The Ann Arbor, Michigan City Council has passed a resolution decriminalizing all naturally occurring plants and fungi – including psychedelic mushrooms containing psilocybin – becoming the fourth city in the U.S. to approve such reforms, according to a Click on Detroit report. The measure makes enforcing psychedelic laws “the lowest law enforcement priority.”
Ann Arbor City Council member Anne Bannister said that the city’s police department had already considered psychedelics “a very low enforcement priority.”
The plants remain illegal under state law and police can file charges for possessing them if they are committing other crimes, the report says.
The resolution says such plants and fungi “can benefit psychological and physical wellness, support and enhance religious and spiritual practice and can reestablish humans’ inalienable and direct relationship to nature.”
Ann Arbor was one of the first U.S. cities to decriminalize cannabis in the 1970s and it has a far more relaxed approach to drug enforcement than most other Michigan cities.
Oakland and Santa Cruz, California have each passed similar measures. In 2019, Denver, Colorado voters approved an initiative decriminalizing psychedelic mushrooms.
The Vermont Legislature has pending legislation that would decriminalize psilocybin, ayahuasca, peyote, and kratom statewide but that measure has not made it to the floor for a vote.
Voters in Oregon will decide in November whether to legalize psilocybin for medical use. If approved, Oregon would be the first state to legally allow psychedelic use for medical or recreational purposes.
Get daily cannabis business news updates. Subscribe
End
