Rhode Island lawmakers held a hearing on a newly reintroduced bill that would exempt psilocybin from the state’s laws against controlled substances, legalizing possession and home cultivation for personal use.
Members of the House Judiciary Committee discussed the proposal from Rep. Brandon Potter (D) on Tuesday, taking expert testimony on the science and policy landscape surrounding the psychedelic.
“Psilocybin is effectively a natural compound that’s in a variety of mushrooms. It is non-toxic, non-addictive. It’s a natural compound,” Potter said in opening remarks. “There’s an abundance of especially medical research that shows incredible effects for treating people with complicated PTSD, depression, severe anxiety, addiction—just an absolute abundance of medical research from leading medical research institutions.”
“I’m optimistic that we’d be able to actually move this into law this year. And for what this bill does, so we’re clear, this is just simply a decriminalization effort for personal possession,” he said. “So if for nothing else, however you feel about the subject, I think you know most people can agree this is not something where we really should be prioritizing law enforcement action and subjecting people to criminal prosecution for.”
Under the bill, sharing psilocybin—the main psychoactive compound in psychedelic mushrooms—would also be permitted.
It’s not the first time lawmakers have considered such a proposal. The measure, H.5186, is a revised version of last year’s H.7047, also from Potter, as well as a similar bill in 2023 that passed the House on a 56–11 vote, but did not move forward in the Senate before the end of the session.
Victoria Litman, a professor and psychedelics law expert, gave an overview of state and local policy developments over recent years, emphasizing that “citizens and elected officials nationwide are seeing the promise of these medicines.”
“They’re recognizing the mental health crisis that we’re in, and they’re eager to make these medicines safer and easier to access,” she said. “States are recognizing that the federal government has never led the way on smart drug reform, and states are not waiting.”
“You’re seeing bills in states like Virginia and in Texas. We’ve seen bills in Utah, right? This is not a blue or red issue,” Litman said. “It’s a public health—and especially mental health, veterans’ rights, first responders—that kind of issue.”
H.5186 would permit the possession of “any compound, mixture, or preparation containing less than one ounce (1 oz.) of psilocybin” so long as it was “securely cultivated” within a person’s residence or “shared by one person to another.”
The change would last only until July 1, 2027, at which point it would sunset. Before then, the state’s attorney general would need to report to leaders of the House and Senate “the number of violations issued for possession, cultivation, or distribution of psilocybin,” and the director of the state Department of Health would need to report on the federal scheduling status of the substance.
The bill also says that if the federal government reschedules psilocybin, the state Department of Health “shall establish rules and regulations pertaining to the cultivation, distribution and medical prescription” of the drug, including to make it available at locations within the state.
Notably, the measure refers to rescheduling by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Drug scheduling, however, is typically under the purview of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
FDA has already granted breakthrough therapy status to psilocybin for the treatment of certain depressive disorders.
If approved, the bill would take effect on July 1 of this year.
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Last month in Rhode Island, meanwhile, the state’s Cannabis Control Commission released nearly 200 pages of draft regulations for the state’s budding adult-use marijuana market.
As for other drug policy developments in the state, late last year organizers cut the ribbon on the first state-sanctioned safe consumption site for illegal drugs in the United States. The facility—located in Providence—stems from a 2021 bill creating a pilot program for overdose prevention centers (OPCs) in the state.
While controversial, overdose prevention centers have been lauded by academics and harm reduction advocates as a promising way to reduce drug-related deaths and connect people with social services, including treatment for drug use disorders.
“People with substance abuse disorder are going to use,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley (D) said at the facility’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. “What’s different here is that they will use in a supervised fashion with medical professionals on staff so that they do not die, and then there will be services wrapped around.”
Researchers at Brown University will be following the developments.
“The goal is to identify how OPCs operate in the United States,” Brown epidemiology professor Brandon D.L. Marshall said in a university post about the project. “If they are working, what makes them particularly helpful for people? In what ways do they connect people to addiction treatment and care? How can they best be integrated into a community that’s been hard hit by the nation’s overdose crisis? Those are some of the things we’d like to tease out.”
New Mexico Senate Panel Unanimously Approves Bill To Legalize Psilocybin Therapy
Photo courtesy of Dick Culbert.
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