Councilman Carlino: Psychedelic drugs lead to ‘way better outcomes’
Martin Kidston
(Missoula Current) In an interview with a blog aimed at legalizing psychedelic drugs, Missoula City Council member Daniel Carlino said he's had “a lot of life-changing experiences” with the substance and will continue working to decriminalize it.
Carlino, who is currently the youngest member of City Council and is up for reelection this year in Ward 3, conducted an interview with Normalizepsychedlics.com outside the state Capitol late last year.
The story, titled “City Council, Civil Disobedience & Psychedelics,” recently came to the attention of other city officials.
“If every politician had a psychedelic experience, I think we would be getting way better outcomes in this world,” Carlino said in the interview. “Part of the reason that I got into politics is just believing in myself through psychedelic experiences and thinking ‘Hey, I can change the world and step up to the plate to be in politics and be an activist.' ”
The Missoula Current reached out to Carlino for comment on Thursday morning but didn't get a response.
Carlino introduced a resolution in partnership with council member Kristen Jordan in July 2022 looking to decriminalize entheogenic plants, suggesting they've been shown to carry health benefits and have been used by various cultures for thousands of years.
But the resolution carried too many unanswered questions pertaining to law enforcement, youth and state law, and it didn't have the votes to pass. Rather than seeing the measure fail, its sponsors opted to table it.
“This resolution isn't asking for legalization. There's no line-item budget for this. But police time is taxpayer money spent,” Carlino said at the time. “We're asking to stop spending taxpayer money on criminalizing entheogenic plant use. We're asking our city lobbyists to support this at the state level when this comes up.”
Entheogenic plants include cacti and mushrooms that have a serotonin base, which advocates say makes them non-addictive. The plants include cacti like peyote, mushrooms containing psilocybin, or other plant combinations like DMT.
But the plants remain listed as a Schedule 1 Drug by the federal government. Both the Missoula Police Department and local health officials opposed Carlino's resolution to decriminalize the drug. One substance abuse specialist said decriminalization would have consequences for the city's youth.
Carlino's interview and the comments within caught some council members by surprise.
“I think constituents elect city councilors to use good judgement and I'm not sure Daniel's opinions on using psychedelics to enlighten us to make better municipal decisions is something many people would agree with,” City Council President Amber Sherrill told the Missoula Current.
“Regardless as to people's opinions on the use of psychedelics for either medicinal or recreational purposes, I don't believe there are many people that agree that council decisions would be better or that they would like their electeds to experience psychedelics in order to serve our community. In fact, some might consider those decisions to be the result of impaired judgement. I very seriously doubt many of his colleagues on council or our community at large would agree with his position on this topic.”
In his interview with the blog, Carlino said the social movement to decriminalize psychedelics would ultimately prevail. In the interview, he called for acts of civil disobedience. Carlino in past budget sessions has attempted to cut funding for the police department.
“I think it’s a great idea to lean on our neighbors and friends in the meantime to find access to these naturally growing psychedelics,” he said in the interview. “If the police come to arrest the people that are running illegal distribution of psychedelics, the civil disobedience would be gathering a big crowd of people and physically blocking the police from arresting them.”