OUR PURPOSE:
To decriminalize entheogenic plants and fungi,
restore our root connection with nature,
and improve human health and well-being.
Upcoming Event:
MISSOULA CITY
Contact Your Representatives
Missoula, Montana : City/County
1 Mayor Mayor Andrea Davis
Andrea Davis
Email Mayor Davis
Phone: 406-552-6001
2 City Council (12)
https://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/314/City-Council
Meetings Monday @ 6:00 PM
Council Chambers (in person) or TEAMS (virtually)
Attend in person: City Council Chambers, 140 W Pine, Missoula MT
Email Entire City Council
406-552-6012 (Voicemail box for entire Council)
Mailing Address:
435 Ryman
Missoula, MT 59802
Eric Melson
Ward 1 Council Member
Email Eric Melson
More Information
Jennifer Savage
Ward 1 Council Member
Email Jennifer Savage
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Mirtha Becerra
Ward 2 Council Member
Email Mirtha Becerra
More Information
Sierra Farmer
Ward 2 Council Member
Email Sierra Farmer
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Gwen Jones
Ward 3 Council Member
Email Gwen Jones
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Daniel Carlino
Ward 3 Council Member
Email Dan Carlino
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Amber Sherrill
Ward 4 Council Member
Email Amber Sherrill
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Mike Nugent
Ward 4 Council Member
Email Mike Nugent
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Stacie M. Anderson
Ward 5 Council Member
Stacie Anderson
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Bob Campbell
Ward 5 Council Member
Email Bob Campbell
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Sandra Vasecka
Ward 6 Council Member
Email Sandra Vasecka
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Kristen Jordan
Ward 6 Council Member
Email Kristen Jordan
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3 County Commissioners
https://www.missoulacounty.us/home/showpublisheddocument/80809
Commissioner District #1: Juanita Vero
406-258-4877
jvero@missoulacounty.us
Commissioner District #2 : Dave Strohmaier, Chair
406-258-3204
dstrohmaier@missoulacounty.us
Commissioner District #3 :Josh Slotnick
406-258-3202
jslotnick@missoulacounty.us
JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) Resolution
https://gis.missoulacounty.us/ResearchAPI/Handlers/Documents.ashx?did=pkxxDvkU5DrQoAZ5qSiJhA%3D%3D
Dear Missoula City Council Members, County Commissioners, and Mayor’s Office representatives,
My name is <YOUR NAME HERE.>
I am a Missoula constituent residing in
Ward <WARD #>, OR <COUNTY DISTRICT #>
and,
<ANY PERSONAL, COMMUNITY OR PROFESSIONAL NOTATIONS>.
<PERSONAL STORY, PROFESSIONAL RELATIONS AND OPINIONS, AND PERSONALIZED REQUEST FOR MEETINGS TO DISCUSS>
I am writing you on behalf of Decriminalize Nature Montana (DNMT), which is a local chapter of Decriminalize Nature which is a 501c4 national organization with an independent board which is meant to enable and facilitate communication between chapters while protecting the values and principles of the movement, and channeling power to local leaders and groups.
Decriminalize Nature resolutions have been successfully passed in fifteen-plus U.S Cities including Oakland, CA., Santa Cruz, CA., Ann Arbor, MI., Washington D.C., Sommerville, MA., Cambridge, MA., Northampton, MA., and most recently, Seattle, WA. There are also currently approximately 50-plus cities across the U.S. engaged in Decriminalize Nature efforts at the local level.
The purpose of writing you is to share with you why I am, and We as a community-based coalition, are in favor of local resolutions to decriminalize and make available education and information regarding responsible, safe, and meaningful access to entheogenic plants and fungi for those seeking them as a path toward healing, exploration, or expansion of consciousness.
Numerous medical and research studies have shown reaffirmation of what many cultures and individuals already know, that these naturally occurring plants and fungi are very powerful tools for increasing neural plasticity and allowing the user to become aware of and identify internal causes of mental ailments helping to create a new personal narrative, one that is constructive and beneficial toward leading a healthy and happy life.
For these reasons and more, DNMT feels it is critically important, particularly in a time of increasing disenfranchisement, social division, poverty rates, and mental health ailments, to make information and education about these powerful tools available to members of the community in a way that enables choice and agency for the person in their relationship with entheogenic plants and fungi.
DNMT believes it is imperative to give all people the ability to access information and education on these entheogenic medicines and empower them to make their own choices regarding their use for personal healing and consciousness exploration.
The fundamental power inherent in one’s personal decision to heal and re-write or amend one’s narrative for engaging with themselves and with the world is paramount when setting upon the path toward healing and personal growth. When it comes to choosing the right entheogenic medicines to assist in one’s healing journey, the best choices are informed choices.
To this end, DNMT believes the most important first step upon decriminalizing entheogenic plants and fungi in any urban setting is education. What we desire is for the Missoula City Council and Mayor’s Office to have the ability to provide public access to a framework for empowering individuals to engage with entheogenic medicines in a meaningful, responsible, and safe way.
Our role and commitment as DNMT is to focus on working with Missoula City and County civic and community leaders and residents to develop an educational framework with programs to ensure all residents can receive easy to digest information regarding suggested use protocols which will include parameters regarding set, setting, dosage, risks, safety and emergency services, and benefits to individuals and community dynamics, in a way that enables greater personal choice and agency in healing.
Here is a link to more about Decriminalize Nature’s Ethos and Principles:
https://www.decriminalizenature.org/images/resolution/dn-ethos-and-principles.pdf
Thank you for your time in hearing this matter, and We look forward to meeting you in person to discuss more details.
Sincerely,
<YOUR NAME HERE>
On Behalf of the Missoula, and Montana Decriminalize Nature communities.
decriminalizenaturemontana@gmail.com
Decriminalize Nature Montana
is an educational campaign to inform Montanans about the value of entheogenic plants and fungi, the benefits of community-based healing practices, and the intention to propose local resolutions to decriminalize access to our inalienable relationship to nature.
OUR MISSION
To improve human health and well-being by decriminalizing and expanding access to entheogenic plants and fungi through political and community organizing, education and advocacy.
OUR VISION
We envision happier, healthier individuals and communities reconnected to nature and entheogenic plant and fungi traditions and practices.
Help us nurture, protect and preserve these plants, fungi, practices and traditions for future generations.
Our Primary Positions
1. Entheogenic plants and fungi are sacred, and should not be commodified or taxed.
2. Why should we decriminalize all entheogenic plants and fungi on Schedule 1?
Thousands of years of practices across the globe highlight entheogenic healing and spiritual potentials. Humans should have the inalienable rights to engage with naturally occurring plants and fungi in the manner they feel appropriate for themselves. These plants and fungi were placed on the Federal Schedule 1 without any scientific research, based on Nixon’s intention to arrest the leaders within the African American civil rights movements and the leaders of the anti-war movements and we should correct this wrong.
3. Why should we ensure equitable access to all people?
The global drive to prioritize clinical and medical settings is inaccessible in both cost and ethos for those most in need, costing thousands of dollars for treatment to access material naturally occurring in mushrooms.
Basic human rights must include personal sovereignty, the capability to choose our own human experience. Adults are not children, and with proper education can be empowered to make their own decisions, a potent first step toward healing.
4. Why should we support a decriminalization approach that reconnects our roots to nature?
While science, technology, and industrialization have expanded our capacity, they have also disconnected us from nature. How do we reconnect to nature now that we are at the crossroads of climate change? By commit to working with civic and community leaders and residents to develop an educational framework and program to ensure all residents can receive information, provided in a culturally relevant way, about effective and proper cultivation, use, practice, set, setting, dosage, risk, and benefits in a way that enables greater personal choice and agency in healing.
(1) Volunteers of the Decriminalize Nature Montana movement acknowledge the settler-colonial implications inherent in their use of this name, as well as the connections between Montana and the US nation-state project.
(2) Decriminalize Nature Montana acknowledges that it carries forward its mission to decriminalize entheogenic plants and fungi upon the traditional and contemporary homelands of numerous Indigenous Nations, communities, families, and persons whose families have lived here for countless generations, including the Amskaapi Piikani, Piikani, Pikani, Piegan, Pikuni, Blackfoot, Siksikaitasitapi, Niitsitapi, Aapsaalooke, Salish, Sqelixw, Bitterroot, Pend d'Orielle, Ktunaxa, Kootenai, 'aqtsmaknik, Qlispe, Flathead, Assiniboine, Aaniih, Nakoda, Gros Ventre, Sioux, Dakota, Chippewa, Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Anishinaabe, Metis, Me'tis, Michif, Chippewa-Cree, Cree, 'Nehiway, Nehiyaw, Pwat, Nehiyaw-Prat, Montana Cree, Tsetsehestahese, Cheyanne, and So'taeo'o peoples.
(3) Decriminalize Nature Montana unqualifiedly recognizes Tribal sovereignty over the lands and peoples within contemporary Indigenous political boundaries and advocates for increasingly equitable, just, and equal relationships between Tribal and settler-colonial governments. Decriminalize Nature Montana seeks to be responsive to the expressed concerns of First Nations' peoples, including but not limited to, its policy language, advocacy work, public facing documents, efforts at coalition-building, and in all other methods and manners of community engagement and education.