NJ legislature amends marijuana decriminalization bill to lighten up penalties on hallucinogenic mushrooms

A committee in the New Jersey state Senate amended a marijuana decriminalization bill to soften penalties on hallucinogenic mushrooms, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

The bill, S. 2535, was originally proposed to remove criminal penalties for possessing up to six ounces of marijuana, according to the newspaper. The committee approved an amendment to downgrade penalties for possessing up to an ounce of psilocybin, also known as “magic mushrooms.” 

The amendment would make possessing up to an ounce of psilocybin a disorderly persons offense in the Garden State, according to the Inquirer. Right now, it is a third-degree felony. 

New Jersey was one of four states to legalize recreational marijuana last week. Voters approved a constitutional amendment to allow for the possession, sale and use of cannabis for residents 21 and over. 

New Jersey is now the 12th state to have legalized recreational marijuana. It is the first to pass it as a ballot measure. Other states that legalized marijuana include Arizona, Montana and South Dakota. 

Over 76 percent of voters in Washington, D.C., voted to decriminalize the growing, possession and noncommercial distribution of hallucinogenic mushrooms in this year’s election. 

Initiative 81 directs the D.C. Metropolitan Police to shift the “non-commercial planting, cultivating, purchasing, transporting, distributing, possessing, and/or engaging in practices with entheogenic plants and fungi” to among its lowest law enforcement priorities.