A Western New York lawmaker wants to launch a pilot program that would allow 10,000 people to receive psychedelic psilocybin therapy for mental illness and other conditions.
What could go wrong?
Under legislation introduced by Assemblyman Pat Burke (D-West Seneca), the pilot program would focus on military veterans, first responders and their families, and people who suffer from cluster headaches.
The aim would be to find out if psilocybin really can help people with mental issues.
It all sounds well and good. Until you remember that we saw recreational weed legalized following a similar rubric. And we know how that’s worked out in New York State. It’s been a disaster.
Medical marijuana was legalized in New York State in 2014. It was meant to ease the pain for people with terminal illnesses like cancer and to help kids who suffered seizures.
Who could argue? What kind of monster doesn’t want to help people find comfort at the end of their lives? Who doesn’t want to help sick children?
And in a very similar way you can hardly argue when it comes to helping military veterans and first responders who are dealing with PTDS and other mental stresses.
It’s easy to get lured in.
When medical marijuana was approved, we weren’t even talking about legalizing weed for recreational use. And the medical weed program was so strict that then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted that smokable marijuana products not be allowed under the law.
Look where we are now, not even 10 years later.
Recreational weed, sorry, I mean “adult use marijuana,” was legalized in New York in 2021 and the stink of weed quickly became ubiquitous on city streets, including on Staten Island.
You smell it while you’re walking on the street, driving, shopping in a store, sitting in a park or riding on mass transit. The odor is there morning, noon and night.
How quaint Cuomo’s old admonition against smokable weed seems now.
What’s worse, the state’s legal weed market remains basically nonexistent, unable…
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