The voter-approved legislation to decriminalize drugs in Oregon made a big splash way back in November, but since then we haven’t heard a whole lot of news.
Of course, it’s a long process to create a brand new industry from the ground up, but there have been some recent rumblings.
In March of this year, Oregon’s Governor took the first step in creating some therapeutic ground rules by appointing a 17 member advisory board that would decide on its structure. The board is full of psychologists, public health experts, harm reduction specialists, and other people we should probably trust to know what they’re doing.
Governor Kate Brown had this to say at the time: “Like many, I was initially skeptical when I first heard of Measure 109. But if we can help people suffering from PTSD, depression, trauma and addiction—including veterans, cancer patients, and others—supervised psilocybin therapy is a treatment worthy of further consideration.”
The board has until June 30th, 2022, to submit their rules to the Oregon Health Authority, which then plans to adopt them by December of next year, and accept applications in January 2023.
We should start seeing some legal therapy programs sometime in 2023 within the state of Oregon.
On the other side of decriminalization, $20 million in funding has been given out 48 different community-based organizations. This includes Tribal groups and addiction recovery programs.
While the implementation of psychedelic-assisted therapy, the splashiest part of Oregon’s legislation, will take a couple years to find its footing, real change is occurring via some new avenues for cash and a new focus on rehabilitation over punishment. It’ll be extremely fascinating to see how this has shaped the landscape of the state in ten years from now, when the ripple effect have reached much farther.
