Supporters of legalizing psychedelics in Massachusetts say they hope to maintain some access to hallucinogens after the ballot question's failure.
Nate Clifford, who co-owns the Cornucopia natural foods store in Northampton, was an active supporter of the measure to legalize five types of psychedelics.
Clifford said he plans to continue to take micro-doses of psilocybin to help him deal with depression and alcoholism, using psychedelics grown and distributed by a local informal network.
But he's still very disappointed the ballot question did not pass.
"It's a defeat and it hurts and, in my opinion, people are going to get hurt," he said. "Veterans are going to go without the help [for PTSD] that they need."
He said advocates will urge state legislators to eventually write a new bill from scratch similar to the ballot question. But he said given the measure's defeat — by 56% of voters — he acknowledged that will be hard.
State Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, D- Northampton, who supported legalization, agreed.
"The voters of Massachusetts firmly rejected the idea of psychedelics for medical use and the idea of decriminalization for personal use," Sabadosa wrote in an email. "While I believe we should keep the conversation alive within the legislature and I will likely file legislation to do so, the defeat of the ballot question by voters will make it extremely difficult to pass anything similar to the ballot question for many years to come."
State rules require six years to pass before a similar ballot question could be introduced. Clifford said he wouldn't rule that out, and in the interim, he hopes to iron out some of the more controversial aspects of the ballot question — including the large amount of psychedelics people would be allowed to grow at home, and confusion over who would be eligible to become licensed psychedelic guides.
"I think we continue to work with the therapists and psychiatrists and other people in the mental health field that are already so open to it to make sure that they are a part of the conversation," Clifford said.
Meanwhile, Clifford says advocates will also push more cities and towns to decriminalize psychedelics so people can take them without fear of arrest, as Northampton and Easthampton have done.
"There are many more cities and towns in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that are open to decriminalizing just for their own resources management and dealing with the cost of the police force," he said.
The Massachusetts Psychiatric Society came out publicly against the ballot question "because the advocates claimed that the hallucinogen substances would solve the mental health crisis," said society president Nassir Ghaemi. "And we felt like we had to provide factual statements about the limited benefits and the known harms of these substances."
But Ghaemi said his group does not oppose decriminalization.
"That's a legal issue. It's not a medical one," he said. "And we can support that without having to pretend that these drugs are proven for psychiatric conditions where they're not proven."
