REACH WA reposted this
I've been volunteering with the team at REACH WA to help craft a statewide decriminalization framework for Washington. The REACH initiative stands out from other states' initiatives in many ways, but perhaps my favorite distinction is that one of the express purposes of our measure is "To encourage the development of a mission-driven, community-based psychedelic ecosystem in which the service providers who work with natural psychedelics are not motivated primarily by monetary interests." I'm excited to share that our initiative was recently accepted for filing and assigned a ballot title and number by the Washington Secretary of State. Although we will not have time to gather the signatures required to get it on the November ballot this year, we are proud to have come this far and to have drafted and filed a strong initiative. The initiative was dramatically improved by an extensive feedback-seeking process in which diverse stakeholders and community partners generously donated the time and attention required to read and comment on 20+ pages of legalese. The process for drafting law is often more important that the final product, and we hope to have modeled the process in inclusive ways that others might draw inspiration from. In a salutary nod, our draft initiative was recently featured in the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Summer 2024 Legislative Wrap Up, in which MAPS described our measure as "an open-sourced voter initiative" and said that our measure "includes the most comprehensive and proactive guidelines for ethical provision of supportive services we’ve seen so far." You can read MAPS's article, including summaries of initiatives in New York, Utah, and Massachusetts, here: https://lnkd.in/gUj_YTcj Even though we won't make the November 2024 ballot, we are excited to share the milestone of having accomplished a community-generated initiative, and we're looking forward to the running the initiative in 2026. You can read the measure we filed here: https://lnkd.in/g4vcFFPk. Although we are no longer doing active outreach to solicit further input on the language, it remains a work in progress and will continue to evolve. We invite ongoing feedback even as we begin moving on to the next steps of the process. To get involved or donate to the REACH effort, check out our website at https://lnkd.in/geuPgKnR or follow us on social media.