“City Council approved a resolution supporting Question 4, the psychedelic ballot question seeking to address the mental health crisis in Massachusetts”
In July, members of the Somerville City Council voted in favor of a resolution supporting the upcoming “psychedelic ballot question seeking to address the mental health crisis in Massachusetts.”
Earlier this month, the Cambridge City Council followed suit, with members also backing a measure supporting Question 4.
While there’s been significant tumult on the psychedelics front in the lead-up to the November election when voters will decide on the immediate future of plant meds in Mass, voices on both sides of the ballot measure persist—including in many municipalities.
Last week, “Medford became the third 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.”
According to a media release from Massachusetts for Mental Health Options, the coalition pushing the initiative that “supports the establishment of a therapeutic framework that recognizes the potential of psychedelic medicine to heal and transform lives,” Medford City Council President Isaac B “Zac” Bears introduced the resolution.
“The research behind psychedelic-assisted therapy is more than promising, they have immense potential to treat treatment resistant depression, PTSD, and anxiety,” Bears said. “Medford supports the advocacy veterans, first-responders, and end-of-life patients have done to bring this care to Massachusetts.”
More from MMHO below:
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.
