Month: August 2019

From Day v. Dodge, a decision handed down earlier this  year by New London County (Conn.) Judge Kimberly A. Knox, but just posted on Westlaw a few days ago:

With regard to the Defendant’s Motion to File Documents Under Seal, dated December 3rd, 2018, the court notes the following: That the plaintiffs … brought this action seeking money damages alleging defamation, invasion of privacy by false light, violation of the Right of Fair Procedure in contravention of Connecticut General Statutes Section 33-1056, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and reckless infliction of emotional distress against the defendants with regard to allegations stemming from a report made by the individual defendants that the plaintiff, Mr. Day, had assaulted his minor child during a camping excursion….

In this case, the court finds that the subject document, which is [a responsive pleading in support of the Defendant’s] Special Motion to Dismiss, is a judicial document as defined by Rosatto vs. Bridgeport Roman Catholic, at 92 Conn. 1 at 44. In that case, the Supreme Court held that judicial documents are those filed with the court upon which the court could reasonably rely on in the performance of its adjudicatory function, including discovery-related motions and their associated exhibits….

The next issue before the court is the identity of the interest to be preserved by the request to seal. In this case, … the plaintiffs’ claims arise out of the individual defendant’s reporting of an allegedly unfounded suspicion that the plaintiff Day abused a minor son during a camping trip. As such, the defendants’ claimed request in the motion to seal is to preserve the plaintiffs’ minor son’s anonymity. This is the sole interest to be preserved by sealing the document at issue. That interest must be balanced against the presumption that all materials filed with the court shall be available to the public unless there is an interest which is determined to override the public’s interest in viewing the materials at issue.

In addition, the court must decide if the proposed order is necessary to preserve the overriding interest claimed by the moving party. As I noted previously, this case does present a challenging issue. On the one hand, the defendant seeks to preserve the anonymity of the minor child.

However, by virtue of the allegations of the complaint, complete anonymity cannot be achieved. The complaint itself refers to the plaintiffs’ minor child, refers to the child as the plaintiffs’ younger son, and provides his age. In deciding whether or not the proposed order to seal the documents is necessary, the court must determine whether or not there are reasonable alternatives to sealing documents which would preserve the interest of protecting the anonymity of the minor child.

In this case, the court finds there is a reasonable alternative, which is to redact the name of the subject minor child. To the same extent as the complaint, the minor child’s name is then removed from these public records.

For these reasons, the Motion to Seal is denied, but the subject minor child’s name is ordered redacted from the pleadings.

Seems plausible to me, at least on quick review. Maximally protecting the child’s privacy, by making it impossible to identify the child, would interfere too much with the openness of court proceedings: It would require redacting the plaintiffs’ names, or redacting the nature of the allegation against the plaintiffs which led to the lawsuit. But omitting the child’s name would at least mean that a Google search for the child’s name won’t come up with any court documents that might get posted on the Internet—protecting the child’s privacy to some extent, likely with little lost to public understanding of the litigation.

If there is to be some redaction of court documents for privacy reasons, First Amendment law and the common-law right of access require the redaction to be narrowly tailored, and this at least seems like a reasonable attempt at such narrow tailoring.

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Deadly Explosions Aside, Kremlin Says Putin’s Nuclear-Powered Missile Far Ahead Of US Technology

Russia says their nuclear-powered missile is far ahead of the United States despite a deadly mishap  during a failed test which killed seven people and sent radiation all over the region, according to Bloomberg. 

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has repeatedly said that Russian developments in this area surpass the level achieved by other countries, and are quite unique.” 

According to the report “U.S. officials have said repeatedly in the past year that its military is working on such programs,” which was echoed in a Monday tweet by President Trump – who said “We have similar, though more advanced, technology,” adding “The Russian “Skyfall” explosion has people worried about the air around the facility, and far beyond. Not good!”

“Skyfall” appears to confirm reports that the weapon being tested was the Burevestnik SSC-X-9 nuclear-powered cruise missile, which Putin introduced during a brief animated segment during his state-of-the-nation address last year.

The deadly mishap sent radiation spiking as high as 20 times normal levels after the incident, according to The Guardian, while Russia’s Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet) said that gamma radiation measured in six out of eight testing stations in the port city of Severodvinsk ranged from 4 to 16 times the normal rate of 0.11 microsieverts per hour. One measurement was as high as 1.78 microsieverts per hour. 

While World Nuclear Association spokesman Jonathan Cobb says that the radiation spike would be akin to a dental x-ray, however the incident prompted a voluntary evacuation (downgraded from mandatory), and has residents and neighboring countries on edge. 

News of the explosion set off in nearby cities and towns a run on iodine, a form of which is believed to help prevent the thyroid gland from absorbing radiation. Norway said it had stepped up radiation monitoring after the incident but hadn’t detected anything abnormal. Finland’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority said it didn’t find an increase in radiation after the incident.

The military planned and then canceled activities that would have required the evacuation of residents of Nyonoksa, the town next to the offshore site where the explosion took place, the state-run Tass news service reported, citing a local official. Previously, a local news site reported that the town would be evacuated from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. on Wednesday. –Bloomberg

“The authorities still haven’t provided enough information about the full spectrum of radiation that may have been released,” said Greenpeace Russia’s Rashid Alimov. “They need to publish more comprehensive data on the event before we can know if the local population faces danger.”

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2yVUjez Tyler Durden

From Day v. Dodge, a decision handed down earlier this  year by New London County (Conn.) Judge Kimberly A. Knox, but just posted on Westlaw a few days ago:

With regard to the Defendant’s Motion to File Documents Under Seal, dated December 3rd, 2018, the court notes the following: That the plaintiffs … brought this action seeking money damages alleging defamation, invasion of privacy by false light, violation of the Right of Fair Procedure in contravention of Connecticut General Statutes Section 33-1056, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and reckless infliction of emotional distress against the defendants with regard to allegations stemming from a report made by the individual defendants that the plaintiff, Mr. Day, had assaulted his minor child during a camping excursion….

In this case, the court finds that the subject document, which is [a responsive pleading in support of the Defendant’s] Special Motion to Dismiss, is a judicial document as defined by Rosatto vs. Bridgeport Roman Catholic, at 92 Conn. 1 at 44. In that case, the Supreme Court held that judicial documents are those filed with the court upon which the court could reasonably rely on in the performance of its adjudicatory function, including discovery-related motions and their associated exhibits….

The next issue before the court is the identity of the interest to be preserved by the request to seal. In this case, … the plaintiffs’ claims arise out of the individual defendant’s reporting of an allegedly unfounded suspicion that the plaintiff Day abused a minor son during a camping trip. As such, the defendants’ claimed request in the motion to seal is to preserve the plaintiffs’ minor son’s anonymity. This is the sole interest to be preserved by sealing the document at issue. That interest must be balanced against the presumption that all materials filed with the court shall be available to the public unless there is an interest which is determined to override the public’s interest in viewing the materials at issue.

In addition, the court must decide if the proposed order is necessary to preserve the overriding interest claimed by the moving party. As I noted previously, this case does present a challenging issue. On the one hand, the defendant seeks to preserve the anonymity of the minor child.

However, by virtue of the allegations of the complaint, complete anonymity cannot be achieved. The complaint itself refers to the plaintiffs’ minor child, refers to the child as the plaintiffs’ younger son, and provides his age. In deciding whether or not the proposed order to seal the documents is necessary, the court must determine whether or not there are reasonable alternatives to sealing documents which would preserve the interest of protecting the anonymity of the minor child.

In this case, the court finds there is a reasonable alternative, which is to redact the name of the subject minor child. To the same extent as the complaint, the minor child’s name is then removed from these public records.

For these reasons, the Motion to Seal is denied, but the subject minor child’s name is ordered redacted from the pleadings.

Seems plausible to me, at least on quick review. Maximally protecting the child’s privacy, by making it impossible to identify the child, would interfere too much with the openness of court proceedings: It would require redacting the plaintiffs’ names, or redacting the nature of the allegation against the plaintiffs which led to the lawsuit. But omitting the child’s name would at least mean that a Google search for the child’s name won’t come up with any court documents that might get posted on the Internet—protecting the child’s privacy to some extent, likely with little lost to public understanding of the litigation.

If there is to be some redaction of court documents for privacy reasons, First Amendment law and the common-law right of access require the redaction to be narrowly tailored, and this at least seems like a reasonable attempt at such narrow tailoring.

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Endgame For The Fed?

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

The Federal Reserve, responding to concerns about the economy and the stock market, and perhaps to criticisms by President Trump, recently changed course on interest rates by cutting its “benchmark” rate from 2.25 percent to two percent. President Trump responded to the cut in already historically-low rates by attacking the Fed for not committing to future rate cuts.

The Fed’s action is an example of a popular definition of insanity: doing the same action over and over again and expecting different results. After the 2008 market meltdown, the Fed launched an unprecedented policy of near-zero interest rates and “quantitative easing.” Both failed to produce real economic growth. The latest rate cut is unlikely to increase growth or avert a major economic crisis.

It is not a coincidence that the Fed’s rate cut came along with Congress passing a two-year budget deal that increases our already 22 trillion dollars national debt and suspends the debt ceiling. The increase in government debt increases the pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates artificially low so the federal government’s interest payments do not increase to unsustainable levels.

President Trump’s tax and regulatory policies have had some positive effects on economic growth and job creation. However, these gains are going to be short-lived because they cannot offset the damage caused by the explosion in deficit spending and the Federal Reserve’s resulting monetization of the debt. President Trump has also endangered the global economy by imposing tariffs on imports from the US’s largest trading partners including China. This has resulted in a trade war that is hurting export-driven industries such as agriculture.

President Trump recently imposed more tariffs on Chinese imports, and China responded to the tariffs by devaluing its currency. The devaluation lowers the price consumers pay for Chinese goods, partly offsetting the effect of the tariffs. The US government responded by labeling China a currency manipulator, a charge dripping with hypocrisy since, thanks to the dollar’s world reserve currency status, the US is history’s greatest currency manipulator. Another irony is that China’s action mirrors President Trump’s continuous calls for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.

While no one can predict when or how the next economic crisis will occur, we do know the crisis is coming unless, as seems unlikely, the Fed stops distorting the economy by manipulating interest rates (which are the price of money), Congress cuts spending and debt, and President Trump declares a ceasefire in the trade war.

The Federal Reserve’s rate cut failed to stop a drastic fall in the stock market. This is actually good news as it shows that even Wall Street is losing faith in the Federal Reserve’s ability to manage the unmanageable — a monetary system based solely on fiat currency.

The erosion of trust in and respect for the Fed is also shown by the interest in cryptocurrency and the momentum behind two initiatives spearheaded by my Campaign for Liberty – passing the Audit the Fed bill and passing state laws re-legalizing gold and silver as legal tender.

There is no doubt we are witnessing the last days of not just the Federal Reserve but the entire welfare-warfare system. Those who know the truth must do all they can to ensure that the crisis results in a return to a constitutional republic, true free markets, sound money, and a foreign policy of peace and free trade.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2MZP05P Tyler Durden

Footage Captures NATO Intercept Attempt Of Plane Carrying Russian Defense Minister

Russia’s Defense Ministry has published dramatic video Tuesday showing another close encounter between its military planes and NATO jets over the Baltic Sea, but this time it involved a dangerous intercept as the NATO aircraft came just off the wing of a large passenger plane carrying Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

A TASS news agency correspondent aboard Defense Minister Shoigu’s plane captured the moment when a pair of Russian Su-27 escorts drove off the NATO F-18 aircraft in what is the most serious incident in the neutral skies over the Baltic to date. 

TASS describes the incident as follows (based on rush translation):

The plane carrying Shoigu was accompanied by an escort of two fighter aircraft of the Baltic Fleet Su-27 as it went from Kaliningrad to Moscow.

Above the neutral waters of the Baltic, the NATO F-18 aircraft tried to approach the defense minister’s plane, but the Russian pilots pushed the fighter out, not allowing it to come close to the liner.

One of the Russian Su-27’s can be seen banking hard into the NATO F-18, after which the F-18 continues its path away from the defense minister’s plane.

Given the close-call incident involved Russia’s top military official, Moscow is likely to lodge a formal complaint with NATO command in Brussels. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2MnvCR1 Tyler Durden

“Terrible” 52-Week Auction Confirms Plunge In Market Liquidity

When it comes to investing in safe assets such as US Treasuries, the decision process is relatively simple: one buys coupon securities (with a maturity over 1 year), on specific expectations of inflation (or deflation) and receiving current income in the form of a cash coupon (assuming there is one). When it comes to T-Bills the decision is simpler: it’s all about liquidity preference – does one keep cash equivalents in the form of US Dollars, whether paper or electronic, or does one purchase Bills, with a maturity from 4- to 52-weeks. If investors are mostly happy to exchange money for Bills, it is generally said that liquidity in the financial system is ample; if however investors are unwilling to part with their “cash” in order to fund the US Treasury (as a reminder, in a time of chronic budget deficits, Uncle Sam has to issue debt to fund its operations), then there is a liquidity shortage.

We bring this up because last week we warned that as the Treasury scrambles to rebuild its cash balance to roughly $350BN from the latest $133BN in Treasury cash, a process that will require the aggressive gross and net issuance of T-Bills, liquidity in the system was set to collapse.

In fact, according to Bank of America the liquidity shortage over the next two months – a period in which as shown in the chart above the Treasury would aggressively be issuing bills – would be so acute, that the Fed may be forced to launch QE, a conclusion which JPMorgan echoed just days later.

Today, we got the first proof that Bank of America may be right when we observed just how tight liquidity already is in today’s sale of $28 billion in 52 week bills by the Treasury, an auction which went so poorly it was widely panned by analysts, with Stone & McCarthy going so far to describe it as terrible.

For those who missed it, this is what happened: today, just before noon, the Treasury sold $28 billion of 52-week bills at a yield of 1.80% versus the when-issued level of 1.775%; while the WI may have been “too rich for the buyside” according to Jefferies economist Ward McCarthy, the massive, 2.5bps tail was the largest on record since Treasury began to auction 1-year bills in June 2008, Stone & McCarthy analysts wrote.

Worse, the bid-to-cover of 2.66 was not only sharply below the 2.87 from last month, it was the lowest since 2008.

The auction was so ugly, in fact, that it prompted Jefferies to notes that “if you are looking for a pretty auction, look someplace else” while SMRA chimed in that “the combination of extreme recent market volatility and the record auction size made for a terrible auction.”

Speaking on Bloomberg TV, Guggenheim Partners CIO Scott Minerd, who recently warned that the coming crash could easily wipe out as much as 50% of the S&P, countered BofA’s warning saying that T-bills “aren’t a bad place to be,” given that there’s a lot of supply and short-term rates “are fairly high.”

And speaking of supply, there is a lot of it coming: on Monday the Treasury sold 42BN of three-month bills and $42BN of six-month bills on Monday; the size of the three- and six-month tenors were each $3BN larger than prior sales, while the 52-week auction is $2b larger than last month’s offering; the combination of settlements for Treasury bill and mid-month coupon auctions is expected raise about $55 billion this week, however it is the coming months that will see a tsunami of Bill issuance as the Treasury scramble to refill its cash balance to $350 billion, meaning Treasury will have a boatload of short-term securities to sell.

For those wondering how to keep track of just how tight funding conditions are becoming, look no further than the repo market, because while the glut of cash has recently softened overnight repo rates, the market may be starting to shift with overnight GC trading around 2.20%/2.18% Friday, ICAP data show; curiously on Tuesday it dipped down to 2.15/2.07 after opening at 2.26/2.24.

“Liquidity should dry up [this] week as recent bill auctions settle on Tuesday, and Thursday’s bill and coupon auction settlements raise a combined $34.7 billion,” Stone & McCarthy analysts said.

While it remains unclear if the Fed will have to step in and launch QE in the next few months to offset the plunge in market liquidity, a few more “terrible” auctions like today’s 52-Week sale and Powell may have no choice.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33vwyrD Tyler Durden

Tesla Stock-Sellers Bank $2.75 Billion As Carmaker Is Now The Most Profitable US Short This Year

It looks like a new page has turned in the tug of war between Tesla bears and bulls. Gone are the days of Elon Musk taunting short sellers. Gone are the days of mailing David Einhorn pairs of “short shorts” to take jabs at his public short position of the company. 

And here to stay, perhaps, are the Tesla bears in the proverbial “driver’s seat”.

So far in 2019, Tesla has become the most profitable short bet in the U.S., according to Bloomberg. As Tesla’s stock has plunged 30% this year, short sellers have netted a massive $2.75 billion in mark-to-market gains. 

Shares have bounced off of their 52 week lows near $177 and recovered slightly, but are still far off from the $300 level they started the year near. The company’s stock remains on pace for its worst annual decline in its history, prompted by continuing concerns about demand, the inability to consistently turn a profit and a CEO that may or may not be involved in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, as we recently reported. 

According to Aug. 9 data from S3 Partners, gains from shorting Tesla are about three times that of the second most lucrative short of 2019, Abbvie. 

The worst performing shorts of the year, according to the same data, include names like Alibaba, Apple and AMD. Alibaba shorts are down almost $3 billion, while shorts in Apple are down about $2.7 billion. 

The tech-heavy list of names on the “least profitable short” list coincides with the fact that the S&P 500 Information Technology index is up 28% in 2019. The index includes about half of the names on the list.

…as if we needed even further proof of what we already know: Tesla is a car company, not a technology company. And, if it truly is assigned a car company valuation, shorts likely stand to catapult even higher on the “profitable short” list in the future. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TAyF9a Tyler Durden

Oregonians Are One Step Closer to Voting on Magic Mushroom Legalization

Oregon activists Tom and Sheri Eckert are trying to put psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelics, on the 2020 ballot in Oregon. Their initiative was filed in early July and reached the threshold of 1,000 signatures two weeks after its appearance, thereby requiring the attorney general to file a draft ballot title.

Local news outlet KDRV reports that Secretary of State Bev Clarno has requested public comment on the matter through August 21 to decide “whether the petition complies with the procedural constitutional requirements established in the Oregon Constitution for initiative petitions.”

Should the petition clear that hurdle, it must then receive over 110,000 signatures by July 2, 2020, in order to qualify for inclusion on the November 2020 statewide ballot, where it would need a simple majority to pass.

The ballot measure would not allow mushrooms to be sold in stores. Instead, it would allow adults, age 21 and older, to visit official service centers on the recommendation of a medical professional in order to take psilocybin under the supervision of a licensed facilitator. Those centers would be overseen by the Oregon Health Authority.

“The facilitator kind of orients you to the service, asks some questions, gets to know you and your desires and your intentions and issues a bit more,” Tom Eckert told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “Nobody’s going to be taking psilocybin home with them to administer to themselves, which means that there will be none in public, no one driving,” Eckert added.

Unlike Denver, Colorado, which decriminalized the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in May but has not yet set up a system regulating such lawful use, the Oregon proposal aims to quickly set up a sanctioned system for imbibing the substance.

The Oregon proposal also stands out in another way. As Marijuana Moment has pointed out, the “Oregon measure is distinct in that it’s the only one currently aiming to create a way for people to legally obtain the substance through a medical model.”

“Psychedelics are uniquely powerful when it comes to creating lasting change in the human being,” Eckert told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “It’s a unique opportunity and it’s been denied for all these years.”

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The Year Is 2030…

Submitted by Adventures in Capitalism

The year is 2030 and the S&P just broke the 1 million level following an algo-induced short squeeze after Trump tweets, “President Ivanka headed to China to negotiate an even better deal for USA. Chinese seriously intimidated because she’s hot.” It has now been 12 years, a trade deal is nowhere in sight and despite a global economic collapse, the market still rallies 2% every time Trump tweets that a deal is close—which happens just about every day. The occasional down days are the result of rumors that the UK has scrapped yet another BREXIT plan.

The Russell 2000 officially announces that during its annual re-balance, it will remove all profitable companies as “no one wants to own those anyway.” Going forward, the only requirement for index inclusion is a 5-page corporate presentation showing how your business has a TAM of at least 1% of global GDP.

In other news, the Federal Reserve is debating if they should lower the Fed Funds rate another 100bps to negative 101% and break the “neg 100 barrier” in order to achieve their 2% inflation target. A loaf of bread now costs USD $100 million but the Fed stands by their excel model known as “OFFICIAL HEDONICS MODEL_everyone_please_work_off_this_version_v9” Despite millions of hours of billable work, McKinsey still cannot figure out how to fix the circular reference that keeps crashing the 2,000 tab model.

Tesla is the most valuable company on earth. In 2023, Musk chose to exit the car business by locking the doors to the Fremont factory and setting it on fire. Due to shoddy record-keeping, no one knows how many workers died in the worst work-place tragedy in US history. CFO Zach Kirkhorn’s crayon on construction paper count system is indecipherable to investigators. After Musk tweeted that, “they all said they were willing to die for The Mission,” the US government drops all investigations into the fire and Musk re-focuses Tesla’s business model entirely on tweeting rumors that the Flying Saucer Reveal Event is coming soon. Algos panic buy Tesla shares every time he tweets a saucer GIF. Analysts regularly upgrade the stock based on his creative use of emojis. Thousands of innocent pedestrians are killed each year by legacy Teslas on auto-pilot. No one in the NHTSA seems to care as “getting Tesla’d” enters the global lexicon.

WeWork is now the largest owner of property globally. 80% of all people live in a WeHome. Operating losses run at three times revenues. Softbank keeps funding the losses with up-rounds in order to mark-up its own book. There are now hundreds of public hold-cos with fully controlled VC deals participating in similar Masayoshi Schemes. The prevalence of these Masayoshi Schemes leads investors to characterize Ponzi Schemes as small-time amateur frauds for retail investors. Silly Madoff was only thinking in billions while Softbank will collapse the whole Japanese economy when it fails.

As ETF managers run out of shares to buy that aren’t already owned by other ETFs, ETF management groups focus on building ETFs of ETFs. Leading-edge firms create ETFs of these ETFs affectionately as “ETFs Cubed” or just “Cubes.” ZeroHedge continually warns that the supply of Cubes will run out when firms start creating ETFs of Cubes—most of Wall Street warns “this could never happen.”

Natural gas now trades at 5 cents as US E&Ps continue to out-spend cash flow by 300%. They appear to have unlimited debt funding access as they are the only global debt issuers still offering a positive interest rate yield. Despite two decades of lies, investors still stubbornly believe that this is the year that E&Ps will spend within cash flow.

Compounder Bros. LP is the world’s largest hedge fund. Their pitch deck notes that had you paid 50 times revenue for any SAAS company 10 years ago, you’d have out-performed every other asset class on earth.  1000 times revenue is actually cheap if you play it forward another 500 years. Berkshire Hathaway’s focus on earnings shows just how out of touch Buffett really is. Multiple activist funds have launched campaigns against each other over how to break up Berkshire and “financialize” the various components.

The year is 2030; I keep my sanity by writing satire at http://adventuresincapitalism.com while managing my hedge fund, invested in companies now trading for less than half of 1 times cash flow. I swear that 2031 is the year for mean reversion…

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via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Z0Lcrl Tyler Durden

Oregonians Are One Step Closer to Voting on Magic Mushroom Legalization

Oregon activists Tom and Sheri Eckert are trying to put psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelics, on the 2020 ballot in Oregon. Their initiative was filed in early July and reached the threshold of 1,000 signatures two weeks after its appearance, thereby requiring the attorney general to file a draft ballot title.

Local news outlet KDRV reports that Secretary of State Bev Clarno has requested public comment on the matter through August 21 to decide “whether the petition complies with the procedural constitutional requirements established in the Oregon Constitution for initiative petitions.”

Should the petition clear that hurdle, it must then receive over 110,000 signatures by July 2, 2020, in order to qualify for inclusion on the November 2020 statewide ballot, where it would need a simple majority to pass.

The ballot measure would not allow mushrooms to be sold in stores. Instead, it would allow adults, age 21 and older, to visit official service centers on the recommendation of a medical professional in order to take psilocybin under the supervision of a licensed facilitator. Those centers would be overseen by the Oregon Health Authority.

“The facilitator kind of orients you to the service, asks some questions, gets to know you and your desires and your intentions and issues a bit more,” Tom Eckert told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “Nobody’s going to be taking psilocybin home with them to administer to themselves, which means that there will be none in public, no one driving,” Eckert added.

Unlike Denver, Colorado, which decriminalized the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms in May but has not yet set up a system regulating such lawful use, the Oregon proposal aims to quickly set up a sanctioned system for imbibing the substance.

The Oregon proposal also stands out in another way. As Marijuana Moment has pointed out, the “Oregon measure is distinct in that it’s the only one currently aiming to create a way for people to legally obtain the substance through a medical model.”

“Psychedelics are uniquely powerful when it comes to creating lasting change in the human being,” Eckert told Oregon Public Broadcasting. “It’s a unique opportunity and it’s been denied for all these years.”

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