Should Municipalities And Counties Be Able To Ban Psychedelic Therapy?

One of the biggest selling points for getting voters to allow sales of marijuana to adults in Colorado was that towns and counties could vote to allow or not to allow sales. However, the recently passed Natural Medicine Health Act, which legalized psychedelic mushrooms and clears the way for a natural medicine-regulated access program in the state, prohibits localities from banning psychedelic therapy.

The Cannabis Report – April 6th, 2023

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There are still plenty of places in and around the state where you can’t buy pot, or at least not until recently.

Palmer Lake, a city off Colorado 105 west of Monument, started selling pot recreationally last weekend. Recently in Golden, Verts Neighborhood Dispensary made the city’s first recreational sale, seventeen months after voters said yes to recreational cannabis.

This comes at a time when voters in Colorado Springs rejected recreational marijuana sales in November. Up north of Colorado, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the city council recently voted 6-3 against any changes in marijuana laws, rejecting a proposal to decriminalize marijuana.

A recent story in the Denver Post concentrated on the little town of Cokedale, an old mining town with only 150 residents west of Trinidad. The story found that the recent psychedelic law passed in the state, Proposition 122, which decriminalized the growing, use and sharing of psilocybin and psilocin— key compounds found in “magic mushrooms” — along with ibogaine, mescaline and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, does not allow a city or county to opt out of psychedelic therapy. It’s different in that respect from the marijuana laws.

Colorado counties and cities cannot demand the psychedelics industry stay away. “Proposition 122 specifically prohibits local bans,” state Sen. Steve Fenberg, told the Denver Post. However, localities are not totally powerless. “A municipality can’t ban — but it can regulate time, place and manner,” Feinberg clarified.

Should local jurisdictions be allowed to stop marijuana and/or psychedelic therapy? I’m not going to take a stance, but it’s a good question.

About Leland Rucker:

Leland Rucker is a journalist who has been covering the cannabis industry culture since Amendment 64 legalized adult-use in Colorado, for Boulder Weekly, Sensi, and The News Station. Leland has been keeping KGNU listeners up-to-date on cannabis news for nearly a decade.

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