‘It makes me more thoughtful’: Push to decriminalize magic mushrooms gains momentum in Massachusetts

BOSTON — If someone thinks of psychedelic drugs, images of strung-out hippies from the 1960s might come to mind.

Today that’s changing as a push to make magic mushrooms legal in Massachusetts gains steam.

Supporters believe they’re an effective way to deal with issues like depression, PTSD, and addiction.

“People don’t know what psilocybin mushrooms are when you chat with them. They think you’re talking about portobellos,” said James Davis, the founder and president of Bay Staters for Natural Medicine. “People are reeling from a mental health care system that is expensive, that is not meeting their needs amidst a national malaise, and they’re looking for alternatives that can help them re-connect with themselves and the people they love.”

After the counter-culture movement, the Federal Government in 1970 categorized these hallucinogens as Schedule 1 Drugs which means they have no approved medical use.

Davis is lobbying state lawmakers to change that with a bill he supports.

“What we envision in the future is people will be able to grow their own plant medicine, as they are already illegally doing across the Commonwealth, and share it with close friends and family members and educate them.”

Salem City Councilor Andy Varela believes micro-dosing psilocybin has helped him.

“It slows me down. I really get to think about what I’m doing. It makes me more thoughtful.”

He runs the only farm in his North Shore community, and he feels a deep connection to nature.

As a city councilor, he sponsored an ordinance requiring the police to deprioritize criminal actions against people using plant-based medicines like magic mushrooms for personal use.

“There is more awareness when it comes to psychedelics, especially mushrooms,” Varela said. “And people are trying to do everything they can to put their health in their own hands, and I think that’s why this conversation has changed for the better.”

Salem isn’t the only Massachusetts community to ask its police department to look the other way.

Cambridge, Somerville, Worcester, Provincetown as well as several Western Massachusetts communities have all adopted similar policies.

“Psilocybin and other psychedelics are being studied in treatment-resistant depression and PTSD first, but they have potential use in substance abuse disorders and other anxiety disorders,” explained Dr. Anthony Rothschild.

The psychiatrist, associated with the UMass Chan Medical School, is doing some of that research right on the Worcester Campus.

He thinks it’s too soon to be making these powerful drugs readily available.

“I can tell you as someone who is very interested in studying these drugs, they’re not ready for prime time. We don’t know whether they work, and even more importantly, we don’t know what the side effects are. . . I mean why put something in your when body when you don’t fully understand what it’s going to do, particularly with the brain?”

If the bill became law in Massachusetts, the situation would be similar to cannabis in that the federal government would still consider the substance illegal while the state takes a completely different position.

There is also the possibility of a ballot question in the fall.

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