Thanks to Marijuana Moment for this:
Yesterday, on November 02, 2021, Detroit voters approved a ballot initiative to widely decriminalize psychedelics, making it the latest in a growing number of jurisdictions to enact the reform.
Preliminary results on Tuesday evening showed the measure, which states that the city will “decriminalize to the fullest extent permitted under Michigan law the personal possession and therapeutic use of Entheogenic Plants by adults,” leading by a margin of 62 percent to 38 percent, with 80 percent of precincts counted.
The new policy will also “make the personal possession and therapeutic use of Entheogenic Plants by adults the city’s lowest law-enforcement priority.”
Michigan has proved to become a hot spot for psychedelics reform in recent months.
The Ann Arbor City Council has already elected to make enforcement of laws prohibition psychedelics like psilocybin, ayahuasca and DMT among the city’s lowest priorities—and lawmakers recently followed up by declaring September Entheogenic Plants and Fungi Awareness Month.
After local legislators passed that decriminalization resolution last year, the Washtenaw County prosecutor announced that his office will not be pursuing charges over possessing entheogenic plants and fungi, “regardless of the amount at issue.”
In September, the Grand Rapids City Council approved a resolution supporting the decriminalization of a wide range of psychedelics.
At the same time that local activists are pushing to end criminalization of psychedelics, a pair of state senators have introduced a bill to legalize the possession, cultivation and delivery of an array of plant- and fungi-derived psychedelics like psilocybin and mescaline.
NIDA also recently announced it’s funding a study into whether psilocybin can help people quit smoking cigarettes.
An official with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also said at a recent congressional hearing that the agency is “very closely” following research into the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelics like MDMA for military veterans.
In May, lawmakers in Congress filed the first-ever legislation to federally decriminalize possession of illicit substances.
