Magic mushrooms effectively decriminalized in Oakland: NPR

The Oakland City Council voted in favor of decriminalizing the possession and use of entheogenic or psychoactive plants and fungi.

Richard Vogel / AP

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Richard Vogel / AP

The Oakland City Council voted in favor of decriminalizing the possession and use of entheogenic or psychoactive plants and fungi.

Richard Vogel / AP

Oakland on Tuesday adopted a unanimous resolution to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms and other psychoactive plants and fungi.

This is the second American city to do it – last month, Denver voters endorsed a similar voting initiative that decriminalizes "magic" mushrooms.

The resolution of Oakland is wider than that of Denver. The Denver initiative has decriminalized the use and possession of mushrooms containing the psilocybin compound, while that of Oakland refers to "entheogenic plants" in general, which include fungi and fungi. other plants and fungi containing psychoactive substances.

The resolution says that money from cities will not be used "to assist in the enforcement of laws imposing criminal penalties for the use and possession of entheogenic plants by adults". According to the report, investigating people who allegedly cultivated, bought, distributed or held substances "will be one of the lowest priorities in keeping the Oakland City order" .

As Sonja Hutson of KQED reports, "this does not allow the sale or commercial manufacture of mushrooms".

Opponents of the movement fear that it encourages people to experiment with potentially harmful drugs, Hutson adds, while supporters see the potential therapeutic effects.

"We just need the green light to bring these healing tools over the land and continue what has been done for centuries," said Nicole Stewart of the Decriminalize Nature Oakland Group in Hutson. "Heal us through our relationship with nature Let's start here in Oakland and be a beacon of hope and healing."

These possible therapeutic effects were highlighted in a report on the agenda tabled in City Council by the sponsor of the resolution, Board member Noel Gallo.

"For millennia, cultures have been respecting plants and mushrooms for healing, knowledge, creativity and spiritual connection," says the report, noting that these plants could be beneficial in conditions such as drug addiction Anxiety and PTSD. "This initiative is about empowering the Oakland community by restoring their relationship with nature."

These substances are currently not legal under federal and state laws.

But it seems that in several states, the pressure is increasing to facilitate access to substances such as psilocybin mushrooms because of their potential therapeutic benefits, as reported by NPR. A Republican legislator from Iowa recently proposed two measures: "one removing the psilocybin from the list of substances controlled by the state and the other the legalizing for medical purposes."

Journalist Michael Pollan, who wrote a book on psychedelic substances, told NPR that recent research by Johns Hopkins University and New York University points to some positive health effects for these substances, although they are very small studies.

However, he says, the use of these substances also entails obvious risks so that the experiment is not supervised by another person: "Your judgment is impaired." You could escape into the traffic. could do something really reckless. "

Pollan likens it to cannabis, a substance that is currently more and more legalized: "Its benefits may be more important than cannabis, but the risks are also more serious."