Earlier this year, I wrote an article entitled “California may legalize psychedelics“. My post discusses an introduced legislation (SB-519), which will legalize a large number of psychedelic drugs.You can find out what exactly SB-519 will do in my previous post, but I want to emphasize again that the current form of the bill will Is not Legalize psychedelic drugs, but will legalize them (ie reduce or eliminate penalties). You can also read more about it in my previous post.

I pointed out at the time that this is just an introduction to the bill, and people should not hope that the bill will be passed in its current form, or that it will not be passed at all. Since then, I am very happy to see the bill passed a series of committees in the California Senate.Recently, on June 1, the California Senate vote 21-16 Submit the bill to the California State Assembly. For those who did not participate in the legislative process, this is a major event. Let’s break it down.

Like the federal government, California has two legislative bodies: the Senate and the Parliament (a bit like the Federal House of Representatives). Bills introduced in a chamber usually pass through a series of committees of the institution and are frequently revised before being submitted to the entire Senate or Parliament (if applicable) for a full vote. If approved, the bill will be transferred from the Senate to the Parliament and vice versa to pass similar procedures. Once passed in the two agencies, the bill will be placed on the governor’s desk for (hopefully) signing. There are exceptions to this process, but this is a general framework.

The fact that SB-519 passed in the Senate is a good sign of the bill-but it does not mean that the war has been won. Keep in mind that the bill was passed with only 21-16 votes, which is not very high considering all factors.

Not frustrating, but the bill is likely to die out in parliament. Many of you may remember that California tried to legalize CBD through AB-228 in 2019 (I wrote articles about the bill many times on this blog, and I won’t even try to link to these posts). Basically, the bill passed the California State Assembly after a lot of amendments and passed some Senate committees, but it died in the final stage of the process.

The last point is that in the process, some provisions related to the revocation and sealing of previous convictions have been deleted. Therefore, if the bill is passed in its current form, it will lack some language in the introduced form.

SB-519 may not pass. Or it may pass after extensive revisions. We don’t know yet. Only time will prove everything, but we will keep praying.