Psychedelic reform coming soon to a ballot box near you: 5 Questions for New Approach deputy policy director Jared Moffat

Moffat discusses New Approach’s plans for the future.

Jared Moffat started working on drug policy reform issues in 2010 as a student at Brown University, where he helped lead the local chapter of the national advocacy organization  Students for Sensible Drug Policy. He now works as deputy policy director at a political action committee dedicated to drug reform efforts called New Approach. The PAC has been instrumental in passing and proposing statewide voter initiatives and legislation aimed at making psychedelic substances state-legal.  

New Approach was formed over a decade ago by attorney Graham Boyd, who is now the PAC’s executive director, to fund drug reform initiatives including allowing personal use of marijuana and legalizing medical marijuana. In recent years, New Approach has turned to psychedelics. The group raised over $13 million in 2020, and contributed $3.5 million to Oregon’s 2020 ballot measure 109 (now codified into Oregon law as ORS 475A), which created the state’s psilocybin program. They were also behind the passage of Colorado’s Natural Medicine Health Act, which established a regulated psilocybin program as well as decriminalizing additional psychedelic substances including DMT, mescaline, and ibogaine.

Now, New Approach is working to get a similar initiative before voters in Massachusetts in 2024. The PAC has also supported psychedelics legislation efforts in California and is working towards building support in other states. The Microdose spoke with Moffat about New Approach’s plans for the future. 

What’s New Approach’s strategy when it comes to introducing state-by-state psychedelic reform policy, and how do you decide which states to target?

Ultimately, our goal and mission is to enact policies that create safe, legal access to psychedelic healing in all 50 states. We know from polling that a majority of voters around the country want that, and there’s a lot of public support that has opened up for these policies. About half the states allow citizens to bring forward initiative proposals, so our strategy involves a mix of initiatives and legislative efforts, like ones we’re leading in California and New Jersey. Legislative efforts are often challenging and require a longer time scale — there’s a labyrinth of committee hearings and amendments to navigate, and politicians tend to be a little more timid than actual voters when it comes to trying new policies. So ballot initiatives offer us a chance to have direct democracy and take these policies directly to voters.

If we had the bandwidth and resources to start ballot initiatives in every state that had that process, that would be exciting. But there are a number of factors we consider in which states to explore since it takes a lot of resources and energy to execute a successful campaign. Initial interest in Massachusetts grew from our Colorado victory in 2022. Graham Boyd, our executive director, had meetings with the Boston Psychedelic Research Group, who expressed interest in state policy reform, and a seed of an idea for a campaign emerged from those conversations. 

After some initial exploration — considering the timeline and our capacity to take this on — we looked at the bigger picture and it became clear that Massachusetts would be a pretty great place to launch a campaign. It would give us a chance to break ground on the east coast, which could have a positive impact on other efforts in New York, Connecticut, or Rhode Island. Massachusetts has consistently been a leader in medical innovation and terrific psychedelic research. Our initial research with voters also suggested it would be possible to get majority support for it. 

You’ve passed ballot initiatives in Oregon and Colorado, and now you’re gathering signatures for one in Massachusetts. Is there model language for these initiatives? How much do you tailor them to each state?

I want to emphasize that this is an emerging movement, so it’s fluid. What we’re doing in Massachusetts might not be what we do in 2026. But I think we’ll continue to see a basic approach where we start with a base framework that includes two routes of access at the state level: systems for regulated access that involves supervision with trained facilitators, like what we have in Oregon, and removing criminal penalties for personal use of psychedelics. Those two policies together serve as our starting point. 

In each state we talk with as many local experts and stakeholders as we possibly can. We ask questions: What is the existing regulatory environment like? What agencies might be involved with a program like this? How do we ensure local voices or groups and Indigenous groups are included? How should the advisory board be structured? What policies have local advocates been discussing?

All these factors are taken into account. In Massachusetts, our legal team of national and local policy experts worked together to craft specific language that works within existing Massachusetts laws and accomplishes those goals. Basically, we take the rough outline of what we want to accomplish and work with attorneys to translate those goals into the legalese of actual policy. Ultimately, our aim is to create the most expansive access while also putting forth something voters want and will approve.

In Massachusetts, New Approach submitted two versions of the ballot initiative - one that decriminalizes growing plant-based psychedelics at home, and one that does not. Why submit two versions?

It’s common for campaigns to submit multiple versions of initiatives, and it’s prudent because you increase the odds one will be certified and make it to the other side. On September 6 we were happy to hear both were certified, which left us with a decision to make about which to move forward with. Over the last few weeks we have had discussions with local partners and did additional voter research to inform our discussion, and ultimately our coalition of partners felt good about moving forward with the version that does include the decriminalization of home growing. It’s an exciting step because now we can focus on the signature drive and building our coalition over the next few months. 

After a long, and at times contentious, rules-making process in Oregon, psilocybin services are underway there; you can now go and take the drug in a state-licensed facility. Some people in the psychedelics research and advocacy realms have said it would be better to pause and learn from Oregon before setting up similar programs in other states. New Approach is not taking the wait and see approach, but charging ahead with new initiatives and new legislation. How would you respond to the “get Oregon right first” argument?

Voters and policymakers are clearly seeking out additional tools to address the mental health crisis, especially for veterans, health workers, and first responders. The public is crying out for solutions. At the same time, we have a lot of promising research at this point that psychedelic medicines can be very effective in helping people. While I can certainly sympathize with the desire to see what happens in Oregon, I don't think that the learning process is incompatible with moving forward with policy reform. Those two things can and should happen at the same time; we can learn from Oregon as we propose policy. 

In Massachusetts, for example, if we successfully put forth a policy on the ballot for November 2024, it will be at least another year or two before regulators have developed rules, and the first therapy centers are able to open. That means that it would be potentially three years from today between now and when centers will be able to provide services. In those three years, we’re going to be watching Oregon and Colorado closely. Many of the lessons can be integrated into the recommendations of any advisory board or regulatory commission established in 2025 and 2026. We are already employing lessons from Oregon. For instance, the Massachusetts initiative would allow facilitators to provide group therapy sessions — we’ve learned from Oregon that group sessions could be more effective for certain people, especially veterans, but it’s also a way to reduce costs for accessing services. 

New Approach is also supporting state legislative bills. Which bills has the group had a hand in, and what’s on the horizon?

We worked with California State Senator Scott Wiener to help pass Senate Bill 58, which decriminalizes personal use of psilocybin, DMT, and mescaline, and sets up a working group in the Department of Health and Human Services to study regulated and facilitated use. The bill cleared the State Assembly and Senate with a bipartisan vote, and it’s sitting on Governor Newsom’s desk. We don’t know what he’s going to do, but it’s an important milestone — no state has ever passed a decriminalization bill out of both chambers. 

We’re also building a foundation in New Jersey; we’ve met with the Senate president and held an educational hearing with the Senate Health Committee. We’ve seen Republicans getting behind psilocybin therapy, and we’re gearing up for a big push. We had some success last year in Maine; we had our bill for psilocybin therapy passed out of the Senate; we came back this year and it didn’t make it through, but we built a lot of positive relationships. And we just had an educational hearing in Indiana where clinicians and policy experts came to speak to this committee. As you can imagine, Indiana is dominated by Republicans but it went well. There’s no specific legislation there yet but we’re hopeful we can use that hearing as a springboard into the 2024 legislature. 

Across the country, we’re finding that when you educate these groups, their eyes open — there are not many issues like this where an hour or even a half hour conversation about research and healing potential can transform how people think. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.