We’ve been writing about psychedelics on this blog now for three years. I believe the first article I wrote covered Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of Compass Pathway’s drug trial for COMP360, a psilocybin formulation that eventually was patented. Since that time, a LOT has happened in the space, and we have seen all
Yesterday, on June 30, the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School announced the launch of a three-year research initiative, the Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation (POPLAR). The initiative will be led by Harris Sliwoski attorney Mason Marks, who also serves on the Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board. As we've covered extensively on this blog, the
Excitement abounds about the status of MDMA, otherwise known as Ecstasy. And for good reason. As noted last month in the New York Times: …those who received MDMA during therapy [in clinical trials] experienced a significantly greater reduction in the severity of their symptoms compared with those who received therapy and an inactive placebo. Two
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
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
Efforts by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) to legalize prescription MDMA (Ecstasy) appear to have passed a gigantic hurdle earlier this month: MDMA is on track to meet the testing requirements to be a legalized prescription drug, specifically intended to treat the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After analyzing the preliminary results
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
