Alaska’s lieutenant-governor has certified an initiative for a ballot in 2026 to legalize psychedelics like psilocybin or DMT.
After a little over a week, the Natural Medicine Alaska initiative submitted 5,000 signatures. Nancy Dahlstrom’s (R) approval of the petition would allow it to make a possible appearance on ballot next year.
Dahlstrom, in a last-week press release stated that the certification “reflects constitutional and statutory provisions for citizen-led initiative in Alaska.” The voters are ultimately responsible for deciding the merits of a proposal. However, Dahlstrom said that the form and content of the application meet all legal requirements.
In order to secure a ballot position, activists need to collect “signatures equaling 10 percent” of all votes cast at the most recent general election in Alaska, spread across three quarters of Alaska House districts.
A policy outline from the campaign explains the proposal as “building off of” Colorado’s voter-approved 2022 Natural Medicine Health Act, under which facilitators recently administered the state’s first legal dose of psilocybin.
Alaskan legislation would allow adults over 21 to use DMT, nonpeyote-mescaline, Psilocybin or psilocin for noncommercial purposes, cultivate them and share with others. This model is popular among proponents of psychedelic reformed.
This measure allows individual practitioners to offer services instead of a healing center. [natural medicine] The organizers policy statement says that they will “increase accessibility to rural communities in Alaska by increasing access in offices and home facilitation”.
The cultivation would have to be done in an area no bigger than 12 feet by twelve feet, out of the public eye. And growers must take reasonable measures to keep minors away.
To avoid any payment, transfers of psychedelics among adults would also need to take place.
The substances are prohibited for public consumption, and a fine up to $100 can be imposed.
On the commercial side, Alaska would license healing centers—where certified facilitators would supervise psychedelic administration—as well as testing labs, cultivation facilities, product manufacturers, handlers and other related businesses.
No later than July 1, 2020, the application period for licences will begin.
Alaskans would have to own the majority of facilities, and at least 50% of them must be owned by Alaskans.
Under the proposal, traditional healers will also be protected for their “ceremonial spiritual or cultural uses of plant medicines”, through exemptions in state drug laws. According to the proposal, they do not have to be licensed by a state but “must hold certification or credentials as a tradition practitioner.”
Natural Medicine Control Board, an “agency of quasi-judicial and regulation” within the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development, will oversee this system. Members would come from public safety and health as well as a person from rural areas, someone representing the natural-medicine industry, an Alaska Native Traditional Healer, someone who practices psychedelic therapy professionally, or someone from either the general public, or natural medicine sector.
The program would be governed by a Natural Medicine Advisory Committee, consisting 15 members. This body will include mental health professionals, researchers or therapists in natural medicine, tribe representatives, physicians, veterans, first responders, and healthcare experts.
In terms of traditional use, it would create a Traditional Use Council that will develop education materials and guidelines around Indigenous psychedelic principles and use. It would create a distinct credentialing and certification process which could include lineage considerations, apprenticeships, community recognition, cultural practices or training rather than formal academic or clinical training.
State Department of Law performed an evaluation of the legality of this proposal in relation to federal laws.
The Attorney General Treg (R) Taylor said the measure will not conflict with federal policies any more than does the existing state marijuana legalization laws.
When the. [Controlled Substances Act] “We found no authority that was sufficient to declare this initiative as unconstitutional at face value,” said he of the cannabis initiative.
Taylor explained that the same logic applies to the “psychedelics” measure. Taylor said that he did not believe there was a significant difference between the types of substances listed in Schedule 1 and the substance at the core of the initiative. The questions of federal enforcement and the preemption that occurs when states enact divergent laws on drug control remain unresolved. How far [the psychedelics measure’ presents pre-emption and enforcement concerns, Alaska’s marijuana regulatory scheme currently implicates those same legal issues.”
Taylor’s office also recommended a proposed ballot title and summary for the measure:
An Act Decriminalizing and Regulating the Use, Possession, and Cultivation of Hallucinogens
The act would decriminalize and regulate the use of hallucinogens for therapeutic and traditional purposes. It would create a Natural Medicine Control Board, Traditional Use Council, and advisory committee. The act would apply to psilocybin, psilocyn, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), mescaline ( excluding peyote), ibogaine, and other approved substances that come from plants or fungi.
The act would allow people 21 or older to possess and use these substances in private. It would also allow them to grow these substances, except for ibogaine, outside of public view in limited areas on their own property or someone else’s property with permission. People could not sell the substances they grew. Violators of these provisions would be subject to fines of up to $1,000.
The act would allow the distribution of hallucinogens by certified practitioners for traditional or indigenous practices. People older than 21 could use hallucinogens under the practitioners’ guidance. Practitioners could be paid for their services.
The act would also allow the board to regulate facilities that handle and provide hallucinogens. These could include healing centers, where a licensed facilitator could provide hallucinogens, and facilities for cultivation, manufacturing, and testing for safety and potency. The bill would ban people from providing hallucinogens without a license.
The board would also develop free, evidence-based education on the best practices for using hallucinogens.
Among other limits, the act would not allow a person to operate a vehicle or aircraft while under the influence of hallucinogens or a person under 21 to possess, grow, or use hallucinogens. The act would allow a local government to regulate hallucinogens if it did not conflict with the act. The act would not require that people violate federal law and people would still be subject to federal law.
Should this initiative become law?
A poll last year found that nearly half (49.4 percent) of Alaska adults would support a ballot measure to more broadly remove criminal penalties for using substances such as psilocybin mushrooms.
That support rose markedly—to nearly two thirds (65 percent)—when participants were told that Alaska has high rates of mental illnesses that could potentially be treated with psychedelics.
Photo elements courtesy of carlosemmaskype and Apollo.