Russell Hausfeld, writing for Psymposia:
Julie Holland (@BellevueDoc) is reporting that LSD-chemist and longtime drug war prisoner, William Leonard Pickard, is being released from prison. Pickard has been locked down since 2000 and was slated to serve two life sentences without parole.
Huge news for Pickard, as well as for the psychedelic community at large.
Tom Angell, writing for Marijuana Moment:
Oregon officials announced on Wednesday that the state’s voters will get a chance to decide whether to pass a first-of-its kind measure to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic use in November.
It’s official—just one week after activists announced that they had secured enough signatures to get this measure on the ballot, the state has confirmed that voters will decide whether or not to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic use later this year. If successful, Oregon will become the first state in the nation to offer medical psilocybin options for its residents.
Ben Adlin, writing for Marijuana Moment:
An ambitious campaign to decriminalize psychedelics in Washington, D.C., is one step closer to placing their measure on the November ballot with the formal submission of tens of thousands of voter signatures.
Organizers have been scrambling for weeks to collect enough signatures from D.C. voters by Monday’s deadline amid historically difficult circumstances: a global pandemic, months of stay-at-home orders and protests over racism and police violence that filled the streets of the nation’s capital. But with the help of innovative signature-gathering techniques and allies flown in from across the country, advocates said they had successfully submitted upwards of 35,000 signatures—more than enough to qualify the initiative.
If approved by voters, Initiative 81 would make enforcement of laws against plant- and fungus-based psychedelics among the “lowest law enforcement priorities” for the Metropolitan Police Department. It would not, however, legalize or reduce penalties for the substances.
The measure would apply to all natural entheogenic substances, including psilocybin, ayahuasca, ibogaine and DMT.
Drug policy reform efforts have been having a great couple of weeks, even despite the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Ben Adlin, writing for Marijuana Moment:
Only a day after a new marijuana decriminalization law took effect in Virginia, top state lawmakers are announcing that they’re already looking ahead to full legalization.
Wow, that was fast.
Kyle Jaeger, writing for Marijuana Moment:
A marijuana decriminalization policy is officially in effect in Virginia as of Wednesday.
One month after Gov. Ralph Northam (D) signed the bill—which will make possession of up to one ounce of cannabis punishable by a $25 fine with no threat of jail time and no criminal record—the commonwealth has become the 27th state to enact the policy change.
I’m excited to see this one go through because Virginia is just one state north of where I live and from what I observed while watching this particular bill over the past several months, it seemed like it was a hard-fought win.
