Olympia<\/a>, Tacoma<\/a>,\u00a0Port Townsend<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Jefferson County<\/a> have also voted to deprioritize enforcement of criminal laws against entheogens.<\/p>\n Tatiana Luz of the Psychedelic Medicine Alliance Washington (PMAW) celebrated the measure\u2019s passage but noted in a social media post that the King County and Seattle policies \u201cDO NOT cover the gray areas of people looking to sell psychedelics for any reason.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is a separate issue that will need to be handled thoughtfully at the state level \u2013 but our scope is for protecting personal use: ie the right for adults to gift, gather and grow responsibly,\u201d she said. \u201cI hope the legislature moves toward supporting this at a community level by reclassifying psychedelic medicines so they can be used responsibly for personal, therapeutic, and medical purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n State lawmakers in Washington have filed a number of proposals to allow psilocybin therapy<\/a> in recent sessions, including this year, but only a limited measure to study the issue with a pilot program<\/a> has been enacted.<\/p>\n Image courtesy of CostaPPR<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Local Officials In Washington Approve Measure To Deprioritize Psychedelics Enforcement<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Local officials in King County, Washington have approved a resolution calling on police to make enforcement of laws against possession and personal cultivation of psychedelics among the \u201clowest\u201d priorities and requesting that they not use funds to arrest or prosecute people for using substances such as psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, mescalineContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"featured_media":0,"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\/85680"}],"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\/459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85681,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85680\/revisions\/85681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Local Officials In Washington Approve Measure To Deprioritize Psychedelics Enforcement<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"