Griffen is an attorney in Harris Sliwoski’s Los Angeles office, where he focuses his practice on corporate, transactional, intellectual property, data security, regulatory, and litigation matters across a wide variety of domestic and international industries.
The recent uptick in ketamine clinic and management service organization (“MSO”) clients at our law firm is pretty significant. It’s understandable given the groundswell of momentum behind state and local legalization and decriminalization of certain other psychedelics. Many companies that are exploring psychedelic medicines are making their way into the ketmaine space. Unlike psilocybin though
Earlier this year, I wrote a post entitled “California May Decriminalize Psychedelics”. My post discussed a piece of legislation that was introduced (SB-519), which would decriminalize a host of psychedelic drugs. You can read about what exactly SB-519 would do in my prior post, but I want to again emphasize that the bill in its
Our firm has seen a recent increase in ketamine clinic clients, both domestic and foreign (including for ketamine clinic buyers engaged in M&A, see here and here). In both camps, certain questions keep cropping up regarding starting, operating, and managing a ketamine clinic venture in the states. And what’s abundantly clear is that many people
Psilocybin mushrooms, also called magic mushrooms, are psychedelic drugs that can lead to hallucinations and altered thinking. The laws around psilocybin can be challenging to keep up with since there is some ambiguity and confusion between federal, state and local laws. As psychedelics are growing in popularity across the country for therapeutic, medicinal, spiritual, and recreational
Cities and States Who Have Adopted Psychedelic Decriminalization It’s not been two years since Denver decriminalized psilocybin. In that span of time, cities and states across the country have adopted or are considering adopting sweeping decriminalization (and even legalization!) laws that apply to psilocybin and in some cases, even a host of other psychedelic substances.
On February 17, 2021, California Senator Scott Wiener introduced SB-519, a bill that if passed, would decriminalize a host of both natural and synthetic psychedelic drugs. In this post, I’ll unpack what the law would do in its current form. Before I get into the specifics of the bill, there are three things that are
We’ve written a lot recently about the law concerning the religious use of psychedelics (see here and here). This is an incredibly broad area of the law that is still developing. Our focus has generally been on the federal laws and decisions affecting religious use of psychedelics, though today we turn our attention to an
Over the last year, a handful of cities have passed decriminalization measures for psilocybin and other plant psychedelics. Denver was the first jurisdiction to pass a decriminalization measure, and Oakland, Santa Cruz, Ann Arbor, and most recently, Washington, D.C., followed suit. Each of these decriminalization measures is different, but fundamentally they are the same in
On November 3, 2020, voters in Oregon approved Measure 109, paving the way for a regime of psilocybin for therapeutic uses in a few years. Oregon and Psilocybin: Does the Approved Ballot Measure Language Stand a Chance Oregon Psychedelics: Petition to Legalize Psilocybin for Therapy Moves Forward Oregon Psychedelics: Psilocybin on the Ballot this November!
Religious organizations that want to use psychedelics for religious purposes and comply with U.S. law are forced to petition the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to do so. The petition process is set out in a set of interim guidelines published by the DEA (Interim Guidelines).
