Psychedelic policy pivot

The high stakes legislation … Home sweet compromise … And the Pentagon’s galactic ties.

When Arizona’s voters allowed doctors to prescribe marijuana for severe illnesses in 1996, dissenters called the measure a means to legalize all drugs.

And when Arizonans legalized weed for recreational use in 2020, critics labeled it a “gateway drug” to promote more nefarious drug use.

To be fair, drug use has expanded. Just not quite in the weed-to-methamphetamines pipeline dissenters suggested.

These days, most of the state’s urban inhabitants have ample access to weed, and in much more potent forms than 1996 offered. Even Arizona’s most conservative Republicans are taking a new perspective on how the state regulates drugs — they’re promoting the therapeutic and medicinal benefits of weed and psychedelic drugs in ways that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

While the anti-drug sentiment and the ever-lasting stain of the war on drugs have persisted through time, the constantly evolving landscape of illicit drug regulations has forced politicians to evolve, too.

This is how our art intern, ChatGPT, imagines a “mushroom fever dream at Arizona’s state capitol.”

This year, Arizona’s Republican lawmakers are advancing bills to crack down on weed-infused beverages and how marijuana retailers can advertise their products.

But they’re also decreasing the penalties for crack cocaine possession, trying to promote dispensaries in rural areas and pushing for controlled uses of psychedelics.

The way Arizonans consume drugs and the places they can get them have changed a lot: You can drink and eat weed instead of just smoking it. And it only takes a car ride to Colorado to legally consume magic mushrooms.

The transformation of what drugs look like and their broadening public availability has lawmakers perpetually playing catch up — both to quell unintended consequences and to take advantage of newfound remedies drugs offer.

Crack is equally whack

Rep. Leo Biasiucci thinks people caught with powder cocaine and crack cocaine should be punished the same way.

Currently, you can have up to nine grams of powdered cocaine before it’s considered enough to prove you had an “intent to sell,” which comes with harsher penalties. For crack, it’s just 0.75 grams. Biasiucci’s HB2720 would make having 9 grams the threshold amount for both forms of cocaine. The harsher sentencing guidelines for crack come from drug war policies that disproportionately target Black people.

But on Twitter, Biasiucci blamed the policy on “Biden-era policies” since Biden co-sponsored the federal legislation — but not the Arizona law — that created the sentencing disparity.

The bill passed the House unanimously and is headed for a vote from the full Senate.

“The crack powder sentencing differential is still responsible for unwarranted racial disparities in sentencing,” Laura Magnus, a lobbyist for the Action Now Initiative, said at a House committee hearing for the bill. “The higher penalties for crack cocaine offenses are not necessary … and actually undermine our law enforcement priorities.”

Weak magic mushrooms

Last year, Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a popular bill to create psychedelic-assisted therapy centers to professionally administer psilocybin, the psychedelic compound of “magic mushrooms.” The governor said there’s not enough evidence to support psilocybin’s clinical use, and that “Arizonans with depression and PTSD … should not be the subject of experiments for unproven therapies with a lack of appropriate guardrails.”

The mushroom therapy was hailed as a way to help veterans with PTSD. And while there’s a lot less attention on the bill this year, sponsor Sen. T.J. Shope is trying again, kind of. He calls this year’s bill a “diluted” version of last year’s legislation.

This year’s mushroom bill, SB1555, establishes the “Arizona Psilocybin Advisory Board,” but doesn’t set up a licensing mechanism to start psilocybin therapy. The board would study the medical efficacy of magic mushrooms, however, and is awaiting a hearing in the House.

Last year, Rep. Kevin Payne managed to get $5 million into the state budget to study mushroom therapy for PTSD. He passed a bill to do the studies the year before, but accidentally failed to mark the funding as "non-lapsing," so it automatically expired at the end of that fiscal year.

There’s a nationwide push to decriminalize psilocybin use. You can legally eat magic mushrooms in Colorado, Oregon and several U.S. cities.

“It just didn't come together in time to really do anything. I mean, obviously my heart's still in it. I'd like to see it done, but I really need a united front like we had last year in order to do it,” Shope said.

Sinema’s psychedelics

Former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema returned to the state Legislature this year to ask lawmakers to support Republican Rep. Justin Wilmeth’s bill to put $5 million into a study of ibogaine. It’s a psychoactive compound that comes from an African plant and could be used to help veterans with traumatic brain injuries.

Ibogaine is highly restricted in the United States, but Canada and Mexico allow its medicinal use. The bill passed the House with a bipartisan mix of both support and opposition.

Simena said she learned about the substance from two men on her security detail.

"There is no major pharmaceutical company to bankroll this effort, so we must do it ourselves,” she said.

Blazing new trails

This year, Payne, who’s now a senator, sponsored SB1230 which would require the state to use money from its Medical Marijuana Fund to pay for marijuana clinical trials. The Arizona Biomedical Research Center already issues grants using the fees from medical weed sales to pay for studies on autism, epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder. Payne’s bill requires the research center to spend $4 million on the studies by July 2028.

Four years ago, lawmakers directed Arizona’s Department of Health Services to put $5 million toward cannabis research grants every year for five years, but it has only spent $5 million on those grants since then.

Meanwhile, Sen. David Gowan thinks rural Arizona needs more dispensaries. His SB1713 would require the state health department to create incentives for rural weed sales to boost tax revenue. The state health department would have to issue licenses to rural marijuana sellers if they qualify.

Julie Gunnigle from the Arizona Rural Opportunity Alliance told lawmakers rural Arizonans have “little to no access” to dispensaries, leaving them without the regional sales tax boost urban areas benefit from, nor the personal medicinal benefits.

“On the weekly, I hear from patients who have to drive over an hour to access the medicine they need … These are patients that are undergoing cancer treatments, who are permanently disabled or facing other chronic conditions, and we are asking them to travel absolutely insane amounts of time in order to have access,” she said.

But Kathy Senseman, who lobbies for the Arizona Dispensaries Association, said there’s not enough growth in the weed market to justify expanding licensing to rural areas, and there’s a limited number of dispensaries that can exist in the state.

High spirits

Besides pushing for consuming magic mushrooms in a controlled environment, Shope wants to regulate THC-infused drinks.¹

His SB1556 would require the state liquor department to regulate hemp-infused drinks. Manufacturers would have to get a license to sell them, and stores would need a license to sell the beverages.

Total Wine & More started selling THC-infused beverages at its Arizona stores last year. The chain doesn’t have a dispensary license but can sell THC drinks because they’re infused with delta-9 — a derivative of hemp that still gets you high but is no longer an illegal Schedule I drug.

Steve Barclay, the Executive Director of Beer and Wine Distributors of Arizona, handed out samples of the weed-infused drinks at a Senate committee hearing for the bill² and said the products lack safety measures like quality testing and product labeling.

“You can either try to prohibit them, or you can try to regulate them,” Barclay said. “Being in the alcohol world, we know something about prohibition, and it doesn't work. I don't think it would work for hemp beverages, quite frankly.”

Santa can’t sell weed

Dispensary advertisers have gotten creative since Arizona legalized recreational weed in 2020.

Republican Rep. Selina Bliss’ HB2179 would prohibit marijuana retailers from advertising to those under 21 by using images of toys or fictional characters, “including Santa Claus,” in those ads.

The bill would restrict weed advertising online and at sporting events and prohibit it within 1,000 feet of a school, church, substance abuse recovery center or playground.

Her two cents: Gov. Katie Hobbs came up with a compromise proposal for the Arizona Starter Homes Act, one of the biggest pieces of housing legislation in the works right now. She’s willing to accept some restrictions the bill would place on local zoning, but she wants to reserve some of the new homes for people who plan to actually live in the house, instead of investors, Capitol scribes Howard Fischer and Bob Christie report. Meanwhile, a home builders association sued the Arizona Department of Water Resources this week, saying the agency shouldn’t be able to “tax” them with additional water supply requirements when they build on the fringes of Phoenix and Pinal County.

Not done yet: Axon CEO Rick Smith has no intention of backing down on his attempt to build a spaceship-themed corporate headquarters in North Scottsdale. The Scottsdale Progress’ Tom Scanlon threads together all the lobbying Smith has done at the Legislature, the municipal zoning battles, and rallies that led up to a bill that would finally get him what he wants.

Keep the leash on the kraken: You can still get in trouble for launching a massive, malicious campaign against election workers for doing their jobs. The state House rejected a bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin, who was put on probation by the Arizona State Bar for bringing ridiculous lawsuits challenging the 2020 presidential election results, the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers reports. HB2043 would have changed the legal definition of harassment to require an explicit intent to harass. Critics said it would have protected domestic abusers, while exposing all levels of government workers, from state election officers to referees in municipal sports leagues, to virtually unlimited harassment. Kolodin switched his vote to “no” at the last minute, a move that allows him to bring the bill back for another vote.

It was all a hoax, right?: In other news that is totally not about protecting people who conspire to overturn elections, the Trump administration is bailing on a cybersecurity system used by elections officials in Arizona and other states, Votebeat’s Jen Fifield reports. Letting state officials know when another state is facing active election threats “no longer supports Department priorities,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency told state election officials last week. The agency is also taking action against employees who help states monitor false information about elections that is posted on social media. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said the state is vulnerable to election threats from hostile nations without the cybersecurity program, per the Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl.

Something for everyone to hate: Tucson voters in yesterday’s special election overwhelmingly rejected a half-cent sales tax increase to fund police, housing priorities and social safety net projects. The city council put Prop 414 on the ballot, and it had the backing of the town’s Democratic power brokers. But it drew a strange-bedfellows coalition of opponents ranging from business and anti-crime groups that didn’t like the tax to local socialists and mutual aid groups that didn’t like the measure’s heavy emphasis on police funding. Our sister ‘sletter, the Tucson Agenda, has the details.

Booked for recall: Glendale City Councilmember Leandro Baldenegro is facing a recall campaign over his initial support for demolishing the Velma Teague Library, the Republic’s Shawn Raymundo reports. Baldenegro was appointed to the council last April, but said he’s giving the recall effort “very little thought.”

Who racketeered the racketeer fund?: Santa Cruz County Attorney officials say someone stole money from their anti-racketeering fund, the Nogales International reports. The county hasn’t revealed how much was stolen, and it’s still reeling from $38 million of embezzled funds from former County Treasurer Liz Gutfahr.

“Contact” is a great movie. So is “Arrival.” But you won’t see us flying to Cape Canaveral to lay the groundwork for negotiations with the Galactic Federation.

But that’s what two Arizona GOP lawmakers did last weekend. Would you be surprised to know one of them was Rep. Mark Finchem? He and Rep. Leo Biasiucci spoke at the Quantum Summit 2 event, where followers claim aliens are shaping national and global economic policies.

Also in attendance was a guy who President Donald Trump nominated to be undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness at the Pentagon.

1. Clarification: A previous version of this piece said Shope’s bill would “rein in” THC drinks. And while that’s kind of true, it’s a bit more nuanced. There’s an attorney general opinion saying stores like Total Wine can’t sell products infused with Delta-8 or Delta-10 — but didn’t specifically address Delta-9 products. So you could argue the bill would expand THC drinks by allowing liquor stores to sell products that they can’t now, or you could say that it would rein in the sales of these products by forcing stores to get licenses to sell it. But until there’s an official decision from law enforcement about whether these products are already legal, it’s not really clear which side is right.

2. As far as we can tell, no lawmaker drank the weed juice. (On camera, that it is.)