California Almost Legalized Psychedelics. Now, Supporters Are Looking for a Good Test Case

Two States Legalized Psychedelic Therapies Since 2020 and President Biden Signed a Law Supporting Studies of How They Might Help Veterans. Proposals Like Those Keep Dying in California

Advocates for psychedelic therapies plan to press the California Legislature to legalize them in some way in 2025. Several previous efforts have failed. Here, a vendor bags psilocybin mushrooms at a cannabis marketplace in Los Angeles on May 24, 2019. | Credit: Richard Vogel, AP Photo

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Last year was supposed to mark a milestone in the psychedelic movement. Lawmakers and advocates were set to make California the next frontier in allowing the use of “magic mushrooms.”

They were hopeful because Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023 — after vetoing a bill that would have decriminalized the possession of psychedelics — asked legislators for a bill that would prioritize the therapeutic promise of these drugs.

Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, responded to Newsom’s request with a proposal that would have allowed for psilocybin and other hallucinogens to be ingested in a controlled setting and under the supervision of licensed and trained facilitators.

But that bill, like three similar ones before it and after it, went nowhere. Skeptical lawmakers expressed concerns about funding, standing up a complex program and safety as they turned down the measures.

Undeterred, advocates now are regrouping to try again.

What exactly a new legislative proposal would look like in California is still uncertain, advocates and lawmakers say. Most agree that getting something through in California will have to be more narrow than what’s been proposed in the past, and likely will be centered on providing access to veterans.

What’s most feasible is “some sort of pilot program, or something on a smaller scale to prove it out,” said Jesse Gould, founder and president of the Heroic Hearts Project, which has sponsored psychedelic proposals in California and other states. His nonprofit connects military veterans struggling with post traumatic stress disorder with psychedelic programs in other countries.

Psychedelics remain illegal at the federal level, but voters in two states have authorized them for certain uses and several California cities have passed measures decriminalizing them. President Joe Biden in late 2023 signed a defense spending bill that included money to study how psychedelic drugs could be used to treat veterans and military service members.

What Gould and other advocates envision as a first step for California might look like a proposal Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat from Menlo Park and Sen. Brian Jones, a San Diego Republican, submitted last summer. Their bill, dubbed Heal Our Heroes Act, would have allowed the counties of San Diego, Santa Cruz and San Francisco to launch up to five centers each where licensed staff could facilitate psilocybin to veterans and former first responders over 21 who passed a screening test.

Their bill did not move forward, but their concept could return.

Prioritizing and limiting this experimental access to veterans and former first responders is the most responsible route, Jones said. He does not support decriminalizing psychedelics for recreational use.

“I want to serve our veterans who are suffering from these mental ailments and do everything we can so that they get the attention they need when they come home,” Jones said.

As of publication, Jones and Becker said they had not yet decided whether they’d re-introduce the Heal Our Heroes bill this year. Wiener’s office did not respond to requests for an interview.

States legalize psychedelic therapies

Approximately 8 million Americans used psilocybin mushrooms in 2023, according to RAND, a research organization, and a UC Berkeley poll showed that 61% of voters support regulated therapeutic use of psychedelic substances.

Since 2020, at least 37 states have introduced bills or ballot measures pertaining to psychedelics. These range from funding research to reducing penalties for possession. Not all proposals make it through, but some researchers predict this momentum will lead to change in state laws over the next several years. One 2023 analysis published in the Journal for the American Medical Association Psychiatry forecasted that a majority of states will have legalized psychedelics by 2037.

In the Golden State, drug reform advocacy groups and researchers have tried at least three times since 2022 to place psychedelic-related measures on the ballot, but have failed to meet the signature-gathering deadlines.

Going to voters is expensive and a major undertaking with no guarantee. The ballot box strategy proved successful in Oregon and Colorado, where voters, in 2020 and 2022, approved measures to allow the facilitated use of psychedelics.

Voters in Massachusetts, however, recently rejected a measure that would have allowed the state to legalize and regulate five plant-based psychedelics for people 21 and up.

Part of the issue with the Massachusetts ballot initiative was that it was too broad, said Jared Moffat, deputy policy director of New Approach, a political action committee dedicated to drug reform. Voters were confused about what exactly the measure would do and who it would apply to, he said. He didn’t view the measure’s failure as a sign that people would reject legalizing psychedelics for specific uses.

“I think that there’s still a ton of support for therapeutic access,” he said. “I think that people, broadly speaking, have a deep understanding that there is a mental health crisis, and that the existing tools that we have help some people, but there are a lot of folks that aren’t being helped.”

Veterans seeking new PTSD treatments

Gould started his nonprofit, Heroic Hearts Project, after his own journey with PTSD led him to the Peruvian Amazon for nontraditional therapies.

Two years after leaving the military, Gould was diagnosed with PTSD. He was also dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury. The former Army Ranger sought therapy from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but even before he could see a therapist, he was being offered prescription drugs, he said.

“This didn’t seem like the first, next best step, and I was sort of disillusioned by what was offered,” Gould said. “It was just sort of an acquiescence of, ‘oh yeah, you’re messed up, and you’re going to be messed up,’ as opposed to building tangible steps forward.”

Around the same time, he was hearing about Ayahuasca retreats in Peru. After lots of internet research and a leap of faith, Gould made the trip to Iquitos, a remote town in the northwestern part of the country. He described the experience as one of the most challenging things he’s ever done. Immediately after he felt lighter, more at peace and more connected to everything around him, he said. In the following months, he noticed that the things that would trigger anxiety, hypervigilance or depression, didn’t affect him to the same degree as before, he said.

Groups including Heroic Hearts and Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions (VETS) provide “healing grants” to veterans from across the country seeking to try guided psychedelic retreats in other countries. More recently, Heroic Hearts has also started helping vets access psychedelic programs in Oregon.

“There are a lot of veterans from California going to our retreats in Oregon,” Gould said. “I feel like if I was a politician in California, that’d be a little bit embarrassing.”

But demand currently outstrips the availability of these grants, said Khurshid Khoja, director of public policy at Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, an organization that focuses on veteran suicide prevention.

“We are saying no to a majority of the folks who are applying because we simply don’t have the funds to be able to send them,” Khoja said. “We try to identify folks who have tried everything at this point, and they need a Hail Mary because they are experiencing a suicidal ideation.”

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for veterans under the age of 45, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In California, 449 veterans died by suicide in 2022, the most recent federal data show. By some estimates 1 in 5 U.S veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan experience PTSD and major depression.

The goal, Khoja said, is get to a point where the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves a psychedelic product for therapy that can be available and covered by the Department of Veterans Affairs, but in the meantime, Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions is looking to states to create psychedelic programs.

One of the first things on advocates’ wishlist is a memorandum promising states that the federal government would not pursue charges in states that legalize and regulate psychedelics, said Sam Chapman, a political strategist and former campaign manager for Oregon’s measure that legalized psilocybin use there. The Obama administration issued that kind of guidance to states in 2013 with regard to marijuana.

“The states are going to continue to lead,” Chapman said. “The states passing laws are the reason that the federal government will eventually get off the bench and do something.”

This story originally appeared on CalMatters.org, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.