Seattle's mushroom resolution turned five. Here's what it changed, and what it didn't

On October 4, 2021, the Seattle City Council voted 9–0 for Resolution 32021, declaring that investigating, arresting and prosecuting people for growing, possessing or freely sharing entheogens like psilocybin mushrooms should be among the city's lowest law enforcement priorities. "It is a long overdue conversation to decriminalize these non-addictive natural substances," said its sponsor, Councilmember Andrew Lewis, according to the council's announcement that day.

Five years later, the resolution is still on the books and still doing what it was designed to do: signal where Seattle police should, and shouldn't, spend their time. Almost everything around it has changed.

The state didn't follow

The resolution asked the city's lobbyists to push for statewide decriminalization in 2022. That didn't happen. Instead, after the Washington Supreme Court struck down the state's drug possession law in 2021, the Legislature settled in 2023 on making knowing possession a gross misdemeanor, with diversion to treatment encouraged. Psilocybin got no exception.

Lawmakers did pass one psilocybin bill that year, funding a University of Washington study of psilocybin therapy for veterans and first responders. Every attempt since to create a legal program has stalled: an adult-use bill in 2025 and a medical program bill, SB 5921, that cleared a Senate committee in February 2026 before dying in Ways & Means.

Seattle added a public drug use law

In September 2023 the council voted 6–3 for Ordinance 126896, which lets the Seattle City Attorney prosecute drug possession and public use as gross misdemeanors. Mayor Bruce Harrell signed it the next day and issued an executive order focusing enforcement on people who pose a threat to others and making diversion the preferred response. The ordinance covers every controlled substance, psilocybin included, and neither it nor the order mentions the 2021 resolution. The practical effect is a line between private and public: quiet personal use is still what the resolution protects, while public use now has its own city law.

The policy SPD was asked to write

The resolution asked the Seattle Police Department to turn its hands-off practice on simple possession into formal department policy, extend it to growing and free sharing, and report back. Five years on, we haven't found a published SPD policy that does that. If one exists, we'd like to see it; tell us.

The idea spread

Seattle's vote was quickly copied around Puget Sound. Port Townsend passed a similar resolution in December 2021, Jefferson County in May 2023, Olympia in August 2024 and Tacoma in January 2025. In March 2026 the King County Council voted 6–2 for a motion backing the practice of deprioritizing adults' personal-use possession in unincorporated areas and supporting state and federal decriminalization. "This motion formalizes what has already been true for a long time," said its sponsor, Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who also said plainly that it isn't a decriminalization motion.

The research caught up

In 2021, Seattle's psilocybin research scene was small. Since then, UW psychiatrist Anthony Back published a randomized trial in JAMA Network Open in December 2024 in which front-line clinicians given psilocybin saw much larger drops in depression scores than those given a placebo. The state-funded UW trial for veterans and first responders began in 2025, and VA Puget Sound joined a national Phase 3 psilocybin trial for veterans in 2026.

What it adds up to

Seattle in 2026 is a city where growing or possessing psilocybin mushrooms for personal use is about as unlikely to draw police attention as anywhere in the country, and where it's still a crime under state law, still can't be bought or sold legally, and is prosecutable when used in public. Our guide to the law in Seattle lays out exactly what's covered and what isn't.

Last checked against the sources above on Oct 20, 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.