Decriminalization: The Moral, Ethical, and Safest Path for Psychedelics
Legalization Without Decriminalization is unethical, immoral, and unsafe
INTENT: I write as an advocate for safe and ethical access to these powerful catalysts for an inward journey with an ethical and reputable facilitator. I am for safe access by individuals for their own pro-active cognitive enhancement & well-being. Any potential funds raised are for the non-profit - Mind Lumen, to support its work on shining the light on ethics and equity, being an —-seeker focused, independent, unbiased (without provider conflicts of interest), —- audit and accounting watchdog, of the mental health & wellbeing industry, particularly where psychedelic businesses operate.
Tipping Point
The conversation around the regulation of psychedelics has reached a tipping point. 2025 will see a lot of activity.
Classic psychedelics, which are non-addictive and have demonstrated profound therapeutic potential, are being increasingly accepted in clinical and research settings. However, as states and countries begin crafting policies around their use, one fundamental issue remains:
The push for a purely medicalized or legalized model without first ensuring decriminalization is not only unethical but also exclusionary, hypocritical, and self-serving.
While the legalization and medicalization of psychedelics may be well-intentioned, they inherently create gatekeeping structures that prioritize profit over safe access and usually at the expense of safety. If we truly care about mental health, personal autonomy, and safety, then decriminalization must come first—or, at the very least, happen in conjunction with legal access models.
Update:
This recent article by Chacruna Institute validates our view. Medicalization approach with the FDA is a square peg. in a round hole situation. While useful for some, it doesn’t address most of the needs for safe, ethical, access
The Moral and Practical Case for Decriminalization
Decriminalization means removing criminal penalties for possession and personal use, allowing individuals to engage with these substances without fear of arrest, incarceration, or losing their livelihoods.
Unlike legalization, which creates a regulated market, decriminalization recognizes the right of individuals to explore their consciousness and seek well-being outside of profit-driven medicalized systems.
In countries like Portugal, where decriminalization has been in place for over two decades, drug-related harms—including overdose deaths and HIV transmission—have declined, while treatment engagement has increased. This approach does not lead to widespread abuse but instead fosters a culture of education, safety, and harm reduction.
Policies need not be binary. They can be on a continuum. Strict to loose regulation and legalized to decriminalized, on a substance by substance basis, based on harm to others.
Classic psychedelics, such as psilocybin, LSD, and DMT, have been shown in clinical studies to be not only non-addictive but also among the safest substances. The plant based medicines have been used for millennia so we should be able to trust its safety profile even more. In fact, research suggests that these substances carry significantly lower risks than alcohol and many prescription medications. Yet, individuals continue to be criminalized for their use, while those advocating for exclusive legalization and medicalization fail to support the most basic human right: freedom from prosecution for personal exploration without harm to others.
The Problem with a Legal-Regulated Only Model
A legal-regulated only model—one that allows psychedelics to be sold, access to be medicalized, but does not simultaneously decriminalize possession and personal cultivation—is unethical, immoral, and unsafe! — it does not guarantee safety, access, or ethical behavior.
Profit & Taxes Over Safety – The cannabis industry has shown us what happens when substances are legalized: unethical marketing, questionable additives, and a push to maximize profits at the expense of consumer well-being. Psychedelics are far more potent in their effects, and their commercialization should not follow the same path.
Gatekeeping and Inaccessibility – Medicalization requires individuals to go through a healthcare system that is already broken, expensive, and inaccessible for many. Psychedelic therapy sessions, often costing thousands of dollars, are out of reach for the average person. People should not need a diagnosis or a hefty sum of money to explore their consciousness. We don’t need permission to exercise for our physical health, why are we requiring permission for our cognitive health and well being? The restrictive places of where the therapy is also makes it expensive. The most effective setting for therapeutic use is in nature or the comfort of a home, church, or other non-clinical location. Even if a clinic can be made to look nice, it is still a sterile environment and there is no logical reason to have expensive “licensed centers” become a blocker to a proper setting for an experience.
Hypocrisy in Regulation – Society already allows the sale of caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco—substances with far greater health risks than classic psychedelics. The idea that psychedelics must only be available through tightly controlled legal channels under the guise of “safety” is disingenuous. If safety were truly the primary concern, alcohol and cigarettes would be subject to far stricter regulations. But we all know that prohibition doesn’t work.
Perpetuating harm through criminalization – If safety is a true priority, then people must be able to access harm reduction services without fear. This includes free, anonymous drug testing services so individuals can test substances for purity, quality, and taint. Decriminalization encourages safer use by removing the stigma and legal consequences that prevent people from seeking help and testing.
Criminalization Increases Risk, Especially for Victims of Abuse – The criminalization of psychedelics creates unsafe environments in both above ground and underground models. Sexual abuse has occurred in both legal and underground psychedelic therapy settings, and criminalization makes it even more difficult for victims to come forward. When psychedelics remain illegal, victims of abuse in underground settings are often afraid to report crimes for fear of being dismissed or even prosecuted themselves. A decriminalized model ensures that individuals can seek justice without re-traumatization or legal repercussions, creating a safer and more accountable ecosystem. There is ample evidence that sexual abuse happens in legalized above ground settings too.
Clinical Trials and Studies as justification for delay and gating access - Clinical trials, survey, and statistical research studies are sometimes used to justify delay or gate access to these substances as in “let’s have more studies”. There are many legitimate and well done studies that already show the efficacy and safety and there is plenty of data available in the long history of use, as well as in indigenous cultures that shows its safety record. Policy makers, sponsors, people conducting the study should be evaluated based on pharmaceutical contributions and inexperienced decision makers’ conflicts of interest. We should also ask, what is the study trying to answer that we don’t already know the answers to from existing peer reviewed data, before public funding is allocated to it. All studies that use public funding should have their results available without a paywall.
Medical Professionals Support for Ethical Policy
The movement to decriminalize psychedelics has garnered support from medical organizations, reflecting a shift in perspective within the healthcare community.
In June 2024, the American Medical Association (AMA) formally endorsed drug decriminalization. This policy position was adopted during its annual meeting, signaling a significant change in the organization's stance on drug policy reform.
Additionally, the Organization of Psychedelic and Entheogenic Nurses (OPENurses) represents nurses at all levels who work with patients utilizing therapeutic psychedelic medicines. OPENurses aims to establish best practices, define appropriate care in psychedelic sessions, and advocate for the full inclusion of nurses in psychedelic therapy.
A Balanced Policy Approach: Decriminalization + Responsible Regulation
To build a fair and ethical psychedelic policy, we must advocate for a balanced approach that incorporates both decriminalization and responsible legalization. The answer isn’t to criminalize or move towards more prohibition.
Decriminalization and Legalization can co-exist nicely!
Here’s what that looks like:
Decriminalization language - If the word “decriminalization” is not politically useful, use other words and phrases like “remove criminal penalties” (MN), or “self-directed self-guided” (CO).
Decriminalization of personal possession and use – No one should be arrested or penalized for using or possessing psychedelics for personal purposes regardless of how they obtained it.
The right to grow – Individuals should be allowed to cultivate natural psychedelics, such as psilocybin mushrooms, for personal use, just as they can brew beer at home.
Protect livelihoods of everyone - A critical issue in the psychedelic policy debate is the right of professionals—doctors, therapists, educators, and others—to use and advocate for these substances without fear of losing their licenses or employment. It is fundamentally unjust that professionals who use alcohol, SSRIs, or even more dangerous prescription drugs can continue working without question, yet those who responsibly use classic psychedelics or educate others about them face career-ending consequences. We must push for explicit protections for licensed individuals to safely use, study, and discuss psychedelics without professional repercussions.
Anonymous drug testing services – Every individual should have the ability to test substances for quality, purity, and potency, anonymously and liability protection for locations and non-profit or public benefit organizations that enable the testing.
No advertising of psychedelic products – Psychedelics should not be treated like consumer goods. The risks of over-commercialization, poses a safety risk that are too high.
Strict labeling requirements – If psychedelics are sold, clear and detailed labeling must be required, ensuring that consumers know exactly what they are purchasing, including potency, species, free from additives or misleading marketing in the same size type as listing the benefits
Microdose-level availability – safe microdose only psychedelic products can be be sold in retail/convenience stores.
Higher-dose substances - Gifting can be anywhere. Commercial sales of potent doses should be sold only in licensed centers where safety, education, and guidance are provided.
Affordable Access - Commercial selling is different from access. “Selling” doesn’t make it affordable, it makes it more expensive. If the substance is offered without cost, then access should be allowed anywhere - homes, outdoors, and shouldn’t require onerous licensure for facilitated ceremonial, individual, or group use.
Call to Action: Demand Ethical Policy
Write, call, email your state senator or representative
SUPPORT - Decriminalization ONLY
SUPPORT - Decriminalization First or in conjunction with legal/regulated/research model
OPPOSE - Legal/regulated/research model WITHOUT Decriminalization
*Note: We are in support of research, as long as the advisory and decision-making panels or have representatives and experts with first hand psychedelic experiences as an equal vote.
To those who advocate for a legal-medicalized only model:
If you truly believe in harm reduction and access, you must also advocate and support decriminalization. Legalization without decriminalization is a profit-driven approach that benefits a few people, mostly corporations and institutions, while denying safe access to the majority of the people.
The psychedelic & mental health community should hold elected representatives who do not advocate and support decriminalization policies, accountable, during the primary election season.
A great example action taken recently in the State of Washington as mentioned in Marijuana Moment:
Erin Redding, president of the Port Townsend Psychedelic Society and a board member of REACH WAshington testified to lawmakers that the legislation "'legalizes paid, regulated use while continuing to criminalize the thriving networks of people who are already healing themselves with psilocybin—safely, effectively, with community accountability and often for free[. ...] Not only that, a regulated system incentivizes enforcement of those operating outside of it and puts those currently seeking individual or community healing at increased risk.'
She noted that in addition to deprioritizing psilocybin enforcement, the local resolutions already adopted also encourage decriminalization at the state level, with Jefferson County 'specifically asking that no regulated system be passed without decriminalization happening first or at the same time.'
Tatiana Luz, co-director of the Psychedelic Medicine Alliance of Washington, which is also a member of REACH WA, said she initially supported regulated models like Oregon’s but now opposes that approach.
Example Script for Testimony
To the Washington State Senate Committee on SB5201
Opening & Core Message
Chair and members of the committee, thank you for your time. My name is Neil Gehani, San Francisco, CA. These substances have helped with my ADHD, anxiety, and depression. I am speaking as the founder of Mind Lumen, an ethics-focused, mental health, non-profit. I am also an organizer of the largest Asian Psychedelic Society. I have contributed to the Oxford-John Hopkins ethics consensus statement and published in the American Journal of Bioethics..
The Case for Decriminalization
SB5201 must ensure that decriminalization happens first or in conjunction with legalization—history shows that it doesn’t happen AFTER. Classic psychedelics are non-addictive and cause the least harm relative to alcohol or even coffee (source: Imperial College of London). Why should I be treated as a criminal just because I chose to access this underground with my facilitator? Why should I have to leave the country to access it? Criminalization does not protect people; it makes them more vulnerable. It discourages individuals from seeking help, reporting harm, and safely accessing these substances, which have been used for centuries for healing and personal growth.
Call To Action
Even the American Medical Association supports decriminalization. Harm and abuse occur in both legal and underground psychedelic spaces—proving that legality does not automatically mean safety. Decriminalization allows for a culture of education, accountability, and harm reduction, where people can access drug testing services anonymously, report misconduct, and engage in safe community healing practices without fear. I urge this committee to ensure that SB5201 includes decriminalization alongside legalization. Legal access without decriminalization continues failed policies that punish individuals while creating extractive and re-traumatizing profit-driven systems. Decriminalization is the moral, ethical, and safest thing to do. The people of Washington deserve better. Vote NO if it does NOT include decriminalization.
Thank you for your time.