From the municipal front to the ballot box, here’s how psychedelics fared in Massachusetts in 2024
The 2024 election cycle in the Bay State wound up looking like a rollercoaster ride for psychedelic advocates, marked by both resounding defeat at the ballot box and a resulting emergence of a more diverse and resilient grassroots movement.
While the ambitious Question 4 campaign which aimed to decriminalize and legalize psychedelic therapy ultimately failed, this year also saw the rise of new leaders along with the exposure of longtime movement figureheads for deceitful and divisive behavior.
Looking forward, it seems that the events of 2024, however unfortunate, paved the way for a more ethical and equitable future for psychedelic advocacy in Mass. But before we look ahead, here’s a recap of the rocky road that got us here over the past 12 months …
The Yes on 4 campaign to legalize psychedelic therapy in Massachusetts fails
Despite a nearly $7 million budget, an 18-month head start, and a lead in the polls in the leadup to Election Day, the Yes on 4 campaign failed spectacularly on Nov. 5, as Massachusetts voters soundly rejected the dual psychedelic decriminalization/legalized therapy measure by a nearly 14-point margin.
As Talking Joints Memo Editor Chris Faraone wrote in his post-mortem on Q4’s demise, “While Massachusetts for Mental Health Options appeared to have the resources and team to pull off such a juggling act, in practice, the Yes on 4 troupe dropped the ball.”
The campaign was plagued by a litany of issues, but from my own perspective having covered the initiative from its fraught beginning, it was the bafflingly disorganized leadership of Dewey Square Group that sealed Q4’s embarrassing fate on election night. Strategically, the campaign was run like almost any other cookie-cutter establishment op: financially irresponsible, dismissive of prominent grassroots allies (some of whom they employed), and quick to blame progressive ideologies for their own glaring ineptitude. Ultimately, the consultants responsible for Q4’s failure ended the campaign in a fitting manner: behind closed doors at a highly unusual private party, closed to press at the Harvard Club in Boston’s upscale Back Bay neighborhood.
There is, however, some light at the end of this tunnel. As grassroots psychedelic advocates step up to take the reins of the Mass movement, Dewey Square Group’s contract with the Yes on 4 campaign expires on Dec. 31.
From grassroots growing pains to broken trusts in the Massachusetts psychedelic community
Political advocacy got off to a strong start in the beginning of 2024, with both Provincetown and Medford joining the Mass municipalities that have passed local law enforcement deprioritization measures pertaining to cultivation and personal possession of certain psychedelics.
Local activists, on the other hand, did not have such a solid launch, largely due to turbulence caused by James Davis, the founder of the group Bay Staters for Natural Medicine. While the laundry list of his apparent misconduct predates this year, many of his questionable leadership tactics came to light over the past ten-or-so months.
As I reported in February in collaboration with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and HorizonMass, despite initially endorsing Question 4 in its totality, Davis became vitriolic toward the New Approach-backed ballot initiative after accepting a $35,000 donation from the Political Action Committee last fall. Complicating matters further, he neglected to disclose the gift to many of his fellow grassroots activists across New England. Davis claimed that PAC officials never bothered to consult him on specifics of the legislation, but a series of emails leaked in March showed the Bay Staters founder had been asked multiple times for his input, and offered no suggestions or objections.
Things got so twisted that Davis wound up working with the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions, a notorious prohibitionist group, to target Question 4. And our reporting showed the depths that he was willing to sink to in his subterfuge; in June, I revealed that Davis impersonated his former collaborator and US Marine Veteran Mike Botelho for nearly a year, going as far as to create an email address in Botelho’s name. Davis’ “strange, unethical behavior” was widely condemned by psychedelic supporters, and the office of one state rep even called for law enforcement to investigate the “disturbing” allegations.
New alliances and a hopeful future for psychedelics in Massachusetts
In the wake of Davis’ credibility going up in flames, the grassroots community that existed long before his group started has flourished—with a number of former BSNM collaborators linking to build a new coalition of psychedelic leaders and organizers.
Jamie Morey, for example, was still working alongside Bay Staters in March. In the months that followed, the founder of Parents for Plant Medicine went on to join the Q4 campaign as a community engagement coordinator, forging ties across the region’s psychedelic and cannabis constituencies. Since Election Day, Morey teamed up with fellow advocate CJ LoConte, a US Army veteran who also joined the Q4 ranks and even appeared in a television spot that was the highlight of an otherwise lackluster effort.
Graham Moore, a Cambridge native and former Bay Staters ally as well, joined the Yes on 4 campaign as an educational outreach director and proved his potential in the psychedelic policy reform space. Moore recently participated in a panel discussion, hosted by the Parabola Center for Law and Policy, examining what went wrong for Q4 at the voting booth.
US Navy Veteran and Randolph resident Imani Turnbull-Brown also surged on the psychedelic advocacy scene. Turnbull-Brown, who previously collaborated with BSNM, has since co-founded the Entheogen Melanin Collective, Boston’s first-ever POC-led psychedelic advocacy organization.
Despite the setbacks of 2024, the Massachusetts plant medicine movement is far from dead. With a new legislative session coming, the stage is set for fresh grassroots psychedelic leadership. Figures like Morey, LoConte, Moore, and Turnbull-Brown are poised to lead the charge, building on the lessons learned from both the wins and failures of this past year. The path ahead may be uncertain, but their commitment to responsible reform remains strong.
