Shrooms. Eat the right ones and you might end up with super cool hallucinations. Eat the wrong ones and you’ll be bordering on death. You win some, you lose some, right? Pro tip: DON’T EAT THE ALL WHITE ONES. Those are NOT magic.
Anyway, some activists in Denver are looking to win a different kind of mushroom battle. These toadstool fanatics are from the group Decriminalize Denver, and they have launched an initiative to stop penalizing adults for partaking in magic mushrooms…the kind where the psilocybin takes you on one hell of a psychedelic experience. Not that we’d know anything about that.
The petition is asking for the city of Denver to decriminalize – not legalize; there’s a difference – the use and possession of psilocybin mushrooms by adults 21 and older. The move would not make magic mushrooms legal, per se, but it would make magic mushroom busts a low priority for cops. (Side note: these kids from Maryland sure could have used a decrim movement prior to their dorm room door being kicked in for the crime of cooking morels, a fancy non-psychoactive type of mushroom one forages for.) It would also prevent the city from using precious resources to impose penalties for shroom lovers.
And, this decrim mushroom movement may become more than a pipe…er, mushroom cap dream, because Decriminalize Denver has gotten quite a few people on board for this trippy ride. The city only requires 4,726 verified signatures from registered voters to land an initiative on the May ballot, and according to the Denver Post, the group has collected more than 8,000 freaking ballot petition signatures. That’s nearly double the requirement. Shroom lovers, unite!
The group turned in the ballot petitions Monday, according to the Post, which will give the Denver Elections Division about month to verify the authenticity of the 8,000 signatures.
If the initiative is successful, the move would make Denver the first U.S. city to decriminalize magic mushrooms, which would be cool as a cucumber. Just let the people trip balls in peace already, will ya?
Angelica Leicht
