WASHINGTON — Congress took a break from the coronavirus pandemic, mass unemployment and surging violent crime on Wednesday — to debate the standing of magic mushrooms within the nation’s capitol.
“We actually — I would hope — don’t need to be generally known as the drug capital of the world,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) instructed colleagues on the Home Appropriations Committee.
Harris proposed forbidding Washington, DC, from implementing a voter initiative to make pure hallucinogens the bottom legislation enforcement precedence. Initiative organizers say they submitted sufficient signatures to look on the November poll.
Fellow Republicans backed Harris, whose modification would bar pure psychedelics used with no physician’s advice in addition to driving underneath the affect.
“All of us can agree that insurance policies that improve the supply of psychedelic medication within the nation’s capital — that’s harmful,” mentioned Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.)
“Because the nation’s capital, the District of Columbia, it needs to be a spot the place People come to see their authorities at work, for historical past and to go to a Braves-Nats sport. It shouldn’t be a vacation spot for unlawful medication,” Graves mentioned.
Home Democrats who lately voted to make DC a state rallied in opposition to Harris.
“If the district’s residents need to make mushrooms a decrease precedence and focus restricted legislation enforcement sources on different points, that’s their prerogative,” mentioned Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Unwell.).
Harris in the end withdrew his modification, saying it may very well be addressed later if DC residents approve the initiative.
The DC initiative’s organizers had been pleasantly stunned by what they heard from Harris — whose plan to intervene with their initiative was first reported by The Put up.
“Even Harris acknowledges the irrefutable science behind a few of these psychedelics,” mentioned initiative proposer Melissa Lavasani, who says she used shrooms to deal with postpartum despair.
“In his testimony, he talked about analysis round psilocybin as promising for potential therapeutic use. I consider Initiative 81 would be the first step in reforming how this nation treats psychological well being points and we hope the modification being withdrawn is an indication of extra expansive analysis on psychedelics.”
Denver final yr led the cost with a poll measure to make magic mushrooms the bottom legislation enforcement precedence — a step that additionally was pursued for marijuana earlier than the state legalized the drug.
Oakland, Berkeley and Santa Cruz, California, adopted.
Harris argued that the DC initiative is broader than the Denver model as a result of it contains extra pure hallucinogens, together with mescaline from cacti. “I believe the District of Columbia is completely different from different cities as a result of we now have individuals coming in from all around the nation,” Harris added.
Harris is reviled by many native drug reform activists due to his still-active funds provision that blocks DC from regulating leisure marijuana gross sales, which 65 % of metropolis voters backed in 2014.
In a press release, Harris mentioned the combat’s not over on psychedelics.
“This can be a new concern to the committee,” Harris mentioned. “Between now and the assembly of the convention committee this fall, the difficulty of whether this can be on the poll can be resolved. Fortuitously, in that point, members will even have time to study extra about this sophisticated medical concern.”
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