If you get caught up in psychedelic mushrooms at WeHo, don’t be fooled: the city could back down by enforcing laws banning drug possession.
Councilman John Erickson’s agenda item, which will be discussed during Monday’s City Council meeting, would designate investigations, subpoenas, arrests, confiscations of property and processing of psilocybin mushrooms as a low priority for the city and the law enforcement agencies you hire.
Psilocybin is a chemical obtained from certain types of fresh or dried mushrooms that produces a hallucinogenic effect. Indigenous cultures have used it for ritual and religious purposes for centuries. After a period of interest in psilocybin for use as a psychotherapy tool in the 1950s and 1960s, political reaction and social stigma marginalized general scientific research on the drug. Psilocybin, like cannabis, remains a Schedule 1 substance under the Controlled Substances Act and is illegal under federal law.
But things are changing, according to the staff report:
“Modern research has rekindled interest in the use of psychedelics, including psilocybin, as an effective treatment for a wide range of health problems. Psilocybin has the potential to treat a number of psychiatric and behavioral disorders. such as depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, smoking cessation and other addictions, cocaine addiction, and cancer-related or end-of-life psychological distress. “
Denver and Oregon voters have passed measures to decriminalize and regulate the possession and sale of psilocybin, and while an effort to do so in California last year failed, the movement is still gaining momentum.
This would not be the first time West Hollywood has declared certain crimes a low priority.
In the mid-1990s, the City Council relaxed enforcement of marijuana-related laws. Last year, sex work-related crimes were also called a low priority for officers.
