Politics
Alaska Activists Launch Campaign To Put Psychedelics Legalization Measure On 2026 Ballot
Activists in Alaska are working to put a measure on the 2026 state ballot to legalize certain psychedelics—including psilocybin, mescaline and DMT—and create a state-regulated system for facilitated use.
The group Natural Medicine Alaska this week officially began gathering signatures in the cities of Anchorage and Palmer as part of a first step in the state’s initiative process.
Organizers first have to submit 100 signatures of qualified registered voters to get the process rolling. From there, the state Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom (R) has 60 days to decide whether to certify the proposal for further signature gathering to qualify for the 2026 ballot.
While language of the prospective ballot measure is not available on Natural Medicine Alaska’s website—and the group did not immediately respond to an emailed request from Marijuana Moment—a policy outline explains the plan as “building off of” Colorado’s voter-approved 2022 Natural Medicine Health Act, under which facilitators recently administered the state’s first legal dose of psilocybin.
The Alaska proposal would legalize non-commercial use, cultivation and sharing of DMT, non-peyote mescaline, psilocybin and psilocin under a so-called “grow, gather, gift” model popular among psychedelic reform proponents.
It would further create a state-regulated program where adults would be administered natural medicines in a supervised setting, and it would allow certain medical professionals to “prescribe and dispense microdoses…to patients.”
The policy outline says the measure “shifts away from a restrictive healing center model, allowing individual practitioners to provide [natural medicine] in their offices and at-home facilitation, increasing accessibility in rural communities” common in Alaska.
Facilities would need to be “majority Alaska-owned, ensuring economic benefits stay within the state.”
Traditional healers would also be protected under the proposed initiative for “ceremonial, spiritual, or cultural use of plant medicines” through legal exemptions to state drug laws.
“We see a future where natural medicines are available as an option to all who are seeking out healing and well-being, a future where education on these medicines empowers the Alaskan community with legalized personal use of psilocybin and other natural psychedelics,” says a Natural Medicine Alaska campaign video uploaded to YouTube in February. “We see an Alaska transformed by the decriminalization of entheogens into a regulated and supportive environment for the therapeutic use of psychedelics.”
One natural medicine, ibogaine, would be specifically prohibited for personal use, though ibogaine treatment centers are included in the proposal as component “to be implemented once Alaska’s regulated access program is established.”
“Traditional use [of iboga] by highly trained and recognized practitioners” would also be protected under the plan.
Other provisions in the policy outline include expungement and record-clearing for past criminal offenses related to natural medicine, local protections “for active duty [military] members, law enforcement and first responders who use [natural medicines] covered under the initiative” and support for synthetic versions of ibogaine “to promote sustainability and prevent overharvesting of natural sources.”
Alaska would be further required under the proposal, the outline says, “to provide psychedelic crisis assessment and intervention training for first responders to enhance their knowledge and skills to quickly and effectively respond to emotional and behavioral crisis events involving [natural medicines].”
A poll last year found that nearly half (49.4 percent) of adults in Alaska would support a ballot measure to more broadly remove criminal penalties for using substances such as psilocybin mushrooms.
That support rose markedly—to nearly two thirds (65 percent)—when participants were told that Alaska has high rates of mental illnesses that could potentially be treated with psychedelics.
Last year, Alaska lawmakers passed legislation to create a state task force to study how to license and regulate psychedelic-assisted therapy. The measure took effect without the signature of Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R).
So far two other states have facilitated psychedelics programs that are fully operational. Oregon voters legalized therapeutic psilocybin in 2020, and Colorado’s program was passed at the ballot box in 2022, with the state’s governor signing legislation a year later to create the regulatory framework for the program.
In Oregon, more people could eventually access legal psilocybin following a recent federal court ruling in favor of plaintiffs who argued that the state’s first-in-the nation psilocybin law wrongfully prevents homebound patients from seeking care.
Four care providers—three licensed psilocybin facilitators and a physician specializing in advanced and terminal illnesses—sued the state about year ago, alleging that the state Psilocybin Services Act (PSA) discriminates against disabled individuals who can’t travel to designated service centers where the substance is administered.
In Maine, meanwhile, lawmakers last week reversed course and rejected a bill to legalize possession of up to one ounce of psilocybin by people 21 and older.
At the federal level, attorneys for a doctor seeking to reschedule psilocybin so he can administer it to terminally ill patients recently demanded an update from the Drug Enforcement Administration, which previously agreed to submit a request for a scientific review of the psychedelic from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Separately in Alaska, a federal judge ruled late last month that state officials did not violate the constitution when restricting intoxicating hemp products in 2023.
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