Protests - Part 64

Nude Parade, San Francisco 2019

An event was held on June 23, 2019 in San Francisco called Nude Parade and Rally to Legalize Psychedelic Medicine.  The protesters met at Jane Warner Plaza (above) and then marched to Haight and Ashbury and back again.  Public nudity was illegal in San Francisco except for events with a permit, but this event had a permit and was legal.

Above, a protester's sign says "Psychedelic Liberation: Medicine not Medication."  The purpose of the protest was to decriminalize the use of psychedelic drugs like psilocybin for medical use in San Francisco.  Psilocybin had just been decriminalized in Oakland.  Some wounded Army veterans testified that psilocybin helped quell their physical pain and suicidal thoughts.

However, this sign is confusing, since medicine and medication are virtually synonymous.  Did he mean "Medicine not Recreation"?  Perhaps he had taken too many psychedelic drugs before making the sign.

The reason it was a nude protest was to attract attention and press coverage, but some of the protesters were also protesting San Francisco's ban on public nudity.

"Cognitive Liberty" on this sign refers to the right of an individual to control his own mental processes, including the right to alter his consciousness with drugs.  Legally, this is not a recognized human right, though this guy thinks it should be.

Here are some more protesters.  This guy had headphones.

This guy was playing a guitar in the first photo.

A San Francisco Giants fan.

Thumbs up from a well-hung guy.

It looks like his headscarf is covering a baseball cap.

A guy with a drum.  Musicians had been encouraged to join the protest, again to attract more attention.

A pale-skinned guy protesting the nudity ban.

Another guy who didn't get out in the sun much.

A trio of protesters.  There were quite a few photos of the hunky-looking guy on the right ...

including this one of him holding the classic nude photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which tells me he was protesting the nudity ban.

We'll end with two more views of him, a closeup from the front ...

and a view from the rear showing his tan lines.

This 2019 protest did not have any immediate result, but in 2022 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors decriminalized the use of psychotropic plant substances like psilocybin.  However, except for the states of Oregon and Colorado and scattered cities in other states, psilocybin is still illegal in most of the U.S.