City Council supports resolution supporting Question 4, “the ballot question seeking to address the mental health crisis in Massachusetts”
As we noted in a post about recent progress in Somerville on this front, efforts to advance a ballot referendum to provide access to certain psychedelic substances in Massachusetts have been marred by advocate infighting, opposition pressure, and subterfuge from former campaign allies.
At the same time, the group behind the ballot measure, Massachusetts for Mental Health Options, continues “advocating for accessible, innovative mental health treatments” in support of the “establishment of a therapeutic framework that recognizes the potential of psychedelic medicine to heal and transform lives.”
And this week, per MMHO, “Cambridge became the second Massachusetts city to pass a resolution to support Question 4 on the November ballot, the ‘Natural Psychedelic Substances Act,’ that would approve and regulate psychedelic-assisted therapy in Massachusetts.”
Councilor Marc Mcgovern introduced the resolution.
“These treatments have proven to be a helpful way to treat serious mental health issues like depression, anxiety and PTSD,” Mcgovern said. “We have a mental health crisis and want licensed clinicians to have access to tools to help veterans, first-responders, anyone else who is struggling.”
More from MMHO below:
Lifetime Cambridge resident and Yes on 4 educational outreach director Graham Moore, who lost his best friend to suicide and used psilocybin to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder in consultation with his Massachusetts General Hospital psychiatrist, shared, “I am eternally grateful to Vice Mayor McGovern and his colleagues for standing up for suffering veterans, hospice patients, and others who have waited long enough for more effective treatments.”
The current options for treating mental health issues are limited and often aren’t helpful to veterans with PTSD and patients confronting end-of-life anxiety. Veterans are facing a PTSD crisis. More than 6,000 veterans die by suicide each year and countless more struggle with the trauma from their service. Current laws and medical practice allow dying patients to access medications for physical pain but offer little to address the mental suffering that is part of an end-of-life diagnosis.
Question 4 would allow adults 21 years and older to access natural psychedelic substances whose tremendous therapeutic potential in mental health has been attested to by leading medical research institutions such as Mass General and Johns Hopkins. In fact, the FDA recently called psilocybin a “breakthrough therapy” for treatment-resistant depression – meaning that it may demonstrate a substantial improvement over what’s currently available. Many veterans suffering from PTSD have found healing and help with natural psychedelic medicines where other treatments have failed. Retail sales will not be permitted through this ballot question.
