Newsom’s nonsense veto of psychedelics

On Saturday, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation to decriminalize possession of certain psychedelic substances.

Senate Bill 58, introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, sought to remove criminal sanctions for those who choose to use psychedelic substances. It also called for the California Health and Human Services Agency “to convene a workgroup to study and make recommendations on the establishment of a framework governing the therapeutic use” of psychedelics.

This editorial board has supported SB 58, and its previous iterations, on the grounds that government has no business telling people what they can do with their own bodies as long as they aren’t harming anyone else.

If someone wants to take magic mushrooms out in the forest, that’s no business of the police, the courts or politicians.

And yet, Gov. Newsom vetoed the bill on utterly incoherent grounds. On the one hand, Newsom understands that psychedelics do, in fact, have therapeutic potential.

“Psychedelics have proven to relieve people suffering from certain conditions such as depression, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and other addictive personality traits,” he wrote in his veto message. “This is an exciting frontier and California will be on the front-end of leading it.”

But then Newsom decided to throw an unnecessary precondition on when psychedelics can or should be decriminalized. Specifically, Newsom says the state should first establish “regulated treatment guidelines — replete with dosing information, therapeutic guidelines, rules to prevent against exploitation during guided treatments, and medical clearance of no underlying psychoses.”

In Newsom’s world, it makes sense to continue criminalizing victimless psychedelic possession until the state of California spends forever creating a new psychedelic therapy bureaucracy full of rules and regulations.

The formulation proposed by Sen. Wiener had it right. Decriminalize possession of psychedelics, because that shouldn’t be a crime, and then study avenues for therapeutic use of psychedelics.

Once again, Newsom has chosen to derail efforts to further dismantle the failed war on drugs in California.

Hamas terrorism

Re “Surprise attack by

Hamas out of Gaza stuns Israel” (Oct. 8):

The AP report calls this attack “during a major Jewish holiday unprecedented,” then admits that the Yom Kippur War was a precedent. All four of the excuses Hamas gave for this action ring hollow, since the attacks on Israelis, and previously on Jewish Palestinians, preceded all those conditions by generations. Parading the body of a victim in the streets puts the terrorists on a par with headhunters. Egypt is responsible for “bottling up” the population of Gaza. The Egyptians encouraged them to leave Israel in 1948, then refused them entry into Egypt. The blockade of Gaza by Egypt and Israel is to prevent arms shipments into the territory. AP admits that Israel supplies them with electricity, fuel and food, an unprecedented treatment of a hostile population in all the annals of warfare. Israel used to give them employment and medical care, until they started bringing bombs with them. Their supermarkets are well stocked, just not equally accessible to commoners and to leaders.

The budget deficit

Re “Congress must be held accountable for the budget” (Oct. 8):

This is the first time I’m writing a letter in agreement with columnist Veronique de Rugy, but even that’s problematic. She correctly blames both parties for our ever-growing budget deficit that someday will sink our economy. There are two levers that can be used to balance a budget, reduce spending or raise taxes — or perhaps both. While the two parties want to move in opposing directions,

MALLARD FILLMORE: By Bruce Tinsley

Email: opinion@scng.com (Please do not include any attachments)

Main:

Opinion: 714-796-3644 they end up accommodating each other by doing neither. The column posits that it’s the voters’ obligation to vote for more responsible legislators, but those candidates will never survive their party’s primaries, so they will never appear on a November ballot.

Twitter: Follow or send tweets to

Facebook:

Leave comments at