Psilocybin mushrooms remain illegal in California after the governor vetoed a measure to decriminalize them for personal use, but he left the door open to later legalization for therapeutic purposes.
State Sen. Scott Wiener’s bill to decriminalize possession of psilocybin, or magic mushrooms, for personal use was vetoed by the governor.
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Friday that would have decriminalized psilocybin, aka magic mushrooms — but left the door open for California to reconsider it next year.
Newsom, in his veto message, said the measure proposed by San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, would have decriminalized possession before therapeutic protections are in place.
“California should immediately begin work to set up regulated treatment guidelines — replete with dosing information, therapeutic guidelines, rules to prevent against exploitation during guided treatments, and medical clearance of no underlying psychoses,” he said.
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Wiener’s bill would have decriminalized possession of psilocybin for personal use. That means it would still be illegal to sell it. It also would have ordered the California Health and Human Services Agency to create a work group to “study and make recommendations” on how psychedelics could be used for therapeutic use and present its findings to the Legislature by the end of 2024.
Wiener called Newsom’s veto “a setback for the huge number of Californians — including combat veterans and first responders — who are safely using and benefiting from these non-addictive substances and who will now continue to be classified as criminals under California law.”
Wiener said the “evidence is beyond dispute that criminalizing access to these substances only serves to make people less safe and reduce access to help. Today’s veto is a huge missed opportunity for California to follow the science and lead.”
The San Francisco Democrat said Friday that Newsom’s veto “is not the end of our fight.”
Wiener said that given Newsom’s commitment to work with the Legislature on crafting psychedelic legislation “with a therapeutic focus, and openness to future decriminalization legislation,” he looks forward to “introducing therapeutic-focused legislation next year.”
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Wiener’s SB58 passed the Legislature in September with support from some of the state’s most conservative Republicans. Colorado and Oregon have decriminalized psilocybin and other psychedelics, as have cities including Oakland and Santa Cruz.
While Newsom didn’t green-light decriminalizing psychedelics, leaders elsewhere have seen the value that psychedelics may have in treating anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, substance abuse and other mental health issues.
The Federal Drug Administration has designated psilocybin as a “breakthrough therapy” for treatment-resistant depression, a sign that even the federal government recognizes its potential therapeutic value. In June, the agency issued its first guidelines to researchers interested in exploring how psychedelics could be used for medical treatments.
The political risk for exploring psychedelics seems to be slim, at least in California. An August survey by the FM3 firm found that 60% of likely 2024 California voters surveyed support the provisions in Wiener’s bill. The survey also found that 63% of the respondents said that supporting this bill would have a positive impact or no impact on their opinion of a state legislator.
Wiener’s legislation would not have approached legalization. Nor does it even go as far as the 2022 voter-approved law in Colorado, which, in addition to legalizing the compounds found in psilocybin for therapeutic use, enabled the creation of “healing centers” where adults could use the plant under the watch of licensed professionals.
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But Newsom did not embrace it. The governor is not alone in his reticence. While the Democrat-dominated Assembly approved the measure 43-15, 22 legislators, including several Democrats, did not take a position.
Some believe that Newsom’s stance may have less to do with policy than with the optics of blessing another drug during the nation’s continuing war against fentanyl.
Last month, Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University who served on Newsom’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy, told the Chronicle that it wouldn’t be hard to imagine how conservative media would spin Newsom’s support, given its insatiable appetite for San Francisco doom loop stories.
“The story you would hear is, ‘Look at California cities. They’re out of control with drugs and what are they doing? They’re just making drugs easier to get,’ ” said Humphreys, who was a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy during the Obama administration.
Wiener’s measure would have taken small, preliminary steps, but even those have been politically challenging in a state that has been a psychedelic hub since the heyday of Jefferson Airplane.
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Part of the reason is that, unlike cannabis legalization, there isn’t a decades-long history of tens of thousands of people who have been harmed by mushroom prosecutions. Newsom touted cannabis legalization as a way to address the social and economic impact of the failed decades-long war on drugs. Black people were nearly four times as likely to be arrested on marijuana charges as were white people, even though they used the drug at roughly the same rate, according to a 2018 study from the American Civil Liberties Union.
But the number of people who have used — let alone been punished for — psychedelics is far smaller than those who have tried or been busted for marijuana. As a June report from the nonpartisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office said, “the number of people in state prison and county jail for such offenses is very minor relative to the overall prison and jail population.”
Nor would the bill have created a commercial market for psychedelics, like the 2016 cannabis legalization law did. Nor is there the promise of millions of dollars in tax revenue that a legal market might bring.
Newsom, in his statement, said he committed to working with lawmakers “to craft legislation that would authorize permissible uses and consider a framework for potential broader decriminalization in the future, once the impacts, dosing, best practice, and safety guardrails are thoroughly
contemplated and put in place.”
Reach Joe Garofoli: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @joegarofoli
Joe Garofoli is the San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer, covering national and state politics. He has worked at The Chronicle since 2000 and in Bay Area journalism since 1992, when he left the Milwaukee Journal. He is the host of “It’s All Political,” The Chronicle’s political podcast. Catch it here: bit.ly/2LSAUjA
He has won numerous awards and covered everything from fashion to the Jeffrey Dahmer serial killings to two Olympic Games to his own vasectomy — which he discussed on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” after being told he couldn’t say the word “balls” on the air. He regularly appears on Bay Area radio and TV talking politics and is available to entertain at bar mitzvahs and First Communions. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and a proud native of Pittsburgh. Go Steelers!
He can be reached at jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.
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Newsom vetoes bill to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms – San Francisco Chronicle
