Salem, Massachusetts lawmakers have approved a resolution to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms.
Members of the City Council voted unanimously on Thursday to pass an activist-led measure making it the local government’s official policy to deprioritize enforcement of laws prohibiting the possession and cultivation of psilocybin.
This is the latest Massachusetts city to enact some form of psychedelics decriminalization as the national reform movement continues to expand, though it is the only one to focus on psilocybin alone. Other cities that have taken broader psychedelics action include Somerville, Cambridge, Easthampton and Northampton.
The resolution notes that psilocybin has significant therapeutic potential for the treatment of mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and addiction. And it says that criminalization as policy has failed, contributing the mass incarceration and racial disparities in the criminal legal system.
The local measure doesn’t remove criminal penalties for the substance, but it states that the “arrest of adult persons for using or possessing psilocybin-containing fungi” as well as the “investigation and arrest of adult persons for cultivating, purchasing, transporting, distributing, engaging in practices with, and/or possessing psilocybin-containing fungi” should be “amongst the lowest law enforcement priority for the city of Salem.”
The resolution says that “no
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