Ep6 Jon Dennis - When Spiritual Practices Meet Legal Systems: A Groundbreaking Conversation on Psychedelic Policy

Jon Dennis  0:00  
For me, the term entheogen it's connecting with a higher power containing the divine within the substance. We have these really great examples of how this can be done safely and responsibly without having to really erect these pay walls and these so called guardrails. 

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  0:21  
Welcome to psychedelic source where wisdom meets practice in the evolving landscape of psychedelic medicine. I'm your host, Dr Sandra Dreisbach, and I'm here to help you navigate the complex intersection of ethics, business and personal growth in a psychedelic space, whether you're a practitioner, therapist, entrepreneur, or simply curious about this transformative field, you found your source for authentic dialog, practical resources and community connection in each episode, we'll dive deep into The stories, strategies and ethical considerations that matter most to our growing ecosystem. Let's tap in to our inner source of wisdom and explore what it means to build a sustainable and ethical, psychedelic future together.

VO  1:14  
The information shared on this podcast, our website and other platforms may be triggering for some viewers and readers, and is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical, legal or therapeutic advice. While we explore topics related to altered states of consciousness, we do not endorse or encourage illegal activities or substance use. Always research your local laws and consult qualified professionals for guidance. The content provided is as is, and we are not liable for any actions taken based on the information shared, stay supported and informed, act responsibly and enjoy the podcast.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  1:46  
In this episode of psychedelic source, I talk with lawyer activist community organizer John Dennis, who has worked many years in the psychedelic space, focusing on decriminalization, legal action and advocacy, and as a member of Coronavirus Institute council for protection of sacred plants, a member of the psychedelic Bar Association on its religious use committee. And he's also advisor currently to reach Washington and a drafter of its upcoming ballot initiative to decriminalize natural entheogens, there many may have heard of John's work, working on measure 109 and to create a community paradigm and entheogenic practice as well in psilocybin services under Oregon measure 109

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  2:40  
and he's also an attorney at sagebrush law.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  2:45  
And psychedelic law is a very complex space, and just a heads up on the beginning here that you know, this does not count or constitute as legal advice, nor does any of the content provided. But at the same time, I really appreciate having a psychedelic lawyer, and hopefully we'll have more here as well to see how unique the legal landscape is, and what are the complexities when we're trying to do advocacy in this space to increase that access, as both John and I are in favor of and in our work together In community, doing that sort of advocacy in various ways. So enjoy this episode and hope you gain more source in relationship to John.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  3:32  
Well, welcome John. I am so happy to have you here in the psychedelic source studio to be in conversation.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  3:41  
Don't worry, I'm not a lawyer, unlike you,

Jon Dennis  3:46  
so you want sue me after I mess this up, not a lawyer to be able to help me,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  3:54  
literally, you know, obviously we're friends. We've been friends for a few years now, and I just love you know, first of all, your your advocacy,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  4:05  
your your legal work, of you know, speaks for itself, if people aren't familiar with your work, just even just personally or around Decrem, but all your consistent advocacy in Oregon, when it came to legalization there, and I'm sure that journey hasn't ended,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  4:25  
but, but, but more than any of those other things, I would say I deeply appreciate your heart. Oh,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  4:34  
thank you. I mean and, and I know, I know there's many people who I love in this space, but I really do love and appreciate you as a friend, but also as someone I can look up to in this space, who's really doing the work as it were, you know. So I just want to start with that, that compliment for you, my friend. Wow, thanks, Sandra, and I definitely have been really inspired by your work and how much time and heart you've sunk into.

Jon Dennis  5:00  
You just really trying to repair the ruptures that inevitably come from people who work in a community framework. It's yeah, just the amount of time and energy you've spent into really just, you know, giving of yourself to try to, you know, help ensure that people are within the ethical bounds and to really be fair and transparent about all that, I know that's really challenging work, and the work you've done with epic, I've taken great inspiration from and actually included it in some of the work I've done in Washington with this group called reach, and I want to talk about that too. But and you're so kind. I mean, thank you for your kind words. I'm very grateful and humbled by everything you're saying. Everyone's gonna be like, Oh, this is just like a love fest episode, like, but, like, all the episodes are people. You're gonna have to get used to it, or just turn into something else, but, but maybe you should say, I love, kind of getting a sense of and sharing with people who you are as a person, and you know, you mentioned community, and we met in community, but

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  6:06  
could you tell our audience a little bit about about you? Where? Where are you from? However you'd like to identify, or any sort of intersectionalities,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  6:16  
tell us about you. I mean, we've done a little intro, but it's a little bit more formal, but give us a bit about John,

Jon Dennis  6:23  
sure. Yeah, thanks for the question.

Jon Dennis  6:27  
Yeah. So I'm an attorney in Eastern Oregon, a little town called Ontario, town of about 11,000 people, and I've been here for more years, and it seems like now time kind of flies,

Jon Dennis  6:40  
but it's a little border town on the border of Idaho and high deserts out here. And, yeah, I've kind of, I guess, came into the psychedelic space. I mean, I've been an enthusiast and a very interested person in it ever since I first learned about them through

Jon Dennis  6:59  
my early teenage discovery of Carlos Castaneda and some of his work, you know, which is problematic in some ways, it turns out, but,

Jon Dennis  7:13  
but that was kind of one of my access points. Was just learning about,

Jon Dennis  7:18  
you know, what, what medicine people are alleged to do in his work. And, yeah, I guess that was a source of great inspiration for me and

Jon Dennis  7:31  
and I had my first, I guess, psychedelic experiences in my late teens, early 20s, and just was already, I guess. I mean, I think I my first psychedelic experience was actually probably predated taking a psychedelic. I mean, I grew up in a in the spirit filled Christian kind of coastal type tradition,

Jon Dennis  7:53  
with church, with faith healing and speaking in tongues and that kind of thing. And I grew up as a young cheek boy thinking, remember that all that was normal, and, you know, it definitely kind of put me in touch with a type of a spirit realm that I think you know now is I recognize it as being not necessarily normal for people, But I think having that sort of direct relationship,

Jon Dennis  8:22  
really was, was important. And then when you know, it turns out, according to Pew Research polls, majority of people in the United States don't self identify as ever having had a mystical experience in their entire life. So I think being just really, in a way, blessed as a as a young person to have those experiences and to really value those experiences and matters of spirit. I think it's kind of

Jon Dennis  8:51  
how I got into this, and when I realized in high school that people take these substances, these plants and these fungi,

Jon Dennis  9:01  
really to occasion these same types of experiences. I was just really kind of blown away and immediately intrigued, and read a bunch of books about it before I'd ever tried one for myself and

Jon Dennis  9:13  
and I think that's been kind of how, I guess, you know, there's, there's a lot of paradigms, or a lot of reasons why people approach psychedelics are interested in them, and mine's always been more of that kind of realm of things.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  9:29  
No, I love that. I mean, I love that. I mean, first of all, I would like to say, like I didn't know that part of your history, and, and, and, believe it or not, people may even be surprised to know that I've had that experience, not at a Pentecostal, but a different kind. That was at a vineyard Christian church for a few years, you know, and there were healings, and that was part of the normal experience. There wasn't part of my childhood. And again, I'll totally understand. You know, if you if you've had those sort of experiences, how that would shift your relationship, both spiritually as.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  10:00  
Well as curiosity, in terms of you know, whether or not these, these plants and psychedelics or whatever, could possibly connect you to spirit in a deeper way. So, so would you say that, was it more from a spiritual curiosity, or what do you think brought you into to greater relationship.

Jon Dennis  10:24  
Well, I think my first

Jon Dennis  10:28  
psychedelic experience, I remember I was with my roommates in college, and

Jon Dennis  10:34  
I remember my my roommate was a was a composer. It was studying music composition. One of my remits was, and I remember having this really

Jon Dennis  10:45  
amazing realization that, you know, WC didn't write le maire from vantage point of his bedroom. He wrote it from, from the shore, you know, from, from the sea. And you know, just that immediate

Jon Dennis  11:02  
realization that there's a world beyond the one that we kind of put ourselves in most of the hours of the day. But at least for most of us in the United States, that's kind of, I guess, was the first inkling that at the potential awakening, that, you know, psychedelics could have for me, and I think that was just such a lovely, beautiful experience, and a place with people I knew well and trusted and and, you know, it's really upsetting to me now to see kind of how in a lot of these movements And these so called advocates. When they talk about, like, the safety profile, they always say, you know, only in license settings with people nearby, who are, you know, you know, formally trained in this sort of thing. And I just think there's such a dishonesty in that, where a lot of times, you know, the people who are saying that are people who, themselves, likely have never had any psychedelic experience within the type of context that they're saying is the only context in which it's can be safely prescribed for or recommended for other people. So,

Jon Dennis  12:15  
you know, I think that's been something that as this kind of

Jon Dennis  12:21  
cultural moment is advancing. It just seems like there's kind of a shying away from people really being honest about their own experiences, and that the fact that they happened illegally, and the fact that you know that they are themselves, are still advocates around them, you know,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  12:42  
it just doesn't really pass the smell test, frankly, to for people to know fear mongering, yeah, no, well, at the very least, you know, and I know there's a lot of discussion, you know, at least within people who are in advocacy and in second law community, around whether or not someone should have had to have had an experience before they support someone in a journey. And I'm not asking you to take a position on that, but,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  13:10  
but, but I do think it's interesting that you bring up this aspect of people saying in like government or government structures, that it should be in these structured experiences, or with these particular trainings when they don't actually have knowledge of what that experience is like or what is required to support it. And I think,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  13:29  
I think, given your experience, especially in Oregon, but now also in Washington, maybe we should, we should turn to some of that, because one of the things that you were really known for in terms of advocacy for Oregon was your advocacy for entheogenic practitioners? Would you mind saying what, what for you an entheogenic practitioner is, and what you're advocating for in Oregon?

Jon Dennis  13:53  
Yeah. Thanks. So the I mean, there's a lot of different terms people can use to describe, you know what? Like a psychedelic. Some people use the term psychedelic, and for me that's kind of a more neutral term. Some people use the term plant medicine, which, you know, still reveres the kind of natural aspects of it and the healing aspects of it. But for me, the term in theogen really emphasizes the spiritual aspect of it. It's connecting with a higher power containing the divine within the substance. So when people talk about entheogens, to me, that sort of connotes a more spiritual approach to the use of psychedelics than perhaps a more clinical, or, you know, artistic even,

Jon Dennis  14:45  
approach. And of course, these aren't siloed, and there's, you know, what spiritual experience can also be artistically or creatively inclined or very therapeutic, but,

Jon Dennis  14:58  
but for that being.

Jon Dennis  15:00  
Sort of the main goal is to have a spiritual experience, or a spiritual encounter

Jon Dennis  15:06  
with, with the assistance of of an entheogenic substance. So an entheogenic practitioner, I think, is a person who works in a in a interactive relationship with entheogens, in in service of of their own and others growth and development. And so the work in here in Oregon was to try to really allow these, you know, really ancient paradigms of indigenous and religious use to really inform Oregon's rulemaking process, which was being driven almost entirely by medical and therapeutic, you know, Western medical type paradigms of this and so the the advocacy was really around, we already have these paradigms that have been with us for a very long time. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. We have these really great examples of how this can be done, you know, safely and responsibly, without having to really erect these pay walls and these, these guard, these so called guardrails that, you know, will keep people from being able to afford the services. And that's exactly what we see now, is that in Oregon, are are kind of, you know, minimum cost of access for most service centers is around $1,000

Jon Dennis  16:35  
for a single high dose session, which, you know, I'm not saying that there's not something gained by having the all the services and the testing of the products and all that attached to it. But you know, it's kind of an absurdity to think that, you know, the only safe way to do this is to pay $1,000 in this commercialized system when a person can go out and forge their own or, you know, ever they can be grown at relatively nominal cost.

Jon Dennis  17:06  
So what we were trying to do is really introduce more

Jon Dennis  17:11  
peer models of how this can be done and in ways that are just less regulated, and really provide more flexibility for people to work with these scenes in a responsible way. And really the ultimate value that we are, that I arrived at in my thinking around this, is one of proportionality. I mean, we know there are risks, and we take them seriously, and we're not naive to them, and we don't sugar coat or make light of it. But are those risks proportionate to the safe, the cost in the in all the things that go with it. So if you had a really high risk client, maybe it makes sense to have more guard rails in place. But when you have a lower risk person, then does it make sense to put them in the same bucket of services that a person who's a relatively high risk client might need, when the practical effect of that is, you know, hundreds or 1000s of dollars difference. And you know, we in Oregon have about,

Jon Dennis  18:18  
you know, about close to half a million people living out or below the poverty level who likely would not be able to afford services, and in fact, you know that's the driving consideration, is if these experiences are really valuable, if they're really healing, and they have these profound

Jon Dennis  18:37  
effects on people and life changing effects. What happens when we only allow these to be accessed by people who can afford to pay $1,000

Jon Dennis  18:47  
we we risk the creation of kind of a spiritual class system, or a wellness class system that you know just really isn't needed, but in light of the actual risks that are that, are there so well and, and especially in Oregon, where there, there was that request, I'll put it that way, you could say it's even a was a part of the policy was that that it be equitable,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  19:14  
right?

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  19:15  
And, and I know equity matters to a lot of us in this space, we try and think about what, what does it mean to try and create equity, inclusion, the sort of justice, equity, Jedi, sort of concepts

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  19:29  
and and I can only imagine. It's funny, I haven't asked you this question, is there a service center in your county where you live?

Jon Dennis  19:37  
No, we both the city and the county where I live, opted out. We decided not to allow psilocybin businesses to operate here. So it seems to be the current state of things, unless and until there is a ballot initiative here that may overturn those those decisions. But I.

Jon Dennis  20:00  
I'm pretty far from the nearest service center. I think the closest one to me is in I

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  20:05  
think it's about four hours and 15 minutes, roughly a drive to get from where I'm at to the closest one. That alone seems crazy to me, that you would need to drive the someone who works so hard to advocate and legalize access that you yourself would have to go four and a half hours, which actually says a lot about how inequitable it is, without even looking at the price tag that you mentioned, of like $1,000 a journey type of thing. But I love what you said about proportionality, because a lot of people don't appreciate that the risks are not equal for everyone, and and the needs are not equal. We have this sense with, like, you know, medicalization models, right? With

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  20:48  
right or, or or different therapeutic models. And, you know, risk, high risk, low risk. You know, is this a urgent care? Even if you think about triage, right? We don't have that in terms of our consciousness,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  21:03  
in terms of our spiritual well being, in terms of how to work with altered states in that same sort

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  21:13  
of to get back to Oregon, you know, there's a few. I mean, I hate to call them tragedies, but maybe we'll call them learning lessons.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  21:22  
There are lots of really challenging things that showed up in Oregon, you know. And many already thought from the beginning with Oregon that, oh, this is, this is this is gonna fail, right? Like

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  21:35  
the failure mindset of people before it even, had even gotten into the committees, right? And I actually think a lot of the people in that committee worked very hard, you know, and they had a lot of really great people working on it.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  21:50  
And there was lots of different reasons why some of the things didn't happen the way that they did, or why it got structured the way it did.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  21:59  
But

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  22:00  
I think. And maybe, maybe we should give people a little bit of a top level on on the propositions that that that passed, and what they were supposed to do originally and and where we are now, right? So, when did the propositions actually pass, and what did they say? The gist, the gist, you don't have to give a whole legal down low.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  22:21  
You mean, just in Oregon, yeah, just in Oregon, because I know we're gonna want to get to Washington, you know, which is one of the things that John's working on now. And in full disclosure, right? Like, I've also like helped to advise at some points in time with that, with the reach Washington group, and Washington is part of my heart, not that Oregon isn't

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  22:44  
but I want, I want people to kind of get a sense. Because, like, there's a lot of misunderstandings about, you know, what were the original pieces trying to do and, and what, how did we get to where we are now? Because, like, one of them was that for Decrem, right, but, but I'll let you I'll let you say, because I like it when you when you do the basic description. Thanks.

Jon Dennis  23:08  
Yeah, the So measure 109, was a

Jon Dennis  23:12  
citizen led ballot initiative that passed in November of 2020

Jon Dennis  23:18  
by a substantial margin. It wasn't even really that close. And it was at the time

Jon Dennis  23:24  
Denver had passed a local ordinance, you know, de prioritizing, you know, psilocybin prosecutions and and I think Oakland had also passed a city council a resolution deprioritizing enforcement against all, you know, naturally occurring psychedelic plants and fungi, but, you know, the but that was a huge leap to go from that to a whole statewide legal program. And I think many people at the time thought that it was just too far, too much, too soon. And the campaign did some early polling and found that people actually weren't wholly against it, and in part because most people didn't know what psilocybin was. I mean, they may have heard of magic mushrooms, but the term psilocybin was foreign to folks. That's very true. I mean, I remember going to the California State Capitol and talking to assembly members and

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  24:23  
Senate members, and then like, like, what's the psilocybin thing? You know, right? Like, because it was, like, a word that's not part of the vernacular. People know magic mushrooms, but then we won't know what psilocybin is, or little. And so listen, and a lot of the legislation has to be really specific. And I love that you said de prioritization, because that kind of also helps eliminate the de prioritization versus decriminalization versus legalization, right? So, so at least in the United States, right? De prioritization is primarily happening at the state and the city and county levels. Is that correct?

Jon Dennis  24:59  
Yeah. I mean.

Jon Dennis  25:00  
There's always so much local government can do in the face of state law. So they can't obviously overturn a state law, but what they can do is say we're not going to invest our limited resources in enforcing a law that we believe is unjust. And so you know now I forget the last total, but I think it's around 30 fairly major cities, many of them throughout the United States, that have passed some kind of resolution or ordinance basically saying that we're not going to use law enforcement resources to prosecute these non violent, victimless crimes that actually help people, and arguably have maybe help even save lives, so that maybe there's a more rational and effective use of those funds. So that's kind of the idea that that and no individual should ever have to go to jail for it, so,

Jon Dennis  26:02  
you know, so that's there at the at the city level, and then at or at the county level, either one. But at the state level, there's also, you know, the state can say we're not going to enforce any of our state laws against a person. So it comes with more gravitas and more like certainty that you know a state law enforcement, you know neither at the city, county or state level would you face, you know, criminal sanction. Of course, that doesn't eliminate the risk at the federal level, but so far, within the state legal programs

Jon Dennis  26:45  
for any psychedelic state legal program, and even with the cannabis state legal program, for many, many years now, we haven't seen federal enforcement. And so while there is a certainly risk that could come from that, and you know, a lot of it tends to be around, like, banking risks and other types of things that may not actually result in, like, getting arrested. No, I appreciate, I appreciate going over that, because I know this, and this is one of the things right, that the sort of educational barrier in doing anything in psychedelic space,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  27:20  
but even like, I mean, we've actually already like, even like, the terms right psychedelic versus entheogen, psychedelic being Aldous actually mind revealing, right? And then entheogen being divine, revealing, and then de prioritization, meaning the reduction or removal of legal penalties associated with the law and legal station actually changing the law.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  27:49  
Or, I guess it could also, I mean, I'm like, now I'm debating, but You're the lawyer, so,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  27:56  
but in terms of Oregon, right? Because you did both the Proposition 109,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  28:01  
which, which moved that forward. And remind me, I can't remember the name of the other proposition. That was the decrim proposition.

Jon Dennis  28:10  
Yeah, so in the same vote, Oregon voters also passed measure 110 also by

Jon Dennis  28:17  
a relatively large margin. I mean, it wasn't even close. And what measure 110 did. It was radical in its approach. It attempted to basically treat all drugs when all drug use, not necessarily as a criminal problem that needs to be punished, but as a medical problem where folks really need help and assistance in breaking the cycle of addiction and

Jon Dennis  28:45  
and, and. So what it did was it gave, it created a lot of funding for people who wanted to seek treatment, and it removed the distances for touch points with systems that were designed to help with addiction. So it started to treat all substance use as something that people would just get, a really minor stop on the wrist. I mean, $100

Jon Dennis  29:11  
ticket, which was is actually less than traffic tickets that people would get. And that's part of the criticism that it got from a lot of people, was that it didn't do enough and that, you know, we should discourage people's drug use,

Jon Dennis  29:26  
you know. And that was, you know, repealed, unfortunately, last year in 2024

Jon Dennis  29:34  
by HB, 4002

Jon Dennis  29:37  
really, under threat of another ballot initiative that would have reinstituted criminal penalties to a pretty severe degree. So the legislature got together and tried to have a kind of middle of the road, more balanced approach that would provide penalties but would still provide off ramps for people to seek treatment as alternatives to incarceration. Yeah, and that's.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  30:00  
To me, is one of the the tragedies I was gonna, you know, like, or learning lessons or, or even, I mean, I don't know, I'm still processing myself, even those a year ago, right? You know, there's so many lessons to be learned. And like, how do we move this conversation forward, than, more than conversation

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  30:19  
and, and I know education for me, as at least, when I was advocating, seemed to be a huge barrier, and and that once you educate a lot of people, whether they be, you know, senators, assembly members or citizens, that they start shifting their positions, right? And in this case, it seems like there was a lot of

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  30:43  
concern that came up as as it was legalized in Oregon, where people and counties, you know, just said, like, well, we don't want, we really don't want this. But I think a lot of it was based on on a misunderstanding of what it was and wasn't doing more than just saying, like, we're encouraging people to use drugs like and that was never what the policy was,

Jon Dennis  31:06  
yeah. And I think the, you know, and I'm it's easy to criticize it, and I'm not trying to, you know, I think there's a lot of running the ballot initiative is a really hard thing, and to even spend time in crafting really thoughtful policy takes a lot of resources and time, and at the end of the day, there's all kinds of downstream effects that are really, maybe not always obvious or easy to anticipate. And I think the things that really resulted in the demise of measure 110, decriminalization was basically the Fentanyl crisis that coincided at the same time as as the measure passing,

Jon Dennis  31:49  
you know, and then

Jon Dennis  31:51  
you know, people like the news reports about Open Air drug markets in downtown Portland. And I mean, I think just a visible drug use of by by houseless people in downtowns across the state, really were a pretty major turn off for a lot of voters and a lot of, you know, policy makers. So that combination proved to be pretty fatal. And

Jon Dennis  32:18  
you know, so in a lot of the work that has gone forward when we try to really assess, what do we learn from this? It's a lesson I'm still trying to unpack myself. But I think one of the things is, you know, to the extent that you know, incrementalism has its place, you know the the whole issue of, you know, public transfers and public consumption is something that, that you know politically is not necessarily achievable and culturally socially either. I mean, we are coming out of years of stigma around this stuff, and people don't really have the information or education to know how to be responsible with this in a lot of ways. So I think as we're really gaining that kind of cultural competency around this, I think, you know, in some ways, it may make sense to have it go more intentionally and have it be, you know, just put some guardrails and some limits on what's allowed. I mean, I think those, those are pretty, pretty important from from a policy perspective, to make sure that you can understand that,

Jon Dennis  33:38  
you know, if you're at a park with your children, you may not want to see people you know, high

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  33:45  
No, right? There should be reasonable limitations. I mean, Oregon even had like you couldn't be within a certain distance of any church or school or or public you know, space like that, you know that would have education for children, right? I know that became an issue with some churches that had a school on them, right,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  34:09  
where they would want to be able to offer maybe some entheogenic offerings within, but because they had a school there for kids, that would not be a possibility. And I think you're right that there's a lot of, you know, you know, cultural competency. I love that you put it that way, because I think it's really clear that our culture, at least the United States or in the Global North, has primarily Not, not only

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  34:36  
had a warrant, quote, unquote, war on drugs, but but had a lot of stigma, a lot of misinformation, mis education around a lot of these subjects, let alone making it illegal. But also, even if it that wasn't the case, our culture hasn't been focused on responsible use of of substances and all.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  35:00  
United States, right? Versus some of these other traditions,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  35:04  
which have a longer tradition and a longer use, and, and I'm not saying that they're perfect either, right? But, and I can't speak for them, but maybe, maybe with this all in hand when we think about Washington now, and your work there with with reach, maybe you could talk, what's, what? What's, what's that campaign look like? And how is that different from what's happening or have has happened in Oregon, what's happening in Washington?

Jon Dennis  35:31  
Yeah. So reach Washington reaches an acronym for which stands for responsible and theogen, access and community healing, all of the kind of current vices that society accepts it's expected that they be enjoyed responsibly. And that includes alcohol, and a majority of states now cannabis, and it includes other things like gambling and I mean, there's other many things that have risk that society doesn't necessarily

Jon Dennis  36:04  
support, but it also realizes that there is there are Liberty interests at stake, and when you try to assess between what the harm the greater harms are, versus the harm of infringing on People's liberties to

Jon Dennis  36:21  
choose for themselves how they want to live their lives or or how they want to spend their spare time, or, you know, what they want to put in their bodies, or what they want to or how they want to, kind of, you know, in a more spiritual sense, how, what kinds of tools or techniques do they use to access These, you know, spiritual realms, or these spiritual experiences, you know, what the question is, what kind of business does society have and dictating to people those kinds of questions? You know, and

Jon Dennis  36:54  
I think so that's kind of part of the ethos of reach, and reach is also really committed to this principle that I know is near and dear to your heart as well, that if you're going to have one of these really costly, regulated access systems like we now have in Oregon and like just formally launched in Colorado, It's a moral imperative that you not do that without also having, you know, decriminalized access if the only choice is to either pay $1,000

Jon Dennis  37:30  
or commit a crime and risk jail time and all that. You know, what does it mean that the state is really like requiring all people who wish to have these types of experiences or have this kind of healing, to do it in a highly commercialized system that is inaccessible financially and culturally to potentially millions of people.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  37:54  
So that's kind of, I guess, my attempt at a three second, you know, three minute version of reach. Well, I love it. I love it though, because, like, it's hard to really, I mean, like, especially when you've been an advocate for so long, and you, and you also, even, you know, been a legal advocate as well, right

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  38:16  
to be able to convey to people what, what all goes into the thought and the reflection and the challenges around legal access and and doing it in a responsible way, and, and because of, you know, the different histories of of our culture and even trying to bridge with others, I love that you said Cultural Access. I think that's a term worth spreading because, because, I think one of the things that I appreciate about your the entheogenic proposal that you had for practitioners was that it kind of allowed more cultural access for different traditions. Many people I remember at the time saying like, Well, how could you have something be legal, where Maria Sabina, unknown, Kiran Dara

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  39:03  
for the mushroom, who was extracted from in the end and experienced real harm because of its use and pervasiveness and advertising in Life Magazine by Gordon Wasson, if you haven't looked up about that case, maybe we'll have to include some articles on that. But if she couldn't practice, and I think you were one of the people who said this, right? If Maria Sabina couldn't practice, if a traditional medicine keeper can't practice, with this law, then then there's something still unethical about it.

Jon Dennis  39:37  
Yeah, I mean, we have to really confront the reality that these are traditionally indigenous medicines, and, you know, and they don't necessarily belong to Western culture in the same way that that they they do other cultures, like, there we are.

Jon Dennis  39:55  
You know, luckily to have

Jon Dennis  39:59  
these cultures.

Jon Dennis  40:00  
That have stewarded these, these substances, for for, for whatever purpose, but they stewarded them. And so for us Westerners to come in and take them and then say, you know, out of this context, and then put them behind these, these systems that say, this is the only safe way to do it when there's, you know, hundreds or 1000s of years of experience. To the contrary, we have to ask ourselves, why is that experience not relevant to the current state of things? And I think it's only just because there's this fear mongering that is become really commonplace today. And you know, part of what so to going back to reach we, you know, drafted a ballot initiative and, you know, submitted it to the Washington secretary of state last year, and we got, you know, the feedback on it and summary title and all that, but we knew at the time we weren't going to be able to raise the 400,000 signatures that it required to get on the on the ballot. So it was somewhat of a symbolic statement as to, you know, what a well crafted, you know, equitable and theogenic ecosystem might look like, how it could be done with the right amount of guardrails, with the right amount of,

Jon Dennis  41:25  
you know, things that are there to help save people, but you know, who need help, and in some ways, who've been harmed, potentially, because there are harms, there are bad actors that ought to be held accountable

Unknown Speaker  41:39  
here,

Unknown Speaker  41:41  
right?

Jon Dennis  41:43  
Yeah. So, how do you do that in a non paternalistic way? That's that's actually just not way overkill, you know, in proportion to the problems of it and,

Jon Dennis  41:54  
and so, you know, we did that, and, you know, we, we got quite a bit of positive feedback and, and important to that process, which is really what's been missing in a lot of these state initiatives, was we underwent a substantial public engagement process where we went to all kinds of organizations and stakeholders and community groups to solicit feedback of what's important, what do we need to Change? How can we make this as inclusive as possible? And you know, this is what's what didn't happen really, in Colorado, and what didn't happen as much in Washington, although it may have happened a little more than it did in Colorado.

Jon Dennis  42:35  
Obviously, I'm not on the ground there, so I don't have quite the same experience of it, as I did with organ measure 109, but,

Jon Dennis  42:44  
but the question is like, who gets to decide, and what amount of respect do we give to people who already have established relationships and established history working with these with these substances? And

Jon Dennis  43:02  
so we, you know, ran it by two different committees of the psychedelic Bar Association. We ran it by people at maps. We, you know, sent out, you know, the whole all of the different kind of Facebook groups and Slack channels and everything else, just asking scheme. We want as broad of an input on this as we can, because we really want to consider this from every angle and and, you know, that's that's really challenging in some ways, because absolutely people won't agree, and we had, you know, and then we have to figure out, how do we balance this with, you know, in integrity to our our values. So you know that I think that part of it is actually, in some ways, I'm almost more excited and proud of that part of it than I am. The end result is the fact that we really took that as a as a necessary part of this that can't be short changed or glossed over. I mean, it's not just you have to check the box of stakeholder input. It's something that, if you're really doing this work from a place of groundedness and integrity, I think it requires a whole lot of humility, that there's a lot of things you don't know.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  44:22  
No, absolutely. I mean, I couldn't agree with you more, and especially, you know, here at psychedelic source of like, the part of the whole Mo is to try and show how it takes working in community and collaboration and being in relationship. We're in relationship anyway, but actively creating a healthy ecosystem of support and feedback and relationship only makes better experiences, healthier processes, not beyond even, you know, integrity, it creates, you know, a better, better world. You know, I know, I'm the incurable optimist, but it's just true, you know. But it.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  45:00  
Is, I mean, I appreciate you making it visible, right? Because I think that kind of labor is the is the more invisible labor in the psychedelic community and space. And I certainly applaud you and reach for doing that, that extra labor of love, of asking people for that feedback in in humility and and being open to receiving that, knowing that it would take longer, knowing that, that it would have challenges with it, just simply because people wouldn't necessarily agree. As someone who's tried to work on these, what I call the living collaborations, you know, like everything from I know Leah Friedman started the psychedelic safety flags, but contributing to that, and contributing to some of the other ones and trying to make them an open process is it's, it's a journey in itself, right? So, so thank you for for doing that, and I love that you also brought up the contrast between, you know, what's the process look like in in Oregon versus Colorado versus Washington? And I'll say from the California perspective, you know, we, you know, we did a lot of work at the state level and and it had the first one that passed through the assembly and the senate, but then got vetoed by the governor, right? And now we're, we're into proposition land, but, but what would you say, you know, from all this you know, or even looking at what's happening in Colorado, where do you think? What do you say the future of advocacy in in either legalization or decriminalization, like, what? What would you say? Would like if someone came to you now and said, Hey, John, I'm going to start this new campaign in such and such state.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  46:45  
What, what, what? Two main pieces of advice would you give me, from your

Jon Dennis  46:52  
experience? Well, that's a great question, yeah.

Jon Dennis  46:56  
Well, it would probably depend on the state, but you know, there's, obviously advocates want to be successful, and that sometimes means not expecting to get everything you want the first time around.

Jon Dennis  47:12  
But there's also another part of that, where if what you're doing is essentially creating an industry that's going to prevent, you know, that's going to become self protective and prevent the change you want to see from ever happening, because they hire lobbyists and they they try to defeat your reform efforts, then it might The depending on what incrementalism you're talking about, it can actually do more harm than good, and that was really, I think, beautifully or tragically illustrated in Oregon, where, you know, we now have a regulated only system where any other use has criminalized and, at the time, decriminalized nature came out opposed to measure 109 because it didn't include decriminalization protections. And at the time, I really judged them and critiqued them and thought that they're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and just because it didn't have everything you want, how could you actually actively try to shut it down? And my experience throughout the years in Oregon has really been one of of realizing that they may have been right to to raise that flag and to and to try foul where you know, that's the choice, you know, and what's interesting is what we're working on in Washington right now is a great case study in this. I mean, there's been two bills introduced, both in the House and in the Senate, that would create a regulated, only access program. And in fact, if folks get this and are listening, right, you know, with enough time there's these two hearings are next week,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  49:05  
which is like, should I rush to pushing this out

Jon Dennis  49:09  
February 5 and February 6? And essentially, this proposal would only allow regulated access, and it would prohibit any other use, and it would any other use would continue to be criminalized in the state of Washington. So

Jon Dennis  49:29  
we're really hoping to really do a lot of education work around why. You know, regulated access is, is is bad. And one of the examples that we have that can illustrate this well is within Washington's cannabis market. It was one of the first states to legalize adult use cannabis, and it was at the time they thought it was too controversial to allow a home cultivation option within its system, and so the only place you can get.

Jon Dennis  50:00  
But cannabis illegally in Washington is at a dispensary, and you can go pay money in a commercial marketplace to purchase it, but if you go home and you grow your own plant, you're committing a crime, and you risk jail.

Jon Dennis  50:15  
And there's been numerous, you know, at least, I think, two attempts at going in and correcting this, but both times, the industry shown up and shot it down and

Jon Dennis  50:29  
and this is even more exacerbated in the context of psychedelic services, because it's not just, you know, the psychedelic substances themselves, it's this whole package of, you know, oftentimes extremely paternalistic education and not but, I mean, maybe there should be some education that goes with that, but to have this whole regulated system that requires all of These,

Jon Dennis  50:57  
you know, costly so, you know, touch points,

Jon Dennis  51:02  
you know,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  51:04  
it just, when was it a barrier to entry, and when it is it actually supportive for entry into the experiences, right? Because Are they really more about creating a financial benefit

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  51:20  
or legal system. But I love that you bring this issue up, because I think people don't appreciate the sort of differences as to why, why they should maybe consider voting against that position in Washington

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  51:37  
and and some and looking at the consequences in cannabis. You know, people always talk about like, let's learn from cannabis, but what did you learn already? Let me see your book report and show me what you learned. What have you learned? Boys and girls and days, right? You know,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  51:55  
however you identify, right? Like, you know, there are real things that we've learned, but we haven't taken the time to really integrate and share and and work together and collaborate to figure out, how do we address this in psychedelics, given the extra complexities like you mentioned, right? You weren't dealing, for the most part, with practitioners with cannabis. Yeah, there were the medical dispensaries and getting, you know, maybe getting a medical card, or in some places, that's still the case. I know California, we can grow the plant without a license,

Speaker 1  52:31  
but not but there's still limits right there. So, and each state is going to have to still figure that out, at least the United States, but, but what? What other I noticed that you kind of getting an asset. What would be the ask? So if you're in Washington, the ask would be to look at that bill. If you if you get there before February 5 and six, you said, yeah, it's just next week. So it's not much time. These were just scheduled, I think, two days ago. And so we've been scrambling to try to prepare a response that can be meaningful to it. I mean, we knew it was going to be coming, but,

Jon Dennis  53:08  
yeah, so, I mean, we intend to do kind of a mobilization effort to really engage the community like we did in Oregon, really hoping that community will show up and really let its voices be heard in this process, because, you know, for the average politician, psychedelics are such a fringe issue. I mean, it's becoming less so over time, but you know, most people don't think that they're either going to win or lose an election based on their position on psychedelic policy. It's not really that important to very many voters right now. So what that means is that you have people who are making these decisions, but there's relatively fewer consequences from from that perspective

Jon Dennis  53:56  
of it and and, you know, they, and a lot of them, are very new to this. So they just, I mean, psychedelic policy

Jon Dennis  54:04  
is not something that you can just, you know, Intuit,

Jon Dennis  54:09  
you know, and there are, yeah,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  54:13  
major criminal justice ramifications and racial and, you know, economic justice ramifications and Health Equity ramifications, and, I mean, it's all the things, you know, I sometimes joke that the ethics issues in the psychedelic space is just like, you know, take everything that you can have in ethics and then put it on a global, non specific magnifier, like a psychedelic and you'll get basically the ethics in Our space, right, let alone in the legal space.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  54:45  
But as we wrap up our conversation,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  54:50  
you know, we like to try and bring in, you know, what other sort of community resources or support, and maybe we should ask, like, what support would you need? You know, what else.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  55:00  
Would help you and your and you know, either you as a person, or you and your practice, like, what, what? What sort of things can people do to support your work?

Jon Dennis  55:09  
Well, I have to say, like, reach Washington isn't me. It's, it's a, it's a really great group of of a number of really brilliant and

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  55:21  
beyond, you know, reach Washington. So I'm not, you know, and I and I'm definitely support of reach Washington, a full, full disclosure. But like, you know, I'm totally biased. If you thought this is gonna be an unbiased show, you're at the wrong place again. Maybe I should instead point to the fact that people often need psychedelic legal help. And I'm not talking about, you've, you've had a criminal penalty, and you need, you know, a lawyer to get you out of the system. You know, I'm talking about, like, you know, people who are doing psychedelic practice, who are trying to do it within the scope of the law, or trying to develop things within these and the laws are really different,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  56:00  
the scopes of practice, and, and, and people often practice in different areas, not just one.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  56:07  
So, so maybe instead, I should ask, you know, what, what would you generally advise someone who's, who's having some, you know, who needs psychedelic legal advice?

Jon Dennis  56:18  
Yeah, well, there's, I mean, I do work with a lot of church groups and religious organizations, and I think that that's really with the way the Supreme Court's going right now. There's a lot of opportunity to make some pretty significant gains. And you know, I think the more that religious use really takes hold and gets established, I think the more

Jon Dennis  56:46  
unlikely it is that there'll be, you know, sort of market dominance by a clinical model. I mean, the more kind of paradigms that we have within the ecosystem, like the medical, clinical model is the one that I think all of this, you know, attention and energy and money, frankly, have been being poured into, but the religious one I, from my perspective, is the vanguard of of equity in this. Because, you know, as long as you know the religious dream Restoration Act is still around and we still have a First Amendment, I think there's always going to be people who are able to access these things in a legal or quasi legal, depending on people's risk tolerance. I mean, it's not always clear, but

Jon Dennis  57:40  
you know, so I think really, in terms of where the opportunities are for people, I mean, Colorado has got a pretty, I mean, the best system in the US right now, far better than Oregon, and far better than what's being proposed in in Washington by the backers of this, of these two companion bills. And I think, yeah, it's just really about finding, I guess, where a person wants to go with this. I mean, there's

Jon Dennis  58:12  
just a lot. It's such a broad landscape that it's, you know, really is just being a psychedelic lawyer doesn't mean you're going to be able to help all the psychedelic clients, because this is true, yeah. And just with, as with any legal advice, please,

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  58:28  
none of us constitutes legal advice. He was kind of consult a lawyer in your state, region or municipalities, so they can be familiar in your state. But thank you so much, John. I love our discussion today, and, and, you know, yeah, even though we're not giving people legal help, I hope people have some help in understanding why there's some complexities in the legal space. But even more importantly, about, you know, how you came into relationship and and the importance of your work?

Jon Dennis  59:00  
Wow, yeah, thanks, Sandra, and I hope you.

Jon Dennis  59:06  
Yeah. Folks know about your work with epic, because it really is some of the most inspiring work in the in the field right now, in terms of really helping to heal community that's trying to heal, like helping to heal the communities of healing that experience ruptures, and I just think that that's really far ahead of its time and will solve a lot of problems in terms of the quest for self regulation on this work.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  59:31  
Well, thank you. Thank you, John. All the conversation will and the journey will always continue. So, so thank you again and and hopefully I'll talk to you again soon.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  59:42  
I really enjoyed talking with with John. We are good friends, and he's the type of friend you can you know, call him when you haven't talked to in a while, and he's always so open hearted and friendly and supportive. But I really felt it was important to make sure we bring in the legal conversation into the.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  1:00:00  
This for many reasons, and it'll keep arising in conversation, but for you in relationship, as you try and build community, as we all try and build collaborations and relationship, the legal landscape is definitely changing, and in the example of Oregon that you heard here, it was criminalized, then decriminalized, then recriminalized in just a matter of a few years, all while adding legal access in that process and

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  1:00:34  
and de prioritization versus legalization. There's, there's all these terms that make it all the more challenging when we don't have reliable sources of information that can help inform you to make good, even legal choices. So just be advised, I obviously I'm a lawyer, and even though John's a lawyer, he's a lawyer in Oregon, that you need to be informed about what the legal access and guidelines are and and make sure you understand. You know, just because someone says something's decriminalized, that's not the same as saying it's legal

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  1:01:18  
and de prioritizes, usually, what their their meaning. So be informed. Check check information, especially if this is involving you in your practice. You know, get legal support and advice as appropriate, and make sure that they are aware of your particular region and state or country so that you can have the information you really need to stay safe or more informed and have more legal access, and even for advocacy, knowing what those rules are will help you advocate, but more specifically for what you feel may or may not, need to change where you live.

Dr. Sandra Dreisbach  1:02:01  
Thank you for joining me on psychedelic source. If you found value in today's episode, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share with others in our community. And if you're a psychedelic practitioner, therapist or coach looking to identify blind spots in your practice or determine next steps for moving it forward. Take the first step by visiting psychedelic Source podcast.com Until next time, remember, start low, go slow and stay connected to your source. You.