Legalizing psychedelics could become a ballot question in Massachusetts

By Chris Lisinski, State House News Service

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JULY 10, 2023 (State House News Service) - It's been nearly seven years since Massachusetts voters endorsed legalizing recreational marijuana, so might it be time to reconsider the state's approach toward psychedelic substances?

That's the question being weighed by a national drug policy group that has already notched similar reforms in two other states.

A group calling itself the Massachusetts for Mental Health Options committee filed paperwork with state campaign finance regulators signaling plans to pursue a ballot question that could decriminalize psychedelics.

The committee aims "to expand mental health treatment options in Massachusetts by providing new pathways to access natural psychedelic medicine therapy," it wrote in its submission with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance.

A potential ballot question would focus on "creating access to natural psychedelic medicine therapy and removing criminal penalties for personal possession of these medicines."

Otherwise, details at this point -- with a bit more than three weeks until the Aug. 2 deadline to file a 2024 initiative petition -- are sparse.

Meredith Lerner Moghimi, president of political fundraising and strategy firm MLM Strategies, is listed on the OCPF paperwork as the point of contact for the ballot question committee. She deferred questions to Ben Unger, who works for the group New Approach that helped secure passage of psychedelic therapy ballot questions in Colorado and Oregon.

Unger described the Massachusetts proposal as "still very much in the exploratory phase."

"The coalition is still forming and the policy is still going through a process of being vetted, discussed and finalized," Unger wrote in an email. "As you can imagine, lots [of] details to iron out."

New Approach reportedly spent millions of dollars in support of a 2022 Colorado ballot question that decriminalized certain psychedelic plants and fungi, which voters approved last year.

With the recreational cannabis industry up and running in Massachusetts, giving Bay Staters access to psychedelic substances like mushrooms, mescaline and ibogaine has emerged as a new front for debate.

Supporters urged the Judiciary Committee last month to embrace legislation that would legalize plant medicines for adults, arguing that it could add a novel tool to help those with mental health challenges.

"Massachusetts has the opportunity to lead the way in the mental health revolution," Southwick Republican Rep. Nicholas Boldyga told his colleagues. "It's been said an idea whose time has arrived cannot be stopped ... I believe that time is now for these life-saving plant medicines as a new paradigm in how we view, and understand, and treat mental health is upon us."