SANTA CRUZ — Several Santa Cruz City Council members are hoping to tell police to lay off on its enforcement of illegal “magic mushroom” charges.
The council will consider setting a new policy that moves the offense down to among the lowest level of city policing priority as the last agenda item for its early afternoon session Tuesday, hearing a presentation from the group Decriminalize Santa Cruz.
Specifically, the council will vote on decriminalizing psychoactive plants and fungi by declaring that the investigation and arrest of individuals involved with the adult possession, use, or cultivation of psychoactive plants and fungi listed on the federal schedule 1 list for personal adult use and clinical research be amongst the lowest priorities for the City of Santa Cruz.
“This resolution aims to empower the Santa Cruz community by restoring our relationship to nature,” the agenda report coauthored by Vice Mayor Justin Cummings and Council members Drew Glover and Sandy Brown. “The Santa Cruz community members supporting this resolution believe it is an inalienable right to develop our own relationship with nature, both as a measure of personal liberty and to embrace what it means to be human on Planet Earth.”
