FAQ
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
Have questions about entheogens, the Decriminalize Nature movement or how you can get involved? We have answers! Get insights to common questions and learn more about us.
Get a quick overview about the Decriminalize Nature organization and how you can get involved. Read through our answers to frequently asked questions and take action today!
FAQ
About the Decriminalize Nature Organization
What is Decriminalize Nature?
Decriminalize Nature is a 501(c)(4) grassroots organization that seeks to educate the community, advocate for and change policy to decriminalize entheogenic plants and fungi. Based in Oakland, CA, Decriminalize Nature sprouted in 2019 and has grown to become a nationwide movement.
How do you define an entheogenic plant?
The resolution defines them as “the full spectrum of plants, fungi, and natural materials deserving reverence and respect from the perspective of the individual and the collective, that can inspire personal and spiritual well-being, can benefit psychological and physical wellness, and can reestablish human’s unalienable and direct relationship to nature. Entheogen refers to plants, fungi, and natural sources, such as mushrooms, cacti, iboga containing plants and/or extracted combinations of plants similar to Ayahuasca; and limited to those containing the following types of compounds: indole amines, tryptamines, phenetyhlamines.
Why should we support a decriminalization approach?
While science, technology, and industrialization have expanded our capacity, they have also disconnected us from nature. How do we reconnect to nature now that we are at the crossroads of climate change? By commit to working with civic and community leaders and residents to develop an educational framework and program to ensure all residents can receive information, provided in a culturally relevant way, about effective and proper cultivation, use, practice, set, setting, dosage, risk, and benefits in a way that enables greater personal choice and agency in healing.
We feel decriminalization is a risk reduction strategy where those who need support, integration, and education can seek them out without fear of persecution. In addition, we feel community is essential to safe and responsible practice and through decriminalization those who have been forced into the underground can feel safer to emerge and share information and resources.
What do you want the entheogenic / psychedelic future to look like?
Decriminalize Nature is looking towards a future where everyone has the freedom to grow, use, share, and learn about psychedelic plants and fungi. They envision a society where psychedelic knowledge and safety is community-driven, rather than restricted by centralized government. Learn more at EntheoNation.com
FAQ
Our Mission and Vision
Mission
To improve human health and well-being by decriminalizing and expanding access to entheogenic plants and fungi through political and community organizing, education and advocacy.
Vision
We envision happier, healthier individuals and communities reconnected to nature and entheogenic plant and fungi traditions and practices.
What are your core values?
1. Love for humanity and nature
2. It is an unalienable right to develop our own relationship with nature
3. Decentralization: grassroots, local voices, supporting each other
4. Organizing diverse communities that represent the local city’s population
5. Non-commodification, non-regulation, avoid models of scarcity
6. Equitable access: Grow, Gather, Gift
7. Decriminalize Nature first and forever
8. Open source/access
9. Transparency
10. Honor the sacred
Why ensure access to all people?
Equitable access in this case means removing barriers, such as criminalization, that inhibit people from engaging in entheogenic practices, cultivation, and healing.
Why should entheogens be removed from Schedule 1 classification?
Thousands of years of practices across the globe highlight entheogenic healing and spiritual potentials. Humans should have the inalienable rights to engage with naturally occurring plants and fungi in the manner they feel appropriate for themselves. These plants and fungi were placed on the Federal Schedule 1 without any scientific research, based on Nixon’s intention to arrest the leaders within the African American civil rights movements and the leaders of the anti-war movements and we should correct this wrong.
FAQ
About Our Local Chapters
I want to lead a team!
We hold an online orientation meeting on the last Tuesday of every month at 3pm PST. Email us at info@decriminalizenature.com and we’ll send you a Zoom meeting link!
I want to connect to a team in my area!
Find your local chapter here, if you don’t see one lead one today by reaching out to info@deciminalizenature.org
How long does this process take?
While timelines vary by city, ranging from a few weeks to over four years, the average time to pass legislation is about 18 months. This process is speeding up as education and destigmatization shift the focus from stigma to logistics.
What is the difference between a resolution, an ordinance, and a ballot initiative?
There are three main approaches to changing policy at the city level:
Resolution: A declaration by the city council that sets enforcement priorities and allocates resources. Resolutions can limit enforcement and budget priorities.
Ordinance: A change to municipal code that may conflict with state law, potentially leading to state pushback. Ordinances are voted on twice and are more difficult to reverse once enacted.
Ballot Initiative: An issue voted on directly by citizens. This method is often costly and time-consuming.
The resolution approach has been the most effective for Decriminalize Nature teams. Building strong relationships with city council members also supports long-term infrastructure and policy development.
Where do I find out more information about my city council?
Go to your city council website. Review the City Councilmembers and demystify the process by attending a city council meeting.
FAQ
How to Get Involved
Donate Money
Donating money one time, or in an ongoing basis, is the easiest way to support the movement. We will use your donation where it’s needed most, whether its supporting local chapters, recruiting new volunteers or a host of other ways.
You can donate via credit card, PayPal or even Crypto!
Buy Merch
Support the movement in style with an official DN tshirt, hoodie, hat, sticker and more! All proceeds go directly to supporting the national and local organizations in the best ways possible.
Volunteer
Become a volunteer and help the growing movement! There are many ways you can donate your time, skills and expertise to the Decriminalize Nature movement.
Find a Local Chapter
Our grassroots movement is rooted in local chapters that get things done in communities across the country. Find one near you, or learn how to start your own.
Follow us on Social Media
Keep up with the latest about Decriminalize Nature on any of our social media pages. We’re on Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube and Instagram (that’s where were most active)
Contact Us
To get a hold of the national organization, please email info@decriminalizenature.org.
To contact a local chapter, click here.
FAQ
About Entheogens
What are entheogens?
Entheogens are sacred, natural ethnobotanicals, often erroneously labeled as “drugs.” Common examples of these plants and fungi include psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, and cacti containing mescaline. For millennia, cultures have respected entheogens for providing healing, knowledge, creativity, and spiritual connection. Entheogenic plant practices have long historical roots in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe, yet this connection was severed for most of the global population long ago. From the Port Townsend Psychedelic Society
What are their benefits?
Scientific studies are demonstrating that entheogens can be beneficial for treating conditions such as end-of-life anxiety, substance abuse, addiction, cluster headaches, PTSD, neurodegeneration, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and treatment resistant depression, as well as reduce rates of intimate partner violence and recidivism.
Additionally, recent studies have shown entheogens to be beneficial to personal and spiritual growth. These studies confirm the anecdotal evidence provided by entheogenic cultures that have traditionally engaged with these plants. From the Port Townsend Psychedelic Society
What is the experience like?
The psychedelic experience from entheogens is often compared to other states of consciousness, such as those experienced during meditation, near-death experiences, and mystical experiences. More on the entheogenic experience
What are psilocybin mushrooms?
Mushrooms containing psilocybin are respected as a safe and natural healing sacrament in Mexico, Central America and throughout the world. They are found to encourage openness, creativity and spiritual growth.
Researchers have ranked them as a top-5 most meaningful experience and found them be be beneficial in treating end-of-life anxiety, improving depression and reducing recidivism. Read More
What is ayahuasca?
Over 75 indigenous groups in the Amazonian basin consider ayahuasca a sacred “plant teacher” or “one who offers knowledge”. It can be beneficial for depression, addiction, anxiety, and PTSD, and has been shown to benefit creativity, openness, and spiritual growth.
Ayahuasca brew is a modulation of DMT with MAOI and over 4,000 plant combinations similar to ayahuasca. Learn More
What are entheogenic cacti?
Entheogenic cacti have been honored as sacred plants for thousands of years throughout the Americas and are central to traditional religious and healing practices. They are considered a sacrament and a medicine and archaeological evidence suggests they were utilized for over 5,000 years by the Wixárika/Huichol.
Some cacti have over 50 psychoactive alkaloids and around 100 cacti contain mescaline. They can be beneficial for the treatment of alcoholism. Learn More
What is iboga?
From Central Africa through Gabon, iboga is revered for initiatory rites of passage involving encounters with ancestors from the spirit realm. A handful of other plants besides Tabernanthe iboga such as Voaconga and Star Jasmine also contain ibogaine.
Two are typically two phases of experience: Visionary or oneirogenic (dreamlike) and introspective. Iboga can be beneficial for treatment-resistant opiate and methamphetamine addiction. Learn More
What is cognitive liberty?
Beyond Cannabis: Psychedelic decriminalization and social justice, Lewis and Clark Review 23:3 p881
“Cognitive liberty is, in a sense, synonymous with freedom of thought, though it can more specifically refer to individuals maintaining self-determination over their own brain chemistry. This “right to self-determine what is on (and in) one’s mind, can be inferred from general and widely-accepted ideas of the relation between the individual and the state, granting persons wide ranging liberties in self-regarding matters.” As Richard Glen Boire observes in On Cognitive Liberty:
The right to control one’s own consciousness is the quintessence of freedom. If freedom is to mean anything, it must mean that each person has an inviolable right to think for him or herself. It must mean, at a minimum, that each person is free to direct one’s own consciousness; one’s own underlying mental processes, and one’s beliefs, opinions, and worldview. This is self-evident and axiomatic.”