A joint legislative committee in Connecticut has voted to pass legislation to decriminalize the personal possession of psilocybin mushrooms.
Dried psilocybin mushrooms.
Today Connecticut’s Joint Committee on Judiciary voted overwhelming to approve House Bill 5297. The measure would make it so that any person “who possesses or has under such person’s control less than one-half ounce of psilocybin shall, for a first offense”. For subsequent offenses the fine would be “not less than two hundred dollars or more than five hundred dollars.”
The measure clarifies that law enforcement officer issuing a complaint for a violation of this section “shall seize the psilocybin and cause such substance to be destroyed as contraband in accordance with law.”
Th legislation states that “Any person who, at separate times, has twice entered a plea of nolo contendere to, or been found guilty after trial of, a violation of subsection (a) of this section shall, upon a subsequent plea of nolo contendere to, or finding of guilty of, a violation of said subsection, be referred for participation in a drug education program at such person’s own expense”.
Among those in support was a licensed therapist arguing it should be available for her patients who have mental health issues, and a representative for the Last Prisoner Project, Jason Ortiz, pointed out that possessing psilocybin is punishable by up to a year in prison, with a two-year mandatory minimum sentence if caught in a school zone.
“We are talking about a simple handful of mushrooms and you’re potential incarcerating people for years of their life”, said Jason Ortiz, a representative for the Last Prisoner Project, earlier this month during a public hearing on the bill. Ortiz called psilocybin “one of the least harmful plants on the planet”, saying criminalization “is not in the best interest of the public”.
The full text of the proposed law can be found by clicking here.
