Chris Lisinski reports in The Berkshire Eagle that with about three weeks until the Aug. 2 deadline to file a 2024 initiative petition in Massachusetts, a group is working to create a ballot question there that could decriminalize psychedelic drugs such as certain types of mushrooms. The group Massachusetts for Mental Health Options committee has filed paperwork with state campaign finance regulators signaling plans to get a ballot question on the ballot. Seven years ago Massachusetts voters legalized recreational marijuana. The committee wrote in its submission with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance that it wants "to expand mental health treatment options in Massachusetts by providing new pathways to access natural psychedelic medicine therapy." Ben Unger, who works for the group New Approach that helped pass psychedelic therapy ballot questions in Colorado and Oregon, is working in Massachusetts now and says efforts there are "still very much in the exploratory phase.... The coalition is still forming and the policy is still going through a process of being vetted, discussed and finalized." Southwick Republican Rep. Nicholas Boldyga is on board, saying, "It's been said an idea whose time has arrived cannot be stopped ... I believe that time is now for these life-saving plant medicines as a new paradigm in how we view, and understand, and treat mental health is upon us." Read more about this story in The Berkshire Eagle.