SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Legislation to decriminalize certain psychedelic drugs such as “magic mushrooms,” MDMA, ketamine and LSD was gutted by the California Legislature on Thursday, though the lawmaker who sponsored the bill vowed to reintroduce the measure next year.
Senate Bill 519 would have allowed for the possession and personal use of some hallucinogenic drugs, which advocates said would provide a critical mental health tool to treat addiction, PTSD, anxiety and depression, especially for veterans. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat, said the bill was an important next step in ending the so-called war on drugs, which has disproportionately incarcerated people of color.
The legislation on Thursday passed in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, a gatekeeper panel that sifts through hundreds of bills and decides whether legislation with a fiscal cost to the state will advance to the full Assembly, but was amended to become only a study of the decriminalization proposal. The amendment was not debated or discussed, and it took Wiener a day to find out how his bill was changed.
