New York City Bar Association, March 27, 2024 Description:This program will examine the rapid changes in psychedelic law and policy in the five years since Denver voters passed Ordinance 301.  In May 2019, Denver voters approved Initiated Ordinance 301, a ballot initiative that decriminalized the personal use and possession of psilocybin mushrooms. The following month, in response to community activism, the Oakland City Council passed a resolution that effectively decriminalized the personal use and possession of various naturally occurring psychedelic substances. Since then, there has b ..read more

Looks like I completely forgot to post a link to the video recording of the program in which I presented “Research, Referendum, Litigation, and Legislation: Picking the Locks on the Doors of Perception” at the National Institutes of Health on September 14, 2023. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/education-and-outreach/exploratory-workshop/2023-workshop/index.html My presentation begins at 35:30 minutes in. (I make some additional comments throughout the day.) ohrp-2023-ew-psychedelics-research-agenda-for-presenters-24-aprDownload https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=49708 Here’s the PowerPoint: no ..read more

Part of why I consider psychedelic law special is the dual identity of psychedelics as sacraments and drugs simultaneously, subject to completely different legal restrictions. This contradiction should be a subject of interest in policymaking, since it indicates that psychedelics are a technology whose effects are beyond our current comprehension. How can a “medication” induce a “religious,” “mystical,” or “spiritual” experience? How can you process the idea that the greater degree of a mystical experience could correspond to a higher degree of “efficacy” in mental health care? Much of the new ..read more

Dateline: January 18, 2023: In the January 1, 2023, episode of The New Amsterdam Psychedelic Law Show I spoke with attorney Jon Dennis about his proposal for an alternative access route to psilocybin under the Oregon Psilocybin Services Act and then more generally about First Amendment Law and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), arriving at the end at the question of how changes in psychedelic law will affect the law of religion generally. I say “will” not “could” because I assume the issue is a “how” not an “if.” Here are some approximate minute markers for some of the topics: 5:4 ..read more

Following is most of the outline for the presentation I gave to staff attorneys yesterday in a Continuing Legal Education. It includes much of the material that appears in the pdf included in my post from May but it includes in addition comments on the Colorado, New Jersey, and New York bills. One of these days I’m going to get around to figuring out how to make use of the intricate formatting and other tools offered by WordPress. In the meantime I place before you some no-frills, minimally/inconsistently-formatted text. For better or worse (probably worse), I’ve always been a content over f ..read more

If there are Second Amendment Sanctuaries maybe there should be Psychedelic Sanctuaries. If necessary we could get a Constitutional amendment to recognize freedom of consciousness, the predicate to all other freedoms as the premise of wisdom, the premise of our system of government ..read more

In this episode of The New Amsterdam Psychedelic Law Show (an experimental title I may use for these video blogposts going forward), Calgary-based attorney David Wood discusses the legal structure under which individuals currently possess and use psilocybin without criminal penalties in Canada. The basic mechanism is an exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that the federal health ministry can issue in its discretion. (My followup question, which I didn’t think to ask, is whether consent is also required from the federal police.) David also discusses his proposed regulations t ..read more

I’m thinking that the essential policy task in legalizing psychedelics is protecting local markets ..read more

Thursday, November 11, 2021 Initiative 301, the voter initiative that famously decriminalized personal possession, use, and cultivation of psilocybin in Denver in May of 2019, mandated the Mayor to appoint a psilocybin mushroom policy review panel that would “assess and report on the effects” of the initiative and “submit a comprehensive written report with recommendations to the city council that will include, but not be limited to, information concerning the public safety, public administration, public health and fiscal impacts” of the initiative. On Tuesday, November 9, the Panel, the “Den ..read more

I watched a National Geographic video the other night in which a frog swallowed a poisonous newt: after a minute or two the frog died and the newt crawled out of the corpse and went about its business. I also just finished re-reading Brave New World after thirtysomething years. I read as much as I can of the frenzied froth in the media about the psychedelic renaissance, investment opportunities therein, valuations in the billions, pairing of psychedelics (new molecules, of course, that can be patented) with medical devices in order to target mental conditions precisely, and so on. Both the psy ..read more