A Vermont legislative panel continued its consideration on Thursday of a bill that would legalize psilocybin in the state and establish a work group on how to further regulate psychedelics for therapeutic use.
Though members of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee took no formal action on the measure, S. 114, they heard invited testimony and signaled their openness to making a number of changes to the underlying proposal—including removing the legalization portion and instead making that an issue for the work group to study.
“It could be that decriminalization is going to get in the way of therapeutic use,” said Sen. Ginny Lyons (D), the committee chair. “What we’re looking for is the value of therapeutic use.”
Other possible changes to the bill raised by lawmakers during the hearing included adjusting the membership of the work group, for example to remove members of the legislature and add a representative from the University of Vermont Medical School—something Lyons suggested during the committee’s initial consideration of the bill last month.
Additional members of the panel would include representatives from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the state Office of Professional Regulation and the advocacy group Decriminalize Nature.
Hellbound and Down 