[[{“value”:”Dear Stoner:I understand it’s not against the law for someone to gift meshrooms, but it would be illegal if I bought them. But is it legal to trade some of my sticky-icky nugs of kush for some fantastic fungi as long as no money changes hands?
Aspiring Barterer
Dear Barterer: Let’s start with the Natural Medicine Health Act of 2022, which decriminalized magic mushrooms and created a gifting economy in the psychedelic space in Colorado. Pertinent sentences read: “An individual may share with an adult (21+) in the context of counseling, spiritual guidance, community-based use, supported use, or related services,” and”No payment for natural medicine (‘remuneration’).” However, payment for bona fide harm reduction or support services used concurrently with sharing is allowed.
“Remuneration” is the operative word here, according to Sean McAllister, a Denver-based attorney who specializes in cannabis and psychedelic law. “The sharing provisions say you can share with no remuneration, and remuneration, of course, means payment, defined to be anything of value,” he says.
As opposed to the regulated healing centers and licensed handlers and facilitators, one can only receive remuneration for harm reduction services on the personal use side of the Natural Medicine Health Act, according to McAllister.
Although growing, possessing and gifting marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms are legal in Colorado, selling them is not. But what about trading weed for shrooms?
Flickr/waqas anees
“This is the gray area,” he explains. “If I give you a ten-minute explanation of psilocybin — start low, go slow, set and setting, all the basic information — and you pay me $50 for the harm reduction consultation, then, voilà: I give you free medicine.”
If you’re a recreational cannabis user without a medical marijuana card, you can share up to an ounce of weed. But characterizing a gift exchange as a “trade” is technically coloring outside the lines. “Legally, you should stay away from any system where you could be seen as receiving value for giving something,” McAllister adds. “But in reality, if you have someone that gives marijuana and somebody gives psilocybin, and you both say it was voluntary, I think it could be done.”
According to the attorney, the true question is, “Would he only give me psilocybin if I gave him cannabis? Then, technically, you’re receiving something of value.”
That distinction means that trading one for the other would be seen as illegal. However, such an exchange is also a very low priority for law enforcement.
McAllister equates the scenario to trees falling in the forest when no one is there to hear them crash: “Law enforcement doesn’t have time to go out and investigate how somebody gave somebody mushrooms.”
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“}]] It’s complicated, but one expert has a clear enough answer for the un-stoned. Read More
