Alaska lawmakers have filed a pair of bills to create a state task force responsible for studying and making recommendations on psychedelic policy issues, including frameworks for legalization and licensure for therapeutic practitioners.
Sen. Forrest Dunbar (D) and Rep. Jennie Armstrong (D) introduced identical companion versions of the legislation on Monday.
The bills would establish an Alaska Mental Health and Psychedelic Medicine Task Force under the state Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development. The body would be comprised of government representatives and experts in mental health, psychiatry and more.
Members would be charged with assessing the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelics for mental health treatment, barriers to equitable access and “licensing and insurance requirements” for practitioners if any psychedelics receive federal approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
They would also need to “consider legal and regulatory pathways to the legalization of psychedelic medicines in the state, and the potential effects of the medicines on public health.”
The state commissioners of health, veterans’ affairs and commerce, or their designees, would have to sit on the task force. The bills also stipulate that members must include a mental health expert, a representative of Alaska’s Native communities, a psychiatrist, a
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