Despite momentous progress developing legal psychedelic medicines, drug possession is still the number one reason for arrest in the United States.
FDA-approved medical access to psychedelics is only a part of the equation for a healthful society: criminalizing relationships with psychedelics, or any other drugs, harms public health and well-being. Read MAPS’ statement on decriminalization and regulation at maps.org/policyreform.
Reduce the harms of drug prohibition by researching and voting for elected officials!
- Find out where your elected officials and your local candidates stand on drug policy reform. Try calling their offices or asking on social media!
- Find out what’s going on in your city and state, carefully review your sample ballot, and VOTE!
This November, voters across the country will have a number of chances to directly change drug policy.For the first time in U.S. history, drug decriminalization is on the ballot, in a Portugal-inspired measure in Oregon.
- If Measure 110: The Drug Decriminalization and Addiction Treatment Initiative passes, Oregon would be the first place in the U.S. to decriminalize MDMA, LSD, and all other controlled substances. Measure 110 would reallocate funding to substance dependency treatment.
Ready to help? You can volunteer with a phone bank for Measure 110 here.
Oregonians have the opportunity to make history twice, with another game-changing initiative on the ballot.
- Measure 109: Psilocybin Mushroom Services Program Initiative would create the first legal system to regulate the supervised use of psilocybin.
Ready to help? You can volunteer with a phone bank for Measure 109 here.
Voters across the United States have more exciting opportunities to chip away at the war on drugs.
- Voters in Washington, D.C., will consider Measure 81: Entheogenic Plant and Fungus Policy Act, making psychedelic plants and fungi the lowest law enforcement priority following similar successful initiatives in Oakland, Santa Cruz, Ann Arbor, and Denver. Please take the time to read the joint statement released by the National Council of Native American Churches and the Indigenous Peyote Conservation Initiative calling for the consideration of the “complex relationship of the law, our history, and social/cultural realities in the U.S. to the peyote cacti.”
- Voters in Montana, New Jersey, Arizona, and South Dakota are all voting on cannabis legalization (and some to grow at home). A number of states have continued to legalize and decriminalize cannabis through the legislature including, most recently, Vermont and Virginia.
- South Dakota is also deciding on a medical cannabis system along with Mississippi.
- At the national level, the MORE Actis approaching a vote in Congress. The MORE Act would end federal prohibition of cannabis and begin to undo the harms of cannabis criminalization.
Your votes make a difference across your ballot.
With hope,
MAPS Policy & Advocacy Team