Oakland decriminalizes all psychedelic-containing plants and fungi

alasdairm

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Oakland becomes 2nd US city to decriminalize magic mushrooms

Oakland became the second city in the United States to decriminalize magic mushrooms and other natural psychedelic drugs after the City Council passed a resolution on Tuesday night.

The California city joins Denver, which passed a similar measure back in May, in decriminalizing the possession and use of psilocybin – more commonly known as magic mushrooms – and other entheogenic, or psychoactive, plants and fungi for adults.


The move comes amid an apparent shift in attitudes toward the substances, with advocates touting medical benefits of what was a recreational drug used by hippies in the 1960s. During the council meeting, a string of speakers testified that psychedelics helped them overcome depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder.
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amazing.

alasdair
 
Nice one, Oakland.

I have a question regarding the recent civic decriminalisations in Denver and Oakland: Is there a reason why it's legally necessary to codify the civic decriminalisation in these US cities?
I'm just wondering, because, from what I can tell, here in Canada, Vancouver police have had a rather hands-off approach to drug users for a few years now. I don't think they've been doing possession arrests during that time either. I could be wrong, don't live anywhere near there, clearly.

I'm just wondering, isn't it possible to just direct a city's police force to stop making such arrests or is there some legal reason that it needs to be codified in the US?
 
SunriseChampion said:
I have a question regarding the recent civic decriminalisations in Denver and Oakland: Is there a reason why it's legally necessary to codify the civic decriminalisation in these US cities?
I'm just wondering, because, from what I can tell, here in Canada, Vancouver police have had a rather hands-off approach to drug users for a few years now. I don't think they've been doing possession arrests during that time either. I could be wrong, don't live anywhere near there, clearly.

I'm just wondering, isn't it possible to just direct a city's police force to stop making such arrests or is there some legal reason that it needs to be codified in the US?
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In Vancouver, the mayor or chief of police could change their mind at any time and start allowing possession arrests. Denver and Oakland have passed municipal laws decriminalizing psilocybin mushroom possession, so the mayor, police chief, and police force have to follow that law no matter what they would like to do.
 
Reading other stories on this topic, I noticed that Oakland has in fact decriminalized all "entheogenic plants":

Oakland City Council Effectively Decriminalizes Psychedelic Mushrooms
Merrit Kennedy
NPR
June 5th, 2019
Oakland passed a resolution to effectively decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms and other psychoactive plants and fungi in a unanimous City Council vote on Tuesday.

That makes it the second U.S. city to do so – last month, Denver voters approved a similar ballot initiative that decriminalizes the "magic" mushrooms.

Oakland's resolution is broader than Denver's. Denver's initiative decriminalized the use and possession of mushrooms containing the compound psilocybin, whereas Oakland's refers to "entheogenic plants" in general, which includes the mushrooms and other plants and fungi containing psychoactive substances.

The resolution says city money will not be used "to assist in the enforcement of laws imposing criminal penalties for the use and possession of Entheogenic Plants by adults." It says that investigating people for growing, buying, distributing or possessing the substances "shall be amongst the lowest law enforcement priority for the City of Oakland."

As KQED's Sonja Hutson reports, "it does not allow for commercial sale or manufacturing of the mushrooms."
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Read the full story here.
 
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