Leaders in Washington State’s third largest city have unanimously approved a resolution to deprioritize local enforcement of laws against psychedelics and support full decriminalization at the state and federal levels.
The legislation—requested by Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards and Councilmembers Joe Bushnell, Olgy Diaz and Jamika Scott—declares “the investigation, arrest, and prosecution of anyone engaging in entheogen-related activities to be among the City’s lowest law enforcement priorities.” It further encourages the state legislature and federal policymakers to remove penalties around the substances.
Tacoma joins other jurisdictions in the state—including the cities of Seattle, Olympia and Port Townsend as well as Jefferson County—in adopting the reform.
The new measure approved by the Tacoma City Council covers substances such as psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, mescaline and iboga as well as “any living, fresh, dried, or processed plant or fungal material, including teas or powders, that may contain currently scheduled or analog psychoactive indolamines, tryptamines, or phenethylamines.”
It notes that “scientific and clinical studies have shown the benefits of entheogens” in treating a range of physical and mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, PTSD, end-of-life anxiety, grief, isolation and intergenerational trauma.
Psilocybin-assisted therapy has been designated as a “breakthrough therapy” by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treatment-resistant depression and major depressive disorder, the measure points out.
“Communities face an unprecedented mental health crisis, unprecedented suicide rates, especially among veterans and marginalized groups, and a deepening opioid addiction crisis,” the resolution says, “and the City can contribute to removing stigmas through public education and supporting community mental health efforts.”
Activities covered under the policy change include adults planting, cultivating, gathering, transporting, distributing, possessing and using entheogens. It explicitly does not allow commercial manufacturing or sales, possession in parks or schools, driving under the influence or “conduct that puts public safety at risk or causes a public nuisance.”
Bushnell, the lead council sponsor, described the resolution at Tuesday’s council meeting as “a testament to our commitment to exploring innovative and compassionate approaches to mental health.”
“In the United States, there are 22 veterans a day who commit suicide,” he said. “As a veteran who lives with PTSD, I’m acutely aware of the challenges faced by those struggling with mental health conditions, and I know many in our community also suffer from PTSD and other mental health challenges.”
“By declaring our support for decriminalizing these substances,” Bushnell added, “we can advocate for further research and potentially life-changing treatments.”
Diaz, for her part, said psychedelics “can really help folks get through some of life’s hardest things without having to rely on big pharmaceuticals.”
Another council member, Sandesh Sadalge, noted that he moved to Tacoma to help operate a cannabis farm. In speaking to the resolution, he echoed other members’ criticism of the pharmaceutical industry.
“I think we as a society kind of suffer from the societal issues that have been wrought by these for-profit pharmaceutical companies, whose incentives to their bottom line coincide with a form of pure addiction,” he said ahead of the vote. “Part of that incentive includes the exclusion of potential therapies like this, becaues it protects their monopolies and it supports policies that are steeped in deep historical racism.”
“I support the appropriate legalization of this substance on a state level,” Sadalge said of natural psychedelics, “and so this deprioritization as a first step is something I’m happy to support.”
The newly adopted resolution was supported by the Tacoma Psychedelic Society, members of which shared personal stories with council members about how entheogens had helped them manage mental health and past trauma.
Cole Schrim, a licensed therapist and founder of the group, said the policy change will help give people “a sense of autonomy in their own healing.”
“At the end of the day, it helps free people from the fear of using psychedelics, because for some people there is more fear, whether they’re people of color or whether it’s somebody who is a city worker,” Schrim said. “It’s sending a message that people should not have to fear when pursuing their own healing.”
The resolution doesn’t change the fact that psychedelics remain prohibited under state law, but Schrim emphasized that the reform is about building support for more meaningful change at the grassroots, community level.
“We want to send a message to the state of Washington by having our local communities organize and demonstrate through our representation, our city government, honoring and respecting our stories and our concerns,” Schrim said. “The state government should start to take note of all the organized action these local communities are taking to get this movement on its feet.”
In August of last year, city leaders in Olympia, the state’s capital, also voted unanimously in favor of a similar reform, decriminalizing psilocybin and certain other psychedelic plants and fungi. That followed earlier reforms in Seattle, Port Townsend and Jefferson County.
A newly introduced bill at the state level, meanwhile, would take a more regulated approach to psychedelics reform. SB 5201, from Sen. Jesse Salomon (D), would allow adults 21 and older to legally use the substances with the support of a trained facilitator, with product manufacturers, service centers and testing labs licensed by the state.
It’s a revision of a 2023 bill from Salomon with a few adjustments, he told Marijuana Moment in a recent interview. In the time since, the lawmaker and allies have worked with outside experts—including authors of the Oregon and Colorado laws—and toured psilocybin service centers in Oregon, he said.
The 71-page bill conceives of a two-track system for psychedelics: what Salomon described as a “clinical track,” focused on psychedelics to help treat conditions such as PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders and “other serious maladies,” as well as a separate “wellness track.” The latter would be open to any adult who felt they might benefit, not just those with clinical conditions.
“It’s not my intention to create a solely diagnosis-based treatment,” the lawmaker said. “We have a wellness track, and I would really like to keep it.”
At the same time, “I wouldn’t call it recreational,” he continued, noting that products wouldn’t be available at retail stores for people to use on their own.
Outside the legislature, organizers in Washington are separately working to put a measure on the state’s ballot that would legalize a number of plant- and fungi-based psychedelics for personal use, including psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline and DMT.
While the proposal wouldn’t allow commercial sales of the substances, it would permit paid “supportive services” under which people could receive compensation for facilitating psychedelic experiences. Individual adults could also freely grow psychedelic plants and fungi and share them with other adults without remuneration.
The initiative campaign, the Responsible Entheogen Access and Community Healing Coalition (REACH WA), submitted the measure to the secretary of state last year, and the office granted it a formal ballot title and summary in June.
Separately this week, legislative committees gave initial hearings to a handful of marijuana-related bills, including proposals that would allow direct-to-consumer sales by licensed cannabis growers and finally end the state’s felony criminalization of home cultivation.
While lawmakers have not yet held votes on either of the two measures, they heard from from the bills’ sponsors and took testimony from supporters and opponents of the reforms.
Washington was one of the first two U.S. states to legalize adult-use marijuana, with voters approving Initiative 502 in 2012. Unlike most other jurisdictions to have adopted the reform since then, however, the state forbids home cultivation of cannabis for personal use—classifying it as a felony offense—and bars vertical integration within the commercial industry.
Legislative efforts to allow personal marijuana cultivation stretch back to at least 2015, but so far each has failed. Currently, only state-registered medical marijuana patients may legally cultivate the plant.
Photo elements courtesy of carlosemmaskype and Apollo.
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