SANTA CRUZ — Following in the footsteps of Oakland and Denver, Colorado, city leaders unanimously agreed Tuesday night to decriminalize adult use, possession and cultivation of entheogenic psychoactive plants and fungi.

Known in one of its more popular forms as “magic mushrooms,” the substances remain illegal on a federal level, but city law enforcement has been directed to not spend resources on its criminal enforcement locally.

The Santa Cruz City Council decision, first championed last year by Mayor Justin Cummings and Councilmembers Sandy Brown and Drew Glover, came after a vulnerable outpouring of community testimony, many sharing personal mental health struggles and efforts to successfully treat their symptoms.

Councilman Chris Krohn commended the resolution’s dozens of Decriminalize Santa Cruz advocates in the audience, saying they had “been a model of planting a political seed” and setting a path for the community to embrace use of entheogenic psychoactive plants and fungi.

Early adopters

Elsewhere around the nation, Denver voters passed a ballot measure in May decriminalized psilocybin, and in June, the Oakland City Council passed a resolution decriminalizing entheogenic plants in general. Santa Cruz’s resolution this week, making it the third city in the U.S. to take such a step, declares city resources will not be expended on the investigation and arrest of persons 21 years of age and older “solely for the personal use and personal possession of entheogenic plants and fungi listed on the Federal Schedule 1 list and that such activities should be considered among the lowest law enforcement priorities for the City of Santa Cruz.” Sale to, use and cultivation by those younger than 21, however, are not protected.

Similarly, Santa Cruz County is home to the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), which became in the 1990s the first collective given nonprofit status in the U.S. Founder Valerie Corral, who spoke in support of the resolution Tuesday, was a contributor to 1996’s state voter Proposition 215 legalizing medical marijuana, the first such state to do so.

Support

Decriminalize Santa Cruz co-founder Sean Cutler, who, along with Julian Hodge, successfully lobbied for the change in city criminalization of psychedelics over an eight-month period, sat ready Tuesday with a handheld sign, awaiting the night’s outcome. Facing the council, a colorful message urged elected leaders to “Decriminalize Shrooms.” On the flip side, ready to criticize any sign of disagreement, was the black-marker scrawled jab, “Okay Boomer.”

Cutler, who also is a member of UCSC’s Students for Sensible Drug Policy group with Hodge, said he had no need of the insult Tuesday. Acknowledging that decriminalization is not legalization, Cutler said after the meeting that the council vote represented forward movement.

“The drug war needs to be ended in small deliberate steps,” Cutler said. “We acknowledge that the U.S. government has spent 50 years indoctrinating Americans to believe that alcohol is good and everything else is bad, evil, for poor people. They have stigmatizing everything but alcohol and cigarettes.”

Santa Cruz’s resolution cites the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s October 2018 decision to grant “breakthrough therapy” designation for studies on psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression, and refers also to the use of the plants in traditional natured-based healing therapies.

Opposition

While there was little public resistance to the proposal on display at Tuesday’s meeting, some concerned community members wrote to the council in opposition to the resolution. Les Gripkey, who identified himself as a retired mental health professional, wrote that the council’s symbolic approval would serve to normalize and green-light recreational use of the drugs, producing a trickle-down effect to the area’s youth.

“Imagine how fun & intriguing ‘magic mushrooms’ might sound to kids!,” Gripkey wrote. Related Articles All-woman class of Santa Cruz City Council candidates face off

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“Psychedelics mimic symptoms of schizophrenia (audio/visual hallucinations, distortions of time & space) and can be a trigger for people with latent schizophrenia,” Gripkey continued in his letter. “I worked with a client whose schizophrenia onset came directly after taking psychedelics. We have enough issues with mental illness in Santa Cruz without opening the door to more.”

City leaders agreed to support educational outreach related to the substance’s use, including deterrence for under-age users, and urged that use of the plants and fungi for health and spiritual well-being purposes be done in consultation with, and under the supervision of trained/medical professionals.

The council agreed that entheogenic plants and fungi can also be “deleterious for individuals and use requires harm reduction strategies and oversight by trained medical professionals for personal safety” and will work to support harm reduction and educational outreach strategies.