Emotional testimony as Easthampton council backs psychedelics ballot initiative

Psilocybin mushrooms at a pop-up cannabis market in Los Angeles. The Easthampton City Council on Wednesday approved a resolution supporting Question 4 on Election Day next month. The initiative would enforce the limited legalization and regulation of certain natural psychological substances in Massachusetts.

Psilocybin mushrooms at a pop-up cannabis market in Los Angeles. The Easthampton City Council on Wednesday approved a resolution supporting Question 4 on Election Day next month. The initiative would enforce the limited legalization and regulation of certain natural psychological substances in Massachusetts. AP

By ALEXA LEWIS

Staff Writer

Published: 10-10-2024 5:04 PM

EASTHAMPTON — At an emotionally charged meeting full of deeply personal stories from community members and officials, the City Council voted to approve a resolution supporting Question 4 on Election Day next month.

The proposed law would provide limited legalization and regulation of certain natural psychoactive substances in the commonwealth, allowing them to be grown, possessed and used by those age 21 or older in certain settings.

Easthampton becomes the fourth community in the state to endorse the question and the first in western Massachusetts. The others are Somerville, Cambridge and Medford.

Many of those at the meeting spoke to their personal experiences using psychedelic treatment to heal various traumas and addictions for themselves or their loved ones.

Stephen Bryla, a local business owner, shared how psychedelics aided him in overcoming an addiction to alcohol, and Christopher Fiato, a Holyoke resident who grew up in Easthampton, was moved to speak about the role of psychedelics in helping him heal from a “generational addiction” to opiates.

“I’ve struggled with addiction to opiates for about half my life,” said Fiato. “I’ve been clean for a little while, but a large part of that is through use of psilocybin specifically.”

Fiato asserted that natural psychedelics can equip Western medical systems with the ability to more effectively “get to the root of these issues.”

Councilor Brad Riley also shared his experience participating in a Yale University trial testing the efficacy of ketamine therapy in treating trauma, for eventual use on veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. He described the loss of awareness and self that the substance caused him to surrender to, before having a “deeply spiritual reawakening two hours later.”

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“I had successfully undergone the psychological concept of ego death and rebirth — it is a common element of psychedelic therapy,” said Riley. “I can’t explain where I went, but I left an awful lot of my pain and suffering before I came back to reality.”

Riley explained that the ketamine treatment, accompanied by professional therapy, allowed him to let go of the fears that past trauma had instilled in him, allowing him to “cherish” time with his husband and children and live life more fully.

“Psychedelics healed me in a well-regulated therapeutic setting, and I know that it heals veterans too,” he added, emphasizing that despite societal stigmas surrounding these substances, “there is nothing you should be afraid of” with regard to their regulated use.

For Councilor Salem Derby, a sponsor of the resolution alongside Councilors Homar Gomez and Owen Zaret, the proposed law — which the council endorsed on an 8-1 vote, with member Jason Tirrell voting against — is “about righting another wrong” when it comes to criminalized substance use. Derby recalled the “amazing research” being done with psilocybin “up until the war on drugs,” when “all of that research stopped even though it was promising and it was really, really powerful.”

Councilor Tamara Smith also recalled growing up during the “war on drugs,” and the fear and resistance that instilled in her surrounding the use of such substances.

“As a sociologist, I’m aware that a lot of your first response to things that are new and different is your socialized response,” said Smith. “This is a very interesting social movement because it’s all for the rights of someone else to be able to seek relief from this.”

Among those who spoke at the meeting in favor of the measure were several University of Massachusetts Amherst student organizers who emphasized the cultural and medicinal legacy of natural psychedelics, and the educational outreach director of Massachusetts for Mental Health Options, Graham Moore, who said he experienced “tremendous healing” through psilocybin use to address his “debilitating” obsessive-compulsive disorder.

But the proposed law didn’t yield unambiguous support at the meeting. Many audience members and councilors feared that the language of the law establishing a regulatory commission for these psychedelic substances would promote regulatory capture, prioritizing the interests of businesses over the herbalists, healers and Indigenous groups that use these substances in regular and often sacred practices.

The language of the resolution acknowledges this concern and calls on the state Legislature to create a more democratic process for selecting commission members and alter its composition to include more representation from groups with cultural and ecological expertise regarding psychedelics.

In addition, Councilor Jason Tirrell raised concerns about the nature of psychedelic legalization described in the proposed law, namely the ability for those over the age of 21 to grow and possess certain psychedelic substances.

“Those seem to be two different subjects that should be addressed separately,” said Tirrell.

He worried that this aspect of the law would have different implications than its allowance of psychedelic possession and use in medical or therapeutic settings, leading him to vote against the resolution.

Alexa Lewis can be reached at alewis@gazettenet.com.