Colorado voters have passed a ballot initiative to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms for people 21 and older and to create state-regulated centers where participants can experience the drug.
Colorado becomes the second state after Oregon to establish a regulated system for substances like psilocybin and psilocin, the hallucinogens found in some mushrooms.
Colorado’s initiative eventually will allow an advisory board to add other plant-based psychedelic drugs to the program.
Since the early 20th century, the use of cannabis for any purpose fell out of favor by both regulators and Western culture at large.
In the United States, a wave of regulations made access to cannabis more difficult starting from the late 1900s, ultimately culminating in the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, which effectively made cannabis use a federal offense. Meanwhile, prohibition in Canada lasted for 85 years until being lifted by recent developments.
Interestingly, however, this recent period of 20th century opposition is actually just a small speck in the wider 6,000-year timeline of cannabis. After all, the plant has been widely regarded for its therapeutic potential for many millennia by different cultures around the world.
Voters in two more states approved ballot measures legalizing marijuana on Tuesday despite the ongoing federal prohibition of cannabis, continuing a 50-year history of efforts by the state to nullify the feds, cities to nullify the state – and individuals to nullify them all.
Maryland and Missouri both passed ballot measures legalizing marijuana for individuals 21 and over. That brings the total number of states that have legalized recreational marijuana to 21.
The movement to take down marijuana prohibition started in the 1970s accelerated after California legalized cannabis for medical use in 1996. Since then, states have advanced the issue every year. This happened in spite of a 2005 Supreme Court opinion supporting federal prohibition, at least 12 years of relentless year-to-year increase in spending and enforcement efforts by the federal government through three presidential administrations, and ongoing, complete prohibition at the federal level.
In California, individual and local action started long before the passage of Prop. 215 legalizing medical marijuana in 1996. Other states followed their lead. Many states started with modest medical programs and then expanded them over the years.
We’ve seen the same progression when it comes to adult-use marijuana.
Each year, new state laws and the loosening of old laws help expand the market, and each expansion further nullifies the unconstitutional federal ban in practice and effect. With state and local actions accounting for as much as 99 percent of all enforcement efforts according to the FBI, the feds rely heavily on state and local help to fight the “drug war.” That help has rapidly evaporated in the last few years with marijuana legalization and decriminalization.
As marijuana becomes more accepted and more states, localities, and individuals simply ignore the federal prohibition, the feds become less able to enforce their unconstitutional laws. After more than two decades of state, local and individual resistance and nullification, the federal government’s unconstitutional prohibition of cannabis is beginning to come apart at the seams.
Colorado voted on legalizing the use of psychedelic mushrooms, and the Nov. 8 ballot initiative to enact the measure looks on course to pass as of Wednesday afternoon.
The Associated Press has not yet called the race, but the ballot initiative to legalize private and clinical therapeutic use of the plant-based psychedelic has 66,000 more “yes” votes out of more than 1.9 million total votes counted.
If Proposition 122 passes, Colorado would be the second state, after Oregon, to decriminalize hallucinogenic substances found in mushrooms that are currently Schedule 1 drugs under the Controlled Substances Act.
The ballot initiative would decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms for those 21 and older and create state-regulated “healing centers” where participants can experience the drug under the supervision of a licensed “facilitator.” The measure would establish a regulated system for using “natural medicine,” defined under the law as psilocybin and psilocin, the hallucinogenic chemicals found in some mushrooms.
National Park Service officials warned visitors about a poisonous toad that can cause hallucinations and ‘powerful psychoactive’ reactions.
The Sonoran desert toad, also referred to as the Colorado river toad, is one of the largest toads in the US that has toxins that can ‘paralyze or kill dogs and other predators,’ according to the Oakland Zoo, CNN reported.
Officials last spotted the toad with a black and white sensor camera located at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona. The about 7-inch toad is also commonly found in New Mexico and Mexico can cause psychoactive effects when the toad’s toxins are smoked.
‘These toads have prominent parotoid glands that secrete a potent toxin. It can make you sick if you handle the front or get poison in your mouth,’ NPS wrote on Facebook on October 31. ‘Please refrain from licking’
The toads make a ‘weak, low-pitched toot, lasting less than a second,’ according to the NPS. Their eyes also glow in the dark.
Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic substance that can be found in a variety of different mushrooms, commonly referred to as “magic mushrooms.” Psilocybin is known to possess a spectrum of psychoactive properties, and has remained a part of medicinal and shamanistic culture around the world for thousands of years.
Cutting edge modern medical research into the various properties, health benefits, and applications of psilocybin, however, has revealed that there are many use cases for this unique biological compound outside of recreational use.
Psilocybin has recently been demonstrated in multiple clinical trials to function as an effective therapeutic aid in treating a wide variety of health disorders, including assisting with the management of depression, helping to deal with addiction, PTSD, and OCD, as well as promoting the growth of brain cells and even helping to manage the symptoms of cancer and terminal illnesses.
In this guide, we will break down the basics of psilocybin, where it comes from, and how it works, as well as proceeding to present and assess the clinical evidence that supports the therapeutic and health applications of this unique compound. Lastly, we’ll examine the potential benefits of psilocybin microdosing, a novel use of psychedelics that has been demonstrated to deliver a broad range of advantages.
Edwin Rubis has served more than two decades of a 40-year federal prison sentence for participating in a marijuana distribution operation. Taking into account “good time” credit, he is not scheduled to be released until August 2032.
Rubis is one of about 3,000 federal prisoners whose cannabis-related sentences were unaffected by President Joe Biden’s mass pardon for low-level marijuana offenders. A protest at the White House today called attention to their predicament.
Biden’s October 6 proclamation applied only to U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents convicted of simple marijuana possession under the Controlled Substances Act or the District of Columbia Code, none of whom was still incarcerated. Although his pardons could benefit as many as 10,000 or so individuals, that represents a tiny percentage of all simple possession cases, which typically are charged under state law. And Biden’s action will not release a single federal prisoner.
According to a 2021 report from Recidiviz, “more than 3,000 individuals are
currently serving marijuana-related sentences in federal prison.” The report estimated that ending federal marijuana prohibition—a step that Biden has steadfastly resisted—would reduce the federal prison population by more than 2,800 over five years.
“Your recent executive order, while a great first step, did nothing to address the thousands of federal cannabis prisoners currently incarcerated in federal prison,” 16 drug policy reform groups noted in an October 10 letter to Biden. “While your recent executive order will help many, it will not release a single one of the nearly 2,800 federal cannabis prisoners.” Although “eighteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis,” the letter said, “there are thousands of Americans who are serving long-term prison sentences, including some life sentences, in federal facilities for conduct involving amounts of cannabis that are far less than what dispensaries routinely handle on a daily basis.”
The moral logic of Biden’s distinction between simple possession and other marijuana offenses is puzzling. He says marijuana use should not be treated as a crime. Yet he is willing to let individuals like Rubis languish in prison merely for helping people use marijuana, which today is recognized as a legitimate business in most states, 19 of which allow recreational as well as medical use.
In another big step along America’s path to normalizing the use of a once-taboo plant, major convenience-store chain Circle K will begin selling marijuana at its Florida gas stations.
Circle K’s foray into the marijuana business will go live in 2023, through a partnership with Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries, a medical and recreational cannabis wholesaler and retailer with a presence in 15 states. Florida’s marijuana market is the country’s second largest, trailing only California.
Green Thumb CEO Ben Kovler calls the new venture a “game-changer”:
“The new RISE Express model is a huge step forward in making it easier and more efficient for patients to purchase high-quality cannabis as part of their everyday routine when stopping by their local convenience store.”
Circle K parent Couche-Tard is a global pioneer. “Legal marijuana has so far been sold only in stand-alone dispensaries in the US and within pharmacies in countries such as Uruguay and Germany,” reports Bloomberg. Couche-Tard also has a Canadian convenience-store cannabis pilot with Fire & Flower.
Last week, President Joe Biden announced that he would pardon all Americans federally convicted of simple possession of marijuana. The announcement was a welcome, though limited, shift in the U.S. government’s seemingly unending war on drugs. Biden additionally called on governors to follow suit in their respective states and grant clemency to the vast majority of offenders convicted under state laws. He also encouraged Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra to review marijuana’s classification under federal law.
But that shift may be easier said than done thanks to the age-old problem of federal bureaucracy.
Currently, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I substance, indicating “a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision.” In his announcement last week, the president noted that this puts it in the same category as heroin and a more restrictive category than fentanyl.
In 2015, the last time the government assessed marijuana’s classification, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and HHS recommended keeping it at Schedule I. The assessment included, among other factors, “the scientific literature on whether marijuana has a currently accepted medical use”—a tall order since Schedule I status makes it much more difficult to study in the first place.
The Washington Post reported today that “such an evaluation—the first initiated by a U.S. president—is made all the more difficult due to tight restrictions on research into marijuana.” Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a research institute within the National Institutes of Health, told the paper, “It’s something that we constantly communicate: We really need to figure out a way of doing research with these substances.”
In other words, as Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute tweeted, the government “can’t research whether marijuana should remain a ‘Schedule I’ substance bc of govt restrictions on… researching Schedule I substances.”
Hellbound and Down 
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