Proponents of a ballot measure to decriminalize magic mushrooms see their value for mental health treatment, but opponents and voters wonder about the long-term effects for access to these psychedelic drugs.
By Ryan Morgan
DENVER, Colorado—In the closing days before the May 2019 Denver City elections, members of Decriminalize Denver have been working through the city streets, hoping to leave no neighborhood un-canvassed and no question un-answered in their effort to garner support for decriminalizing ‘magic mushrooms.’
The ballot initiative would place the possession of psilocybin ‘magic mushrooms,’ below the scope of local law enforcement efforts. While selling and distributing these psychedelic fungi would remain illegal and no medical or recreational-use language would be prescribed, people 21-years-old or older would not be pursued by the city’s law enforcement officers for the simple act of possessing these mushrooms.
Some of the excitement of the proposed ballot measure follows medical suggestions that psychedelics, like magic mushrooms may be effectively prescribed in the treatment of depression and other mental health concerns faced by many Americans.
On social media posts by Decriminalize Denver, proponents of the initiative noted the heavy reliance on prescription drugs for treating both physical pain and mental health concerns.
According to 2013 estimates published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 1 in 6 adults was on prescription psychiatric drugs. A number that, in light of high prescription costs and concerns about drug efficacy and likelihood for psychological dependence, has some concerned.
The proponents of the ballot initiative see the proposal as a counter to this medical paradigm of abundant prescription use. According to results from the 2017 Global Drug Survey magic mushrooms were the least likely of all illicit substances surveyed to cause an emergency medical response, with fewer than .2 percent of users requiring an emergency room visit. The next highest risk drug in the survey results, cannabis was 3 times more likely to result in an emergency response and alcohol was six times more likely to cause an emergency response than mushrooms. Given that low risk for physical harm and new research indicating the efficacy of psychedelics for rewiring the brain around mental blocks that can cause depression, magic mushrooms may be uniquely positioned to change how mental health problems are treated.
Dominick Galluccio, a field director for Decriminalize Denver who has been active in the campaign’s canvassing across Denver, argued that magic mushrooms offer a chance for a “pro-social software update.”
“I believe drugs are software and I feel like our society is running on the wrong software; we’re running on caffeine, sugar and alcohol and that’s producing anti-social, stupid behavior that’s destroying the world,” Galluccio said. “I believe that magic mushrooms are a tool for systemic change that are going to change the software.”
Galluccio said that, by comparison to alcohol’s sometimes lethal effects, magic mushrooms are a non-lethal substance that produce pro-social and cooperative behavior and a high therapeutic potential.
If the ballot measure passes, Denver would be the first city in the United State to decriminalize these psilocybin magic mushrooms; however, the idea is already exceeding the confines of Denver’s city-wide election as a similar question is being proposed in the state of Oregon, to be decided on during the 2020 election.
Kevin Matthews, the campaign director of Decriminalize Denver and a man instrumental in crafting the initiative’s language, said lawmakers, activists and supporters from outside the Denver City limits have been asking him for advice on preparing their own language for similar decriminalization efforts.
Matthews cited the research from the Johns Hopkins Psychedelic Research Unit and other psychedelic researchers, in explaining his belief that he believes there is medical value in having access to the magic mushrooms. He indicated that these magic mushrooms may be beneficial in treating depression, anxiety and PTSD.
Matthews himself turned to Magic Mushrooms when he was dealing with his own depression, a mental state that interfered with his Army career and caused him to resign his appointment from the West Point military academy.
However, Matthews did share his concerns about confining the expressed purpose of the decriminalization effort.
“I don’t see a recreational model anytime soon,” Matthews said. “What could happen next, in addition to decriminalizing in other areas is some kind of a regulated medical model where doctors and physicians can prescribe this to people who need it.”
Matthews said that some patients terminal illness or life threatening disease can already access psilocybin for medical purposes under the 2018 Right to Try Act. The act allows those with said medical conditions to try any substance that has passed a phase 1 trial with the Food and Drug Administration.
Phase 1 trials with the FDA are the initial testing phase that assess the safety of a drug substance. Psilocybin has already concluded its phase 2 trials, which entails a larger sample of human subjects, and the drug is being prepared for a third phase of clinical testing, involving a still larger group study that can compare the drug to other existing treatment methods before the FDA approves it as a treatment method.
“The FDA is actually so interested in psychedelics, specifically psilocybin and MDMA because traditional pharmaceutical interventions are not working . . . because the rates of addiction, rates of anxiety, rates of depression, rates of PTSD are rising faster than medical professionals and law enforcement can actually deal with right now,” Matthews said.
Matthews noted a different psilocybin ballot initiative, proposed for California during the 2018 midterm elections, which proposed a broader form of decriminalization, effectively decriminalizing sales of the mushrooms.
The California initiative ultimately failed to meet the ballot requirements. Matthews said the issue for explaining his campaign’s ballot measure is making clear the difference between legalization and the limits of what actions are actually being decriminalized.
“It’s simple to grow but it’s not easy,” Matthews said of magic mushrooms. “Again this isn’t a recreational framework. You’re not going to be able to go into a shop and purchase it. You’ve got to grow it yourself.”
Following Matthew’s departure from the West Point Military Academy, he first tried magic mushrooms with a group of close friends, and soon after realized their therapeutic potential. He said that even in the weeks and months after his first try of the magic mushrooms, he still felt a dramatic difference in his outlook compared to his near suicidal state before leaving West Point. In the years that followed his first experience, his interest in the topic only increased and he eventually joined the Denver Psychedelic Club.
Through the Denver Psychedelic Club, Matthews became aware of an exploratory effort to consider forms of legislative change regarding magic mushrooms. Matthews elected to join the exploratory effort and eventually came to the front of the committee, which eventually became Decriminalize Denver.
Matthews said his efforts on the initiative have been his full-time job since September of 2018, when the initiative was approved to collect ballot signatures for the 2019 Denver city elections.
“Education is the biggest part of this,” Matthews said. “This isn’t a one and done movement, in Colorado or for the rest of the country.”
Matthews said he has followed the efforts of similar ballot initiatives and has worked with other politicians and activists interested in bringing magic mushroom decriminalization to their own jurisdictions.
Matthews said his campaign has felt an important position in carrying the issue forward in a responsible way that is aligned with the existing research on psychedelics.
“I think when we first decriminalize, we’ve got to stay here and follow up with it,” Decriminalize Denver Field Manager Hope Mellinger said, in-part reinforcing Matthews’ own statements. “I don’t think we are rushing to the next step; we’ve got to support our community where we are first.”
Despite the assurances by members of the initiative, some political opponents to the measure have pointed to the path from decriminalization to recreational availability that cannabis took, as evidence that the magic mushrooms would not simply stay confined within the scope of decriminalization that the ballot initiative explicitly proposes.
“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me . . . we’ve heard these same arguments with medical marijuana,” said Peter Droege, the Marijuana and Drug Policy Fellow for Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute.
Droege said once cannabis became medically available, the cannabis advocates quickly changed their tune on cannabis and began proposing recreational use.
Droege also argued that, even inside the confines of a decriminalization framework, the ballot initiatives method of exploring the medical values of magic mushrooms is flawed. He said he has no opposition to using psilocybin in a controlled medical setting, but he believes the process proposed by the ballot initiative ignores that controlled medical approach.
“There’s a reason why we have medical researchers, there’s a reason why we have doctors and there’s a reason why we have pharmacists,” Droege said. “There’s a process that gets us there, but that process does not begin by legalizing it on the streets of Denver.”
Droege, a former alcohol addict has spent the years following his own recovery by working with an addiction recover group called StepDenver, helping to counter addiction and encourage other recovering addicts.
Droege expressed his concern about potentially increasing access to any types of drugs and he cautioned to be wary of claims that drugs will be made accessible for confined medical purposes.
“This is not about compassion or care, this is about money and this is about drugs and this is about selling drugs,” Droege said. “It’s not compassionate to get somebody hooked on heroine; it’s not compassionate to get somebody hooked on meth’ it’s not compassionate to get somebody hooked on psilocybin.”
As members of Decriminalize Denver canvassed across his neighborhood, Mansoor Yousaf shared his own concerns about the proposed mushroom initiative, in light of Denver’s changes in cannabis laws.
“Once I was very gung-ho, pro-legalization, now I wonder if we did it the right way,” said Yousaf, a Denver resident.
Yousaf said he is now more cautious as a voter, trying to weigh the intent of a proposed law against the actual effect that is achieved.
As a parent of a teenage, Yousaf further added he is also concerned about the message sent to children.
“Lately, having a 14-year-old I’ve become a little bit jaded about the idea of making things legal,” he said. “The main thing I’d like to research is who’s really using it, who’s really being put in jail for it.”
Mansoor said he might be inclined to vote in favor of the ballot measures to decriminalize magic mushrooms if he found that the people primarily harmed by their criminalization are people using them to treat depression and other mental health concerns, but he would have to weigh that against the risk of them becoming more accessible to children.
Despite the back and forth between the initiative's proponents and its detractors, Denver voters will ultimately have the final say on the matter. Voters may see the advances in psychedelic research as an assurance of the medical value of magic mushrooms, but that may not be enough to convince some that the best solution for the issue is to decriminalize the mushrooms. Others may have to look at the results of decriminalizing marijuana and ask themselves if they believe that the decriminalization was ultimately productive for Denver, Colorado and the other 32 states that have since permitted legal forms of access to cannabis.
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