President Joe Biden’s administration and Congress is underway, and while psychedelic reform isn’t among the administration’s top priorities, advocates are hopeful that the president’s term will bring more policy changes that will gradually do away with the federal prohibition of MDMA, psilocybin and other psychedelics.
In the recent past, advocates of reform have mainly been focusing on local measures. During the November 2020 election, Washington, DC, decriminalized all fungi and plant-based psychedelics while the state of Oregon decriminalized all drugs and legalized psilocybin therapy.
Since then, State Representative Michael Greico of Florida has been working on a measure to legalize psilocybin therapy for individuals who have been diagnosed with various mental health conditions. In addition, four state senators in Hawaii have introduced a psilocybin therapy legislation, and State Senator Scott Weiner of California has started drafting legislation to decriminalize psychedelics at the state level.
Concurrently, activists from different counties and cities, including Nashville, Chicago, Berkeley and Philadelphia, are trying to get psychedelics decriminalized either through the city council or at the ballots. These measures are mostly based on the Decriminalize Nature initiative, which decriminalized all natural psychedelics in Oakland through the city council in 2019.
The co-founder of advocacy organization New Yorkers for Mental Health Alternatives, Noah Potter, stated that advocates could use the marijuana movement to help lay out the course psychedelics would take. Many psychedelic insiders have hope that local reform may help usher the federal movement toward ending prohibition.
Despite this, however, many activists still wonder whether the Biden Administration will stand in the way of county-, city- and state-level psychedelic reform. Founder of the Society for Psychedelic Outreach, Reform and Education (“SPORE”) Kevin Matthews doesn’t think it will. Melissa Lavasani, who proposed Initiative 81, the Washington, DC, measure, that decriminalized all natural psychedelics, agrees with Matthews.
This isn’t the only change people are hoping for though. Harm-reduction activists hope that the Biden administration will revise the RAVE Act (Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act), a 2003 law that made it a liability for venues to provide any harm-reduction services such as on-scene drug testing, which activists of drug policy agree has made clubs, festivals or any environments where individuals use drugs more perilous.
Others hope that the Biden Administration will amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, with MAPS director of Policy and Advocacy Natalie Ginsberg stating that she’s keen to see an amendment that protects peyote, a naturally occurring psychedelic, while also considering how religion and spirituality play a part in the use of psychedelics and traditional practices.
Meanwhile, the growing interest in psychedelics as treatments for mental health disorders paints a favorable picture of the future of companies such as Pure Extracts Technologies Corp. (CSE: PULL) (OTC: PRXTF), which have ventured into the rapid development as well as commercialization of psychedelic therapies and functional mushroom consumer products.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Pure Extracts Technologies Corp. (CSE: PULL) (OTC: PRXTF) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/PULL
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