The Brief

Last year was supposed to mark a milestone in the psychedelic movement. Lawmakers and advocates were set to make California the next frontier in allowing the use of “magic mushrooms.”

They were hopeful because Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023 — after vetoing a bill that would have decriminalized the possession of psychedelics — asked legislators for a bill that would prioritize the therapeutic promise of these drugs.

Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, responded to Newsom’s request with a proposal that would have allowed for psilocybin and other hallucinogens to be ingested in a controlled setting and under the supervision of licensed and trained facilitators.

But that bill, like three similar ones before it and after it, went nowhere. Skeptical lawmakers expressed concerns about funding, standing up a complex program and safety as they turned down the measures.

Undeterred, advocates now are regrouping to try again.

What exactly a new legislative proposal would look like in California is still uncertain, advocates and lawmakers say. Most agree that getting something through in California will have to be more narrow than what’s been proposed in the past, and likely will be centered on providing access to veterans.

What’s most feasible is “some sort of pilot program, or something on a smaller scale to prove it out,” said Jesse Gould, founder and president of the Heroic Hearts Project, which has sponsored psychedelic proposals in California and other states. His nonprofit connects military veterans struggling with post traumatic stress disorder with psychedelic programs in other countries.

Psychedelics remain illegal at the federal level, but voters in two states have authorized them for certain uses and several California cities have passed measures decriminalizing them. President Joe Biden in late 2023 signed a defense spending bill that included money to study how psychedelic drugs could be used to treat veterans and military service members.

What Gould and other advocates envision as a first step for California might look like a proposal Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat from Menlo Park and Sen. Brian Jones, a San Diego Republican, submitted last summer. Their bill, dubbed Heal Our Heroes Act, would have allowed the counties of San Diego, Santa Cruz and San Francisco to launch up to five centers each where licensed staff could facilitate psilocybin to veterans and former first responders over 21 who passed a screening test.

Their bill did not move forward, but their concept could return.

Prioritizing and limiting this experimental access to veterans and former first responders is the most responsible route, Jones said. He does not support decriminalizing psychedelics for recreational use.

“I want to serve our veterans who are suffering from these mental ailments and do everything we can so that they get the attention they need when they come home,” Jones said.

As of publication, Jones and Becker said they had not yet decided whether they’d re-introduce the Heal Our Heroes bill this year. Wiener’s office did not respond to requests for an interview.

States legalize psychedelic therapies

Approximately 8 million Americans used psilocybin mushrooms in 2023, according to RAND, a research organization, and a UC Berkeley poll showed that 61% of voters  support regulated therapeutic use of psychedelic substances.

Since 2020, at least 37 states have introduced bills or ballot measures pertaining to psychedelics. These range from funding research to reducing penalties for possession. Not all proposals make it through, but some researchers predict this momentum will lead to change in state laws over the next several years. One 2023 analysis published in the Journal for the American Medical Association Psychiatry forecasted that a majority of states will have legalized psychedelics by 2037.

In the Golden State, drug reform advocacy groups and researchers have tried at least three times since 2022 to place psychedelic-related measures on the ballot, but have failed to meet the signature-gathering deadlines.

Going to voters is expensive and a major undertaking with no guarantee. The ballot box strategy proved successful in Oregon and Colorado, where voters, in 2020 and 2022, approved measures to allow the facilitated use of psychedelics.

Voters in Massachusetts, however, recently rejected a measure that would have allowed the state to legalize and regulate five plant-based psychedelics for people 21 and up.

Part of the issue with the Massachusetts ballot initiative was that it was too broad, said Jared Moffat, deputy policy director of New Approach, a political action committee dedicated to drug reform. Voters were confused about what exactly the measure would do and who it would apply to, he said. He didn’t view the measure’s failure as a sign that people would reject legalizing psychedelics for specific uses.

“I think that there’s still a ton of support for therapeutic access,” he said. “I think that people, broadly speaking, have a deep understanding that there is a mental health crisis, and that the existing tools that we have help some people, but there are a lot of folks that aren’t being helped.”

Veterans seeking new PTSD treatments

Gould started his nonprofit, Heroic Hearts Project, after his own journey with PTSD led him to the Peruvian Amazon for nontraditional therapies.

Two years after leaving the military, Gould was diagnosed with PTSD. He was also dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury. The former Army Ranger sought therapy from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but even before he could see a therapist, he was being offered prescription drugs, he said.

“This didn’t seem like the first, next best step, and I was sort of disillusioned by what was offered,” Gould said. “It was just sort of an acquiescence of, ‘oh yeah, you’re messed up, and you’re going to be messed up,’ as opposed to building tangible steps forward.”

Around the same time, he was hearing about Ayahuasca retreats in Peru. After lots of internet research and a leap of faith, Gould made the trip to Iquitos, a remote town in the northwestern part of the country. He described the experience as one of the most challenging things he’s ever done. Immediately after he felt lighter, more at peace and more connected to everything around him, he said. In the following months, he noticed that the things that would trigger anxiety, hypervigilance or depression, didn’t affect him to the same degree as before, he said.

Learn more about legislators mentioned in this st

Groups including Heroic Hearts and Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions (VETS) provide “healing grants” to veterans from across the country seeking to try guided psychedelic retreats in other countries. More recently, Heroic Hearts has also started helping vets access psychedelic programs in Oregon.

“There are a lot of veterans from California going to our retreats in Oregon,” Gould said. “I feel like if I was a politician in California, that’d be a little bit embarrassing.”

But demand currently outstrips the availability of these grants, said Khurshid Khoja, director of public policy at Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, an organization that focuses on veteran suicide prevention.

“We are saying no to a majority of the folks who are applying because we simply don’t have the funds to be able to send them,” Khoja said. “We try to identify folks who have tried everything at this point, and they need a Hail Mary because they are experiencing a suicidal ideation.”

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for veterans under the age of 45, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In California, 449 veterans died by suicide in 2022, the most recent federal data show. By some estimates 1 in 5 U.S veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan experience PTSD and major depression.

The goal, Khoja said, is get to a point where the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves a psychedelic product for therapy that can be available and covered by the Department of Veterans Affairs, but in the meantime, Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions is looking to states to create psychedelic programs.

One of the first things on advocates’ wishlist is a memorandum promising states that the federal government would not pursue charges in states that legalize and regulate psychedelics, said Sam Chapman, a political strategist and former campaign manager for Oregon’s measure that legalized psilocybin use there. The Obama administration issued that kind of guidance to states in 2013 with regard to marijuana.

“The states are going to continue to lead,” Chapman said. “The states passing laws are the reason that the federal government will eventually get off the bench and do something.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

Big surf from distant hurricanes in the Pacific could bring coastal flooding to Southern California starting this weekend.

Hurricanes Polo and Odalys are expected to cause coastal erosion, flooding and high surf along Southern California's already battered coastline. Swells from Polo are expect to arrive as early as late Sunday and peak Monday and Tuesday.

Bryan Lewis, National Weather Service meteorologist, told LAist that high tides could reach 7 feet. He said Long Beach and Avalon are among the more vulnerable areas for potential flooding and erosion.

Long Beach and Los Angeles warned residents to prepare for potential flooding and other effects through at least Wednesday.

In early September, Hurricane Marie brought coastal erosion and flooding that led homes being red- and yellow-tagged in L.A. and Orange counties.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Friends & Family Flea, a new market from the team behind Maum Market, will make its debut Saturday in Koreatown. 

For organizer Arnold Byun, the launch is something of a homecoming. 

Nearly five years ago, Byun and his co-founder, Kioh Park, were living in Koreatown and spending months at Document Coffee Bar dreaming up what would eventually become Maum Market, the Asian makers market they launched in January 2022. The market now has a regular presence at ROW DTLA, where it hosts pop-up markets on Dock Street several times a year.

“The genesis of Maum Market is actually really embedded in Koreatown,” Byun, 31, told The LA Local. “And we have a lot of affection and personal history with Koreatown, so it’s a very personal thing for us just to return to our roots.” 

Most of the 24 vendors participating in the first Friends & Family Flea have some connection to Koreatown, Byun said. Some grew up in the neighborhood, some still live there and others have moved away but retain ties to the area. The vendor list includes apparel brands, artists, jewelry makers, beauty and wellness businesses and food vendors. 

“We’ve been trying to be pretty intentional about curating from the community as much as possible,” Byun said.

There will be plenty of food and shopping, including “sogeum-bbang,” or salt bread, tea, handmade candles, soaps and vintage clothing, as well as flash tattoos and burgers and fries from Love Hour. The LA Hwatu-Hanafuda Club will teach visitors about hwatu, the Korean deck of playing cards with roots in Japan. The club will also offer $5 tarot card readings.

Friends & Family Flea, a new market from the team behind Maum Market, will make its debut Saturday in Koreatown.

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Eena Cho, founder of the LA Hwatu-Hanafuda Club, was born and raised in Koreatown. She remembers living with her mother in an apartment on Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue and volunteering at the senior center near Seoul International Park, where she spent time with older Korean residents.

She also grew up playing go-stop with her grandparents during Korean holidays, like Chuseok and Seollal. 

“That was a big part of my childhood,” said Cho, 24. “Another part is that living in LA where there’s so many different groups of people together, I remember my best friend Maria growing up, she was Mexican, and we would be playmates because both of our parents were working overtime.”

For Cho, joining Friends & Family Flea felt like a natural fit.

“Koreatown is a beautiful diaspora of many different cultures,” Cho said. “And I think that makes Koreatown, Koreatown.”

Friends & Family Flea, a new market from the team behind Maum Market, will make its debut Saturday in Koreatown.

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Courtesy Eena Cho

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The local focus is a big part of what Byun hopes will distinguish Friends & Family from other flea markets and fairs. He said organizers wanted to create something that “intentionally celebrates a specific neighborhood,” in this case, Koreatown. 

For the Koreatown market, that also means highlighting small businesses beyond the restaurants that often get the most attention.

“It’s more about, you know, where do we get our dry cleaning, where do we get our shoes done, or these kinds of services that I think don’t get highlighted as often as maybe restaurants do, but are really core and essential parts of a community business,” Byun said.

Byun’s own history with Koreatown also makes the neighborhood an especially fitting place to start.

His family immigrated to the South Bay from Korea in 2002, when he was 6. He remembers coming to Koreatown with his parents on the weekends for Korean meals and grocery trips.

Byun still thinks of the neighborhood as a second home for Korean immigrants, while appreciating how its community has grown more diverse.

“I’m just really happy to see it become a really beloved neighborhood,” he said.

The market is also giving back locally. Hats sold at the event will benefit the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, Byun said.

And this may not be a one-time run. If Saturday goes well, organizers hope to bring Friends & Family Flea back to Koreatown on a monthly basis. They also plan to offer discounted vendor fees to Koreatown residents.

“I feel like there was so much opportunity for us to really hone in and create something more hyperlocal and also really embed ourselves in the community as well,” Byun said.

When I lived in the UK, I worked on a BBC television show about birding. It was a strange experience as I couldn’t exactly book guests — “Hello Mr. Sparrow, could you be on location for an interview at 2 p.m.?”

So instead I spent a lot of time with the crew climbing up mountains with a large tripod on my shoulder. Did you know there’s a bird in the Scottish Highlands whose plumage turns white in winter to blend in with the snow? (It’s called a ptarmigan. Don’t pronounce the p.)

But it did mean I was attuned to British bird calls. I could hear something and pronounce solemnly: “Ah yes, that’s a lark. And that one's a chaffinch."

Moving to LA meant learning a new set of bird calls

When I moved to the U.S., however, it was a whole other story. I really didn’t recognize any of the bird calls. They were all so different. I just shrugged and figured they were part of the backdrop. But one day recently, a woman told me about a free app and said it was life-changing. "Hmm, I’ll see about that," I thought.

Merlin bird app

It’s called Merlin, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and it’s kind of like Shazam for bird calls. As in, you click it, and it tells you what bird song you can hear around you. When I opened it in my backyard for the first time, a whole orchestra of bird sounds opened up around me. I admit: it was kind of life-changing.

Of course it first picked up a crow, which I know only too well, given its loud, raucous sound. But then it identified a house finch. Huh. Who knew they were in my backyard? And as I listened closely, I realized … I knew that sound! It’s the first thing I hear when I wake up at dawn, lovely and melodic.

The house finch, awakening the day.

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Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library

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So now when I open my eyes in the morning, I say, "Good morning, house finch, communing with fellow beings alive on a vibrant California morning!" It kicks off my day, although I guess I’ve been reading too much Mary Oliver.

The backyard birds you're probably hearing right now

But then other birds I didn’t know would pop up on my phone during the day, with names as intriguing as their calls: the spotted towhee, the orange-crowned warbler, or Cassin’s kingbird.

I mean, they do realize they’re in a backyard in Los Angeles, not some estate in Georgian England? My favorite for a while was the dark-eyed junco. Now we’re talking romantic heroes. Imagine him slyly popping across the apple tree limbs to call to you. Dark-Eyed Junco, at your service.

Dark-eyed junco, at your service.

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Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library

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Meet Swinhoe's white-eye, a non-native bird spreading across SoCal

And then there’s Swinhoe’s white-eye. Which sounds a little like an eye ailment, but there you go. It’s a tiny bright yellow bird with a white ring around each eye. So cute! I first noticed them when there were a bazillion of them in a tree outside my house. It was such an unusual sight that I mentioned it to a woman walking her dog, and we stood there, oohing and aahing, until we both realized we’d oohed a little too much, and it was time to go.

Swinhoe's white-eyes are not native to SoCal, but are thriving.

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Cornell Lab of Ornithology | Macaulay Library

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When I researched them, I was surprised to find they’re not native to SoCal. They’re actually pretty new to the area. There were just a handful in Orange County 20 years ago, probably having been brought over from Asia as pets and escaped. And now, they’re thriving and have spread everywhere from Baja to San Luis Obispo. Who knows where they’ll end up next? If anyone sees a chartreuse cutie in New York, let me know. It'll probably be very tired.

Yes, you can see I’ve become slightly annoying with my newfound bird interest. I’ll be asking my family what they want for dinner, and I’ll say, “Wait, is that the spotted towhee?” and turn to my phone, and my teenager will wrest it out of my hand and say, “Mom, be in the present!” Which is right. But my morning serenade as the birds come online one by one and greet the new day — well, that’s as present as you can be.

Walk through the automatic doors at the Carson Library and you’ll see on your left a 1973 painting called "Dominoes" by John Riddle.

Riddle, a prominent Black artist, has worked in the L.A. County Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum, and has been collected by Jesse Jackson and Roberta Flack.

Riddle's work was previously owned by the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company in West Adams. Over two decades, the company’s art director, William Pajaud, an L.A. artist himself, carefully collected hundreds of pieces of Black art. Each piece in the collection, Pajaud said, would be a chapter telling the story of African Americans in the U.S. The collection included oil paintings, watercolors, and sculptures in clay, wood and metal.

When Golden State Mutual Life Insurance shut down, the company sold most of the best pieces at a private auction in 2007, with some selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. L.A. County was able to acquire about 120 works, including Riddle's piece.

To keep the works accessible to the public and free of charge, county officials chose four public libraries and three community centers to show the work. Earlier this year, the county arts department created a new website with a map to make them easier to find. The locations include the Golden State Mutual historic building in West Adams, plus:
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Libraries

• Carson Library (Carson)
• A.C. Bilbrew Library (Willowbrook)
• Masao W. Satow Library (Gardena)
• View Park Bebe Moore Campbell Library (View Park/Windsor Hills)
  

Community centers:

• Curtis Tucker Behavioral Health Center Health Services (Inglewood)
• Willowbrook Senior Center Aging and Disabilities (Willowbrook)
• Mark Ridley-Thomas Behavioral Health Center Health Services (on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medical Campus).

“All of these are county-owned spaces that are available, accessible to the public and to patrons to be able to live with the works, learn about the works, see the works, learn about the works,” said Kristin Sakoda, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.

Dominoes by John Riddle. The painting was part of the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance collection but is now part of the Los Angeles County Civic Art Collection.

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As you walk past the checkout desk at the Carson Library, toward the teen section, you’ll see another remarkable piece from the county’s holdings. It’s a two-foot-tall sculpture made from one piece of mahogany. It’s called "The Embrace" by artist Elizabeth Catlett, whose work is in the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, among many other institutions. Catlett depicted two people hugging, their faces and bodies fused together, their eyes looking at the viewer.

Detail of El Abrazo (The Embrace) by Elizabeth Catlett.

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In the auction catalogue for the Golden State Collection, Catlett wrote: “I still work figuratively, trying to express emotion through abstract form, color, line, and space. I attempt to reach out to ordinary people who have little or no experience or understanding of art principles, and extend to them what I may feel about a subject."

Ancestral Fragments by Stanley Wilson.

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Meanwhile at A.C. Bilbrew Library, north of Compton, there’s a piece by Charles White, who lived in L.A. County for decades and mentored many artists in the region. His paintings and drawings in the 1960s took on the issues of the Black Civil Rights Movement, and that led well-known Black Americans like Nat King Cole and Eartha Kitt to buy his art.

County officials are hopeful that the communities around these neighborhoods enjoy the art’s benefits, including “mental health, in our education, our youth development, our sense of inclusion and belonging,” Sakoda said.