Psychedelics are Just Beginning to Gain National Support

Efforts to legalize psychedelics are only picking up momentum.  

Denver, Oakland, and Santa Cruz voted to decriminalize mushrooms.  Washington, D.C. just took a major step toward adding legalization to the Nov. 2020 ballot.  

Chicago city leaders passed a resolution supporting scientific and medicinal research, with a goal of decriminalization.  Vermont lawmakers filed a bill to decriminalize it, as well.  Even Oregon is pushing to legalize psilocybin mushrooms for therapeutic purposes.

All thanks to reports that show psychedelics have therapeutic benefits.

For example, researchers at New York University found psilocybin mushrooms caused a “rapid and sustained” reduction in anxiety and depression in patients with cancer, as reported by the Financial Post.  

Researchers from the University of California Davis found that micro-dosing with psychedelic drugs for a prolonged period of time showed promise. “Our study demonstrates that psychedelics can produce beneficial behavioral effects without drastically altering perception, which is a critical step towards producing viable medicines inspired by these compounds,” said David Olson of UC Davis, as quoted by Esquire.

In addition, a report titled Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy: A Paradigm Shift in Psychiatric Research and Development found that such treatments have ““positive long-term mental health consequences, rather than daily neurochemical corrections in brain dysfunctions,” meaning they may help treat conditions better than pharmaceuticals, as noted by Leafly.