Unofficial election results show Denver voters narrowly approved Initiative 301, decriminalizing psychedelic mushrooms. If military and overseas ballots don’t change that, Denver will become the first city in the country to decriminalize psilocybin, the key compound in psychedelic mushrooms. That has led to national headlines, strong opinions and serious speculation. It has also led to a lot of questions. We have some answers. Q: Will magic mushrooms be legal in Denver? A: No. Absolutely not. As a Schedule 1 narcotic under federal law, psychedelic mushrooms are illegal to sell or possess in Denver and everywhere else in the United States. Denver’s ballot initiative could not change that, and it didn’t. “We recognize Denver’s right to conduct this experiment to shift law enforcement priorities away from psilocybin,” said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser. “As a matter of state and federal law, however, buying, selling, or possessing psychedelic mushrooms is still illegal.” Q: So, what does change? A: How the city’s police treat violations of the law. Initiative 301 says personal use and possession of psilocybin mushrooms by people 21 years old and over will become “the city’s lowest law-enforcement priority.” It prohibits the city of Denver “from spending resources to impose criminal penalties” for the personal use of psychedelic mushrooms by people 21 and older. Denver police are still learning what, exactly, that means. Sgt. John White, a spokesman for the department, said they expect the law to take effect May 16. Beyond that, they’re unsure. “We are working closely with the City Attorney’s Office to get an interpretation of what that law is going to mean for us in law enforcement,” he said. “Once we receive that feedback, we’ll use that information to determine what training our Denver officers need moving forward.” The office of Mayor Michael Hancock said in a one-sentence statement that he respects the decision of voters “and the Denver Police Department will enforce the law accordingly.” Supporters expect that means fewer mushroom users will be caught by police. But prosecutors still plan to prosecute psilocybin cases for those who are caught. Again, this is not legalization. Q: How many people will this affect? A: Relatively few. While there’s no sure way to know how many people use an illicit substance, arrests and convictions for magic mushrooms have been relatively rare in Denver. Between 2016 and 2018, the Denver Police Department arrested 158 people for psilocybin, or 0.02 percent of Denver’s population. Denver Police’s mid-level narcotics team confiscated 2.16 pounds of psilocybin products in the first three months of 2019. For comparison, it confiscated 453 pounds of marijuana, 23 pounds of THC and 57 pounds of meth in that same time, according to department data. “We do not anticipate 301 to have an immediate effect on our operations because we handle very few cases involving psilocybin,” said Carolyn Tyler, a spokesperson for Denver’s district attorney. “For context, between 2016 and 2018, our office filed 9,267 drug cases and 11 involved psilocybin. Of those 11 cases, three were for possession with intent to manufacture or distribute psilocybin.” Like the Denver Police Department, the Denver DA is still sorting out the measure’s effects. “The language of 301 is open-ended, so it will take some time to implement next steps,” Tyler said. “Reasonable minds may disagree about the effect 301 will have on our office.” Q: How will we know what effect this had? A: A newly formed group will tell us. The ballot question directs the establishment of “the psilocybin mushroom policy review panel to assess and report on the effects of the ordinance.” The 11-person panel will be made up of two Denver City Council members, representatives from the police department and sheriff’s office, a criminal defense attorney, a city prosecutor, someone from the district attorney’s office, an addictions counselor and others. The mayor must appoint members before the end of the year, though organizers say they will press for it to happen sooner. Police and prosecutors will then report to the panel on mushroom arrests and prosecutions. That panel will, in turn, report to the City Council. Q: Does this pave a path toward legalization? A: Good question. There are parallels between this week’s vote and Denver’s decriminalization of marijuana in 2005 and 2007: Police still enforced the law on marijuana then — as they likely will on mushrooms now — but reformers saw decriminalization as a step toward Colorado’s eventual legalization of marijuana. It’s too soon to say whether the same will happen with mushrooms. “I think if you look at Colorado as sort of the litmus test of possibilities, then … I think the possibility is significant,” said Adam Smith, a cannabis industry adviser. Without decriminalization, the cannabis industry would not be where it is now, he said. Critics of marijuana legalization also see a connection between its legalization and the future legalization of other drugs, like mushrooms. “In 2012, when opponents of marijuana legalization said that lax attitudes towards marijuana would lead to lax attitudes towards other drugs, we were laughed at,” said a spokesman for Smart Approaches to Marijuana. “Well, no one is laughing now.” The Denver Post will update this story as more information becomes available.<doc-sep>Voters in Denver, a city at the forefront of the widening national debate over legalizing marijuana, have become the first in the nation to effectively decriminalize another recreational drug: hallucinogenic mushrooms. The local ballot measure did not quite legalize the mushrooms that contain psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic compound. State and federal regulations would have to change to accomplish that. But the measure made the possession, use or cultivation of the mushrooms by people aged 21 or older the lowest-priority crime for law enforcement in the city of Denver and Denver County. Arrests and prosecutions, already fairly rare, would all but disappear. Results posted by the city as a “final unofficial” tally late on Wednesday showed the “Yes” vote won by less than 2,000 ballots. The “No” vote had led throughout the day, until the last updated count by elections officials. Alton P. Dillard, the elections spokesman, said the passage appeared safe, but the final results would not be certified until May 16.<doc-sep>It appears the people of Denver, Colorado, voted "yes" on an initiative to give their city the most progressive stance on magic mushrooms in America. Initiative 301, which was on the ballot in Denver's Tuesday municipal election, called for the decriminalization of psychedelic mushrooms for adults 21 and over. It was projected to fail until late in the game. Now, the Denver Post reports that the first unofficial results show I-301 passed by a very narrow margin, with 50.6 percent of the votes. Once again, Denver will lead the country in drug policy. The activists in favor of decriminalizing shrooms ran a grassroots campaign centered on getting psilocybin, the hallucinogenic compound in magic mushrooms, into the hands of those people who might truly benefit from it. Psilocybin is a Schedule I drug, which is a government designation meaning it is considered highly dangerous with no medical benefits. Well, remember that's according to the feds, who still technically consider marijuana a highly dangerous Schedule I substance with no medical benefits. Research into psilocybin's potentially good properties is in its initial stages, but the results we have are promising, including signs that it might benefit people with mental disorders and substance addictions. A supporter for the initiative to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms attends an election watch party for Decriminalize Denver on May 7. Michael Ciaglo Getty Images Outside those promising medical applications, people do shrooms for the trip alone, to access creative depths. They microdose to be more productive at work. Of course, you can have a bad trip, and there's not enough scientific data on shrooms to definitely say how much, if any, is safe to take. But the Denver activists argued that "this substance may help address the mental health crisis in our country and enrich the lives of many adults who choose to use it," putting the emphasis on choice. They made Denver the first city in the U.S. to publicly vote on decriminalizing shrooms, and that alone is a big deal. They also succeeded. Initiative 301 also demands the city not dedicate resources to bringing criminal charges against adults for personal use or possession of shrooms, and it calls for a policy review panel to monitor the process of decriminalization. Up next to vote on shrooms is Oregon, where activists are trying to collect enough signatures to get psilocybin on a 2020 state-wide ballot. Their initiative focuses on "psilocybin-assisted therapy" and would permit licensed manufacturers to administer it to "qualifying adults" under regulations—similar to states with medical marijuana programs. It would also cut back on criminal penalties related to psilocybin. Twenty-nineteen could be the year that launches the era of the magic mushroom. This story has been updated to reflect the first unofficial election results. Sarah Rense Sarah Rense is the Lifestyle Editor at Esquire, where she covers tech, food, drinks, home, and more. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io<doc-sep>After the measure passed, McCann’s spokeswoman, Carolyn Tyler, said the prosecutor supported the review committee created by the referendum and “we’ll study how it’s going to affect the city.” Tyler noted that “the language in the initiative is open-ended and it will take us some time to implement next steps,” including figuring out how a section about not funding prosecution of mushroom cases would be interpreted. Tyler said the measure would not change much in the district attorney’s office because “we are not putting people in jail for low-level possession.”<doc-sep>
Denver will become the first US city to effectively decriminalize mushrooms containing the psychedelic psilocybin, also known as “magic mushrooms.” Initiative 301 makes the personal use and possession of psilocybin mushrooms among people 21 and older the lowest possible law enforcement priority in Denver. It also prohibits the city from spending resources to pursue criminal penalties related to the use or possession of psilocybin mushrooms among people 21 and older. And the initiative sets up “the psilocybin mushroom policy review panel to assess and report on the effects of the ordinance.” The initiative doesn’t legalize magic mushrooms; they remain illegal under state and federal law. And it doesn’t decriminalize or deprioritize enforcement against the distribution and sales of psilocybin mushrooms — all of that could still be pursued by police. According to the Washington Post, Denver police arrested about 50 people a year over the past three years for possession or sale of psilocybin, and prosecutors acted on just 11 of the cases. That’s out of thousands of arrests overall in the city each year. Voting began in Colorado, which does mail-in voting, last month and mostly concluded Tuesday (although a very small number of overseas and military votes can still come in). Things looked bad for the initiative late Tuesday, as it trailed behind in the results. But on Wednesday, the final tally came in — and showed Initiative 301 narrowly won with nearly 51 percent of the vote, according to the Denver Post and New York Times. The results will be certified on May 16. Advocates for the measure argue that decriminalization would shift law enforcement resources away from pursuing nonviolent offenses. They claim that psilocybin is safe, nonaddictive or close to nonaddictive, and that a growing body of evidence suggests the drug has therapeutic benefits for illnesses ranging from depression to end-of-life anxiety to addiction. Opponents worry that decriminalization could lead to more drug use. Especially in Denver, they’re concerned that decriminalization could perpetuate the city’s reputation as “a drug-friendly city,” Jackson Barnett reported for the Denver Post. Critics also point out psilocybin does have some risks — particularly, experts say, the possibility of accidents and traumatic experiences that can be psychologically damaging (especially among people predisposed to mental illness). One potential source of real-world evidence on this: Portugal. After the country decriminalized all drugs, it saw a decrease in drug-related deaths and drops in reported past-year and past-month drug use, according to a 2014 report from the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. But it also saw an increase in lifetime prevalence of drug use, as well as an uptick in reported use among teens after 2007. But Portugal also simultaneously adopted special commissions that attempt to link people with drug addictions to treatment. Although the success of the commissions has yet to be thoroughly evaluated, it’s possible that even as decriminalization increased drug use, the commissions and more access to treatment got so many people off drugs that drug use still fell overall. Still, decriminalization alone may have its benefits. A 2009 report from the libertarian Cato Institute, written by Glenn Greenwald, concluded that decriminalization freed people from the “fear of arrest” when they sought help for their addiction and “freed up resources that could be channeled into treatment and other harm reduction programs.” What effects psilocybin decriminalization will have in the US, Colorado, or Denver, however, remain to be seen. Even more so than marijuana legalization, this is an area of policy that’s largely untested in modern America. This kind of pioneering vote isn’t new for Denver or Colorado as a whole. In 2012, Colorado and Washington state became the first two states to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Other places, particularly Oregon and California, are considering measures to change their laws regarding psilocybin as well. But Denver has broken ahead of the pack, becoming the first US city to effectively decriminalize magic mushrooms. Watch: How LSD and shrooms could help treat anxiety, addiction, and depression Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, you’ll get a roundup of ideas and solutions for tackling our biggest challenges: improving public health, decreasing human and animal suffering, easing catastrophic risks, and — to put it simply — getting better at doing good.