In November 2021, Assemblymember Marie Waldron went to a Veterans Day event at the Hotel del Coronado. It turned out to be an eye-opening experience.
The Escondido Republican came in contact with the group Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, which advocates for the emerging science of using naturally occurring psychedelics to treat post-traumatic stress syndrome, help prevent suicide and cope with traumatic brain injuries.
In a recent interview, Waldron said she spoke with “Navy SEALS who had been treated with psychedelics and had such success.”
For years, the former GOP Assembly leader has been focused on legislation to improve mental health care and combat drug abuse.
Fast forward to November 2023. Just a month after Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a broad bill to allow psychedelics for mental health treatment and decriminalizing small amounts for personal possession, Waldron has teamed up with that bill’s author, Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, on new legislation focused solely on psychedelic therapy.
The fate of this latest effort is uncertain, but the general outlines provided by Waldron and Wiener are tailored to what Newsom said he wanted in his veto message, in which he suggested he could support “new opportunities to address mental health through psychedelic medicines like those addressed in this bill.”
Said Waldron, “It’s always helpful when you know where the administration priorities are.”
Research has shown considerable promise for therapeutic use of such substances as psilocybin and psilocin, the psychoactive ingredients in certain kinds of mushrooms.
According to Forbes, the Food and Drug Administration in 2018 marked psilocybin as a “breakthrough therapy,” a designation that expedites the development of drugs that may be more effective than existing treatments.
Various studies and trials have been conducted on the use of psychedelics in therapy, including an ongoing clinical trial by UC San Diego in partnership with the Veterans Administration San Diego Healthcare.
Meanwhile, numerous cities and states have been moving to decriminalize psilocybin, beginning with Denver, Colo., in 2019. Several cities followed suit, including Oakland and Santa Cruz.
Oregon voters passed such a measure in 2020, as did their counterparts in Colorado last November.
Dozens of laws have been introduced across the nation, with some limited to allowing, or studying, psychedelics for therapeutic purposes while others call for broader decriminalization.
The trend is a bit awkward because, similar to cannabis, the use, sale and possession of psilocybin in the United States is illegal under federal law.
While there is growing interest in the potential therapeutic value of psychedelics, the notion of general decriminalization has less support. Some opponents have voiced concern about normalizing use of the drugs whose impacts are not fully known.
Some law enforcement officials also oppose decriminalizing psychedelics. In Colorado and likely elsewhere, critics said the state shouldn’t be moving ahead of the Food and Drug Administration.
In vetoing Wiener’s Senate Bill 58, Newsom said California needs to set up guidelines regarding dosing information, therapy use and “rules to prevent against exploitation during guided treatments, and medical clearance of no underlying psychoses.”
“Unfortunately, this bill would decriminalize possession prior to these guidelines going into place,” he wrote.
Waldron said she voted for SB 58 to boost therapeutic study and use. That’s the specific target of the current proposal, first reported by Politico, and Waldron said she isn’t sure she would back more wide-ranging decriminalization at this time.
“We certainly don’t want a wholesale opening when we haven’t had clinical use,” she said.
Waldron last year introduced her own measure, Assembly Bill 941, to authorize licensed professional clinical counselors to administer controlled psychedelics to combat veterans under specific guidelines. She put that measure aside, though it is still pending in the Legislature.
She said the eventual bill with Wiener would likely include people in other occupations who experience post-traumatic stress, including firefighters, police officers, paramedics and emergency medical technicians.
Waldron said people in some of those professions testified before a legislative committee in favor of clinical use of psychedelics.
The Assembly member said she wants to see California establish a panel of experts to draft guidelines for use of psychedelics, similar to what Colorado has done.
Along with potentially sending Newsom a bill he will accept, having bipartisan co-authors would seemingly give it a boost. It would be easy to suggest that Waldron and Wiener are something of a political odd couple, but that’s not the case here.
Waldron said she and Wiener have co-authored several bills over the years. She specifically pointed to their collaboration on the state’s Mental Health Parity Act, which required health plans and insurance companies to expand coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment.
As their partnership suggests, this is not a partisan issue. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, has proposed research on psychedelic therapy for active-duty service members. Rick Perry, the former Texas governor and secretary of energy for President Donald Trump, also backs such studies. Both are military veterans.
Moving forward, Waldron said she, Wiener and others are hoping the “magic mushrooms” stigma will diminish.
“One of the first steps is the more we talk about it the more acceptance there is,” she said.
“I think like anything else, education is the key ,” she continued. “People say ‘Oh, psychedelics’ and they think back to when they were teenagers…
“‘Magic mushrooms?’ Well, that’s not what this is,” she added. “It’s saving lives.”
