New Hampshire Lawmakers Unanimously Approve Psilocybin Decriminalization Bill

A House committee in New Hampshire has advanced a bill that would decriminalize use and possession of psilocybin.

Members of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety voted unanimously, 16–0, to pass the bill, HB 528, from Rep. Kevin Verville (R).

Prior to moving the bill forward, the committee first adopted an amendment to temper the proposed reform. As originally introduced, it would have completely removed all penalties around obtaining, purchasing, transporting, possessing or using psilocybin, effectively legalizing it on a noncommercial basis.

The amended version of the legislation imposes penalties, but they’re significantly lower than the state’s current felony-level prohibition.

Under the new amendment, a first psilocybin offense would be a violation, subject to a fine of $100 or less. Second and third offenses would be class B misdemeanors, carrying fines of up to $500 and $1,000, respectively, but also with no risk of jail time.

Fourth and subsequent offenses would still be classified as felonies.

Notably, language of the proposal does not include any specific limit to the amount of psilocybin a person could possess.

The committee’s chair, Rep. Terry Roy (R), said that while he opposes full legalization of psilocybin, he believes the drug has medical value and ought not be punished as a felony.

“I’d like to see it done through proper scientific channels, through university studies and the [Department of Veterans Affairs],” Roy explained. “But having said that, I support this bill lowering it from a felony. We don’t need more intoxicated people, but we also don’t need more felons.”

Action on the bill follows a committee hearing last month at which a member of the panel, Rep. Kathleen Paquette (R), discussed her lifelong struggle with intractable pain from cluster headaches—a condition the psychedelic is known to treat.

“I suffer from a chronic, excruciating pain condition called trigeminal cephalalgia, also known as cluster headache. They’re called cluster headaches because they tend to cycle and come in clusters,” she told colleagues at that meeting. “When I’m in cycle, I have unbearable attacks of burning, piercing, stabbing pain behind my eye, the pain is so violently severe that I cry, I rock, I pace and I usually end up rolling around on the floor, clutching my head and sobbing. My nose runs, my eye swells and it’s not unusual for me to be vomiting.”

Psilocybin is “believed to help people like me by potentially interrupting and preventing headache cycles,” she continued. “It is thought to reduce inflammation in the brain, alter pain perception and reset the neural pathways that interrupts these painful cycles.”

At the most recent committee hearing on Friday, Rep. David Meuse (D) referenced Paquette’s disclosure.

“We actually heard some pretty compelling testimony from one of our colleagues,” he said, “and I think that really, really helped.”

“I think where I’m at on this is: This particular change to the bill allows it to be treated more like cannabis from a penalty perspective, and less like fentanyl, which I think is a good thing given the therapeutic benefits,” Meuse said of the amended version of HB 528. “It also gives us time to weigh and measure what the potential therapeutic value of this is, to wait for studies to come out before we make any additional decisions on what we’re doing.”

Rep. Alissandra Murray (D), meanwhile, said that testimony at the panel’s last hearing made clear that “not only is this not really a dangerous drug, but it also has medicinal benefits that people are unable to take advantage of currently because of its classification under the Controlled Drug Act.”

“While entirely removing it might be too big a step for this legislature to take right now,” Murray continued, “I think this is a good compromise to start with. And hopefully people will be able to treat their conditions if they need to and not face a felony for doing so.”

Despite the unanimous vote to advance the measure, Vice Chair Rep. Jennifer Rhodes (R) said she was hesitant to endorse the proposal too broadly.

“I just have to say for the record that all this conversation about this being medicine, that’s almost make me want to say ‘no,’” Rhodes said. “I am not a doctor. I don’t know that any of us in here are…If we’re doing this because we’re taking away the penalty, that’s one thing, but doing it because we’re trying to say that we’re making it be medicine, that’s the part that I’m not OK with.”

At the hearing last month, one committee member asked sponsor Verville why he chose to focus the bill on only psilocybin rather than put forward legislation to more broadly legalize the therapeutic use of multiple psychedelics, as the lawmaker has done in the past.

Verville said at the time that he’s “smart enough to know” that pushing for broader reform “is a big bite, and I get a lot of feedback from people that were sympathetic but didn’t vote in favor, and and so what I’ve what I’ve done this year is I’ve rolled this back to only be psilocybin.”

“I dream of a day when we have medical psychedelics available. I dream of that day,” he said. “There are demonstrated medical benefits with depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome—interestingly enough, addiction. So psychedelics can be used to cure addiction to a very high rate.”

This bill, however, is “a discussion” and the beginning of a “debate that we really need to start having in an honest, forthright manner.”

Reached on Friday, Verville told Marijuana Moment he’s “very pleased and very proud” of the committee for “passing this common sense legislation to stop making felons out of users of psilocybin.”

HB 528 next proceeds to the House floor, where it’s been put on the consent calendar.

Separately, the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee gave its approval to two cannabis-related bills earlier this week.

One—HB 198, from Rep. Jared Sullivan (D)—would take a simple, unregulated approach to marijuana legalization. If approved, that measure would allow adults 21 and older to possess up to two ounces of marijuana flower, 10 grams of concentrate and up to 2,000 milligrams of THC in other cannabis products.

Retail sales of marijuana products, along with home cultivation, would remain illegal under the plan. Consuming marijuana on public land would also be prohibited.

Another bill—HB 190, from Rep. Heath Howard (D)—would increase the possession limit of medical marijuana by patients and caregivers, raising it to four ounces from the current two. Existing 10-day patient purchase limits would also increase from two ounces up to four.

And late last month, the full House of Representatives both passed a simple bill to legalize marijuana for adults and also approved measures that would annul certain criminal records around cannabis and allow medical marijuana patients to grow the plant at home.

The legalization measure, also from Verville, would remove state penalties around cannabis-related conduct for adults 21 and older, but it would not establish a licensed commercial market or a broader regulatory scheme.

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The proposal includes no limits on marijuana possession or cultivation. And despite its lack of a regulatory structure for a commercial industry, it would carve out marijuana from the state’s laws against illicit drug sales. State-registered patients or caregivers could, however, have their registration ID cards revoked for selling marijuana no people outside the medical system.

Minors would continue to be barred from using marijuana under the bill. People under 21 would be guilty of a violation if found possessing or using the substance, and anyone under 18 would be referred to a screening for substance use disorders. Adults who use marijuana in a public place would also be guilty of a violation.

It’s widely believed that New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R) would stand in the way of any adult-use legalization bill that were to make it to her desk this session, however. A former U.S. senator and state attorney general, Ayotte said repeatedly on the campaign trail last year that she would oppose efforts at adult-use legalization.

New Hampshire lawmakers nearly passed legislation last session that would have legalized and regulated marijuana for adults—a proposal that then-Gov. Chris Sununu (R) had indicated he’d support. But infighting over how the market would be set up ultimately scuttled that proposal. House Democrats narrowly voted to table it at the last minute, taking issue with the proposal’s state-controlled franchise model, which would have given the state unprecedented sway over retail stores and consumer prices.

A poll from last June found that almost two thirds (65 percent) of New Hampshire residents supported legalizing marijuana. Nearly that same share of residents (61 percent) said at the time that they also supported last session’s failed legalization bill, HB 1633.

Read the full amendment to HB 528 below:

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