Local officials in King County, Washington have approved a resolution calling on police to make enforcement of laws against possession and personal cultivation of psychedelics among the “lowest” priorities and requesting that they not use funds to arrest or prosecute people for using substances such as psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, mescaline and ibogaine.
The Metropolitan King County Council on Tuesday voted 6-2 to pass the legislation requesting that “investigation, arrest, and prosecution of any persons twenty-one years old or older engaging in the limited, noncommercial cultivation and possession of naturally occurring entheogens for religious, spiritual or individual personal use be designated as among King County’s lowest criminal enforcement priorities.”
The measure, sponsored by Councilmembers Teresa Mosqueda and Rod Dembowski, says it “further requests that county funds or resources not be used for investigation, prosecution, or arrest of persons twenty-one years old or older possessing or using entheogenic plants or fungi for religious, spiritual, healing, or personal use practices.”
It additionally notes that the council supports “full decriminalization of the limited, personal, noncommercial use and possession of naturally occurring entheogens by persons twenty-one years old or older in nonpublic places at the state and federal level” and that members back “continued research for entheogen-related alternative treatment modalities and structured medical models.”
While noting that psychedelics such as psilocybin can benefit people with serious mental health conditions and have been designated as “breakthrough therapies” by the federal Food and Drug Administration, the resolution also makes clear that the council does not encourage driving under the influence of psychedelics, using them in public places, distributing the substances to people under the age of 21 or commercially manufacturing them.
“We just want to reaffirm our county’s commitment to helping invest in the health and well-being of all residents,” Mosqueda said ahead of the vote.
“Anyone who needs additional medical treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, for anxiety, for addiction issues that they may be facing, for traumatic brain injury, we don’t want to have any additional barriers with potentially seeking medical treatment that could help them,” she said. “We’ve seen a number of studies affirm that depression, anxiety, PTSD, even substance use disorders, have a higher rate of success with the use of entheogens.”
The King County council is not the first legislative body in Washington State to have adopted a measure in support of psychedelics reform. Officials in Seattle, Olympia, Tacoma, Port Townsend and Jefferson County have also voted to deprioritize enforcement of criminal laws against entheogens.
Tatiana Luz of the Psychedelic Medicine Alliance Washington (PMAW) celebrated the measure’s passage but noted in a social media post that the King County and Seattle policies “DO NOT cover the gray areas of people looking to sell psychedelics for any reason.”
“That is a separate issue that will need to be handled thoughtfully at the state level – but our scope is for protecting personal use: ie the right for adults to gift, gather and grow responsibly,” she said. “I hope the legislature moves toward supporting this at a community level by reclassifying psychedelic medicines so they can be used responsibly for personal, therapeutic, and medical purposes.”
State lawmakers in Washington have filed a number of proposals to allow psilocybin therapy in recent sessions, including this year, but only a limited measure to study the issue with a pilot program has been enacted.
Image courtesy of CostaPPR.
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