Question 4 Fails: Massachusetts Says No to State-Regulated Psychedelics Access and Decriminalisation

Massachusetts looks set to reject Question 4, the only standalone psychedelic policy reform initiative to go before the electorate during this year’s polls.That means the state will not become the third to establish a state-regulated psychedelics system, which would have allowed for the legal provision of, and access to, facilitated psychedelics services along with associated functions like manufacturing. Question 4 would also have decriminalises the use, possession and growth of certain psychedelics, namely: DMT, mescaline, ibogaine and psilocybin or psilocin.At the time of writing, Bay Staters are convincingly rejecting the measure with 57.4% of votes for No and just over 50% of votes counted. After months of campaigning backed by millions of dollars, Massachusetts for Mental Health Options has registered a major failure here. Its backer, the national drug policy reform PAC, New Approach, was likely hoping that success in Mass. would have signalled continuing public support for state-regulated psychedelics systems.The campaign wasn’t without controversy, which stemmed not only from broadly prohibitionist opponents but also from within the psychedelics community.In the case of the former, Kevin Sabet’s Smart Approaches to Marijuana funnelled a million dollars into the official No campaign, whose talking heads included Massachusetts Psychiatric Society leader Nassir Ghaemi. On the latter front, Massachusetts-based psychedelics group Bay Staters for Natural Medicine attempted to undermine the Yes campaign at virtually every turn, to the extent that the ostensibly-anti-prohibition group cosied up to… well… prohibitionists.The vote looked set to be a nail-biter: While polls began to lean toward Yes in the week before the election, prior to that they had shown the race to be too close to call. Tonight’s results, then, appear to defy those polls.As the dust settles, New Approach PAC and co. will surely be looking to understand what went wrong. Some have speculated, for example, that the two-pronged nature of the Question—which includes both decriminalisation and a phased provision of legal psychedelics services—might have been too complex for voters, who were tasked with weighing in on five ballot questions this year.



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