Under the federal system, states and cities are laboratories of democracy. And on Tuesday, citizens in Denver are voting on a unique ballot initiative: decriminalizing “magic mushrooms.” That’s great. Even for those who aren’t on board with the idea that adults should generally be free to ingest what they please, there’s plenty of reasons to cheer on Denver’s democratic experiment.
First a bit about the bill. The initiative, Initiated Ordinance 301 or the Denver Psilocybin Mushroom Decriminalization Initiative, “ would make the personal use and personal possession of psilocybin mushrooms by persons twenty-one (21) years of age and older the city’s lowest law-enforcement priority.” The ordinance, if passed, would also bar the city from spending money on criminal enforcement for those adults and establish and “psilocybin mushroom policy review panel.”
That’s pretty benign. Prosecutors could still go after those buying or selling magic mushrooms and they would still be quite illegal under federal law. Moreover, psilocybin isn’t a problem in Denver: In the last three years only 11 cases were prosecuted, according to the New York Times.
By decriminalizing hallucinogenic mushrooms, Denver is offering itself up as a real-life case study. For both proponents and opponents of psilocybin, that’s important and will either make a case for further decriminalization efforts or sound the alarm against more permissive laws.
Moreover, decriminalization in a major city will also help pave the way for a broader conversation on psilocybin which, as recent studies have demonstrated, has real medicinal potential for treating depression and other health issues. That’s undoubtedly a good thing that will, hopefully, enable more research that sheds further light potential uses or dangers.
Although decriminalizing psilocybin might seem like an off the wall proposal, it’s not and several other countries do not regulate magic mushrooms. In the U.S., a little democratic experimentation will enable a policy debate based on real results rather than broad claims extolling the virtues of psychedelics or claims of implantable danger. That’s how democracy should work and if Denver wants to be that experiment, assuming the initiative passes, great.
