The entire West is very conservative. However, the population centers often overwhelm the more conservative voices of people in the interior. Barring perhaps the tech sectors in a few counties of CA, WA, and maybe OR that bring in substantial amounts of money into their economies ranching, forestry, wilderness recreation and agriculture are by far the main industries out here and farmers and ranchers aren't necessarily known for their progressive voting tactics.

Cities like San Fran, Austin, Denver, Seattle and my own Portland put forth local legislations that often don't reflect a wide swath of their state's constituency. Which, my bleeding heart tells me, is a good thing.

I could be wrong about ranchers though, they might be using all that cows#it for something else than fertilizer...

EDIT: on another note...hmmm, i have fams in Denver, including a cousin i haven't seen since 1978 who got out from under being busted for acid in 87. I wonder how he's doing...?

First - congrats to Denver on the historic win! I was super excited to hear about the reversal, and it's great to see psychedelic medicine gaining more traction.

That said, I couldnt help but feel a little torn when I learned that Denver also voted against the Right to Survive measure, which would have ended the criminalization of homeless people in the city - quite literally for trying to stay warm or finding a place to sleep. It was a landslide vote, with just shy of 83% of voters voting "no". This means a large number of those who voted for the decriminalization of mushrooms turned around and voted to preserve the criminalization of homeless people. Now to be fair, I'm not from Denver and I know this is a nuanced issue for locals - but the bottom line is that nobody should be criminalized for trying to stay alive, plain and simple.

Given that our community has a tendency to evangelize psychedelics as tools for cultivating empathy and social change, this is troubling to me. Keep in mind that users of psychedelics are already hugely under-represented in the US criminal justice system.

So I mean, do we really care more about access to drugs that we personally benefit from than we do basic human rights? I'm curious what you all make of this, and I don't mean to be overly cynical or antagonistic - but this feels like it's worth talking about.

Agreed, it's a good thing to decriminalize at least from the local level for entheogens that can have tremendous health benefits. Societies change slowly and consider that probably only a small fraction of population in Denver had tried psilocybin - the consciousness has yet to take the leap. It's might be worth to look into whether they have housing projects for homeless and criminalizing is a way to force them into shelter albeit a way in depriving the freedom in some sense. Though I feel when enough people are able to expand consciousness through mushrooms, they'd find even better and more creative way to solve the many social issues.

Not to detract from the wonderful victory in Denver, but...

Let us not forget that the New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled that cultivation of psilocybin mushrooms does not constitute manufacturing a controlled substance all the way back in 2005.

i don't know anything about the RtS measure, although as a local homeless advocate, I'm very curious. Also not surprised. I found after being intimately involved with local above ground psuedo psychedelic movement that it is overwhelmingly rich white people, with an elitist attitude that often looks down on homeless people as being victims of themselves that aren't worth more than warehousing or moving along elsewhere. NIMBY, IOW. It's these exact same people who came up with our local BS psilocybin measure which only creates a provision to allow a certain professional class to make make money.

If it passes, I'm moving, with full knowledge i don't belong here anymore.

SO! Don't be surprised that the same people who say they want entheogenic freedom say that they are superior to people stricken by poverty, nor should you expect them to be any more aware than your average wook looking for their next high. Except that these yuppies call their drugs medicine.

Washington passed a right to Survive bill. HB 1591. The homeless population in Olympia right now is without precedent. I've never seen camp cities like these in my life, and I squatted and lived on the streets of Portland as a youth. The longest running camp town is called The Jungle. I've also never seen a meth epidemic reach such craziness before. And has been going a couple years like this. It's wild, just walking out of your door if you live downtown, which we do, with our kids.

Thanks for some context. That seems to be the argument against the measure in Denver, from what I understand. Without having taken the time to see if theres already data on this, do you think it's actually led to an increase in the homeless population/meth use? Or because they're no longer forced to hide out of sight on the fringes of society, are these tent cities just concentrated in areas where the rest of us are now forced to confront a growing problem that's been swept under the rug until now?

Awesome to see this pass.

As for the homeless thing... As someone said it is a very nuanced issue. I honestly don't know whether I am for it or against it but , just going by gut and instinct, I have to think that being homeless shouldn't be "illegal". It just isn't right and doesn't make sense.

That being said look at what's happened in parts of Cali. Human bodily waste all over the place and ostensibly a huge amount of drug use... I don't know if it's the chicken or the egg that came first , but I can say, when I've been in a homeless situation, I've though seriously about making moves based on county homelessness laws etc. Florida , for example, would be a beautiful place to be homeless (if you can deal with the oppressive heat, so maybe just the off season) but you can't lay down to sleep for more than a couple hours in alot of places without being woken up by police..

Now take Colorado Springs... The library is like a homelessness circus. Guy is in the mirror popping his zit and 2 or 3 people stop to watch and cheer him on... Tents and tarps all over the place in main areas...

I don't think either one of these situations works...

I still vote to make some sort of "fallback communities" on a national level.

Ok, done derailing; great to see these laws finally starting to turn

Decriminalization doesn't equate to legalization, but it's a welcome step in the right direction

It is sad about the homeless bill not passing

@Praxis, I've given it much thought, it's a multi faceted issue. Meth is cheaper and easier to find than ever. Police don't bust anyone, they allow a certain amount of this to go unchecked. The problem was here before, but now it's reached epidemic proportion and is on front street.