Protests Drive DC Psychedelics Decriminalization Signatures As Activists Launch Major Mailer Campaign

Protests in the nation’s capital have helped drive about 5,000 new signatures for a local Washington, D.C. psychedelics decriminalization measure over the past week, organizers say. And now, activists are announcing on Tuesday that they are mailing petitions to every registered voter in the city as part of their campaign to place the initiative on the November ballot.

The proposal, I-81, would make enforcement of laws against various entheogenic substances such as psilocybin, ayahuasca and ibogaine among the city’s lowest law enforcement priorities. Decriminalize Nature D.C. (DNDC) has until July 6 to submit about 30,000 valid signatures from registered voters to qualify for the ballot.

Activists encountered a serious challenge when they had to suspend in-person signature gathering due to the coronavirus pandemic, but local lawmakers gave them a boost when the D.C. Council approved emergency legislation allowing for alternative collection methods. DNDC then launched a test, sending 10,000 petitions to residents across the city and asking them to sign and return them.

A campaign representative told Marijuana Moment that in the four weeks since that initial mailing, about 7.4 percent have been returned with valid signatures—and they anticipate that rate to continue to tick up. The test encouraged them to repeat the process on a greatly expanded basis by mailing packets containing the petition to about 220,000 addresses—that’s every household in the city that has at least one registered voter living there.

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Help reform police priorities in the District of Columbia! If you are registered to vote in DC, we need YOUR help to put Initiative 81 on the November ballot. ⠀ ⠀ –> Download an official petition TODAY. Then, print, sign, scan (or take a picture) and return the signed petition by email! Get the petition here: https://decrimnaturedc.org/petition.pdf⠀ ⠀ #DecrimNature #PlantMedicine #Democracy #ReformPolice #LocalDemocracy #DemandReform #EndtheWaronDrugs #PoliceRefrom #Initiative81 #BallotInitiative #ChangetheLaw

A post shared by Decriminalize Nature DC (@decrimnaturedc) on Jun 9, 2020 at 4:45am PDT

Because of delays in mail processing—and the potential for errors on petitions that would need to be identified, returned, corrected and resubmitted—they’re asking voters to send in their signature sheets by June 26.

The COVID-19 outbreak certainly hit the campaign hard, but organizers have seen a significant, positive response during recent protests against police violence, where they have been able to station tents along main streets and collect signatures with social distancing measures in place.

Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) was approached by a campaign volunteer at a recent protest. But while she held the petition and looked at it, she declined to sign. About 5,000 others did take the opportunity to sign at the events in the span of a week, however.

Im standing by the blue tent with @DecrimNatureDC which has collected over 5,000 signatures in the past week. #I81 is the only police priorities initiative to be on the ballot in DC this year. This is “Direct Democracy” proposed by #DCMOM@MelissaMNDC#BLM#DrugWar#PlantMedicinepic.twitter.com/rFhXvWLohm

— 🔥Adam Eidinger 🌊 (@aeidinger) June 8, 2020

The nature of the demonstrations has led DNDC to emphasize in their messaging the role of the drug war in racial injustices that protestors are targeting.

“As a campaign of concerned DC citizens focused on reforming police priorities and enacting this small step to end the war on drugs in the District of Columbia, Initiative 81 compliments policing reforms demanded at ongoing Black Lives Matter protests which DNDC has attended and supports,” the group said in a press release.

pic.twitter.com/Xty7FLp7zQ

— DecrimNatureDC (@DecrimNatureDC) June 5, 2020

Melissa Lavasani, DNDC’s chief petitioner, said that “in these uncertain times, engagement with local democracy is key to enacting real reform.”

“When you receive a petition in the mail, it is an invitation to both make a positive change in DC laws and to support local democracy by giving DC voters the opportunity to vote on Initiative 81 in November,” she said.

Cops need to take #mushrooms! #Healing#plantmedicine#BLM#BlackLivesMatter#Initiative81#entheogen#EndTheRacistDrugWar#DC#WashingtonDC#SignThePetition#DirectDemocracy#icantbreathe#georgefloyd#psilocybinmushrooms#psilocybe#psilocybinpic.twitter.com/CFjD6d5052

— DecrimNatureDC (@DecrimNatureDC) June 7, 2020

The cost of sending the 220,000 mailers is estimated to be about $160,000, the campaign said. That puts them over budget, but activists are confident that it will give them the push needed to make the ballot. Even if the valid signatures don’t come in ahead of the July 6 deadline, however, the group will be positioned to push ahead for the 2022 primary election—or a special election if something warrants that in the interim.

Though it only covers a small fraction of their costs to date, DNDC says it has brought in about $5,000 in donations after sending out handmade masks featuring various entheogenic plants. The activist company Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps has also donated substantial funds to the effort.

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DC Council Approves Bill That Will Help Psychedelics Decriminalization Initiative Qualify For Ballot Despite Coronavirus

Members of the Washington, D.C. Council unanimously approved a bill on Tuesday that would help activists behind a psychedelics decriminalization measure qualify for the November ballot despite complications resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Separately, the campaign shared with Marijuana Moment the details of a new signature gathering strategy it plans to launch when its petitions are officially approved by the District this week.

Councilmember Charles Allen (D) proposed the key electoral provisions of the broader COVID-19 emergency legislation, which would allow ballot initiative campaigns to electronically distribute petition sheets to their signature gatherers and let those petitioners return their collections to organizers in digital form. Voters would still have to physically sign printed sheets, but those could then be scanned and sent back to campaign headquarters.

The legislation would also, for the first time, enable ballot petitioners to sign sheets that they themselves are circulating. Currently, circulators are not allowed to sign their own petition and must use one controlled by a separate person—a policy that is contributing to the difficulty advocates are facing during a time of social distancing and stay-at-home orders.

Another change to the signature gathering process included in the proposal would eliminate a requirement that petitions be printed on legal-sized paper, rather than on the standard size that most people have in their home printers.

Together, the reforms will make it much easier for voters to print petitions, sign them and return them to the Decriminalize Nature D.C. campaign, which is seeking to deprioritize enforcement of laws against a wide range of entheogenic substances such as psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca.

“Though it is uncertain how long the District’s state of emergency will last, it is clear that the need for social distancing will continue in some form throughout the summer, thus limiting the ability of candidates and initiative proposers to gather large numbers of signatures and obtain ballot access,” Allen, who chairs the Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, wrote in a memo to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D). “These changes will allow eligible District residents to download petition sheets from campaigns at home, print them out, circulate them for physical signatures within their small social networks or families, and return them electronically to the campaigns.”

“The legislation recognizes that signatures protect democracy by serving as indicators of viability and preventing confusing ballots, while accounting for the unprecedented changes required by the public health emergency.”

Separately, on Wednesday, the D.C. Board of Elections is scheduled to both approve ballot petitions for the decriminalization measure and enact on their own a policy change allowing signature gatherers to sign the sheets they’re circulating.

We are on the Agenda for tomorrow's @Vote4DC monthly board meeting! #DecrimNature#YesOn81#WhatAboutPetitioninghttps://t.co/O9KUdxaRM2

— DecrimNatureDC (@DecrimNatureDC) May 5, 2020

Decriminalize Nature D.C. previously implored local officials to allow them to gather signatures purely electronically to minimize the spread of the virus while also ensuring that they have a fighting chance of qualifying. Neither the mayor or Council has not acted on that request, however, leading the campaign to recalibrate and develop alternative strategies.

With the self-signature problem solved through the proposed legislation, the group told Marijuana Moment it is prepared to proceed with a strategic experiment to build up support ahead of the July 6 deadline to submit about 25,000 valid signatures from registered voters.

The test will initially involve mailing out 10,000 petitions for the decriminalization initiative, along with educational materials.

The mailers will be evenly distributed to four classes of residents: 1) consistent voters who signed the ballot petition for a 2014 marijuana legalization initiative, 2) consistent voters who didn’t sign the legalization petition, 3) occasional voters who backed the cannabis petition and 4) a random selection of residents pulled from the voter roll.

“Initiative 81 would make a small change: shifting enforcement of laws against natural plant medicines to be among the lowest law enforcement priorities,” chief petitioner Melissa Lavasani said in the campaign material being mailed to voters. “This change would help me and thousands of other D.C. residents suffering from anxiety, PTSD, addiction, or depression who currently fear arrest or prosecution for pursuing healing through natural, entheogenic substances.”

“Signing and mailing back this petition is the first step towards ensuring safe and equitable access for all people to entheogenic plants and fungi,” the mailer states.

The campaign will assess the response rates from these respective groups and use that to inform their next step, which would be sending significantly more petitions out to voters. Contributions from the activist soap company Dr. Bronner’s, which is backing a number of drug policy campaigns across the country, will help fund the effort.

This new development for the D.C. campaign comes at a time when drug reform campaigns are either shuttering or temporarily suspending activities amid the pandemic.

California activists had hoped to get a measure to legalize psilocybin on the state’s November ballot, but the campaign stalled out amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Organizers in Oregon are holding out hope that a measure to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic purposes will make the ballot. The campaign already collected enough raw signatures to qualify, though they’ve yet to be validated.

Also in Oregon, a separate proposed ballot measure would decriminalize possession of all illicit drugs and use existing marijuana tax revenue to fund expanded treatment services. Activists in nearby Washington State are also working on a similar drug decriminalization and treatment measure.

Marijuana-specific reform campaigns have also felt the sting of the pandemic.

A Montana cannabis legalization campaign that sued the state to allow digital signature collection had their case dismissed last week, but organizers say they may file an appeal and will be pushing ahead despite the legal setback.

In Arizona, the organizers of a legalization effort are petitioning the state Supreme Court to instruct the secretary of state to allow people to sign cannabis petitions digitally using an existing electronic system that is currently reserved for individual candidates seeking public office.

A California campaign seeking to amend the state’s cannabis law also asked for a digital petitioning option.

A campaign to legalize cannabis in Missouri officially gave up its effort for 2020 last month due to signature collection being virtually impossible in the face of social distancing measures.

Idaho medical cannabis activists announced that they are suspending their ballot campaign, though they are still “focusing on distributing petitions through online download at IdahoCann.co and encouraging every volunteer who has downloaded a petition to get them turned in to their county clerk’s office by mail, regardless of how many signatures they have collected.”

North Dakota advocates said that they are suspending their campaign to put marijuana legalization on the November ballot due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Activists behind a campaign to legalize medical cannabis in Nebraska are holding out hope that they will qualify and recently unveiled a new strategy amid the pandemic.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) conceded last month that the 2020 legalization push is “effectively over” in the legislature. Coronavirus shifted priorities, and comprehensive cannabis reform seems to have proved too complicated an issue in the short-term.

See Decriminalize Nature D.C.’s mailer to voters below:

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New York Lawmaker Files Bill To Decriminalize Psychedelic Mushrooms

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