Dear supporter of psychedelics healing,
Yesterday, November 5, was the anniversary of the loss of the 2024 Massachusetts psychedelics campaign. The first independent poll of the measure, conducted by Priorities for Progress in October 2023, found the ballot question had 41% support. After millions of dollars were spent and the ballot committee had been in operation for more than a year, the measure earned just 43% of the vote, well within the margin of error of that initial independent poll.
Why did a campaign that, superficially at least, seemed so promising fall short? My anniversary postmortem, which will continue to be rolled out in installments until the end of the month (completing before December 1), will try to provide answers.
This fourth installment, Part 2.3, concludes the section dedicated to analyzing the campaign’s costly handling of activist James Davis, who, in the words of Yes on 4 lead strategist Lynda Tocci in a June 2024 internal email, “did a bang-up job corralling opposition.”
Part 2.3 can be found on Substack at THIS LINK and attached to this email as a PDF.
Davis had an outsized impact on the campaign, including:
$35,000 in donations to Davis’s nonprofit from the ballot committee + substantial staff and volunteer time to try to win him over.
Up to $150,000 in lobbying payments to Dewey Square Group to counter Davis’s longshot alternative ballot question effort.
Over $130,000 in advocacy spending related to the new nonprofit Open Circle Alliance, cofounded by a Yes on 4 spokesperson, which, to my understanding, was intended to replace Davis’s then openly hostile organization as MA’s leading psychedelics grassroots organization.
Substantial, but difficult to calculate, damage from Davis’s on-the-ground mobilization of opposition and well-executed, and largely unchallenged, public relations strategy of posturing as a progressive folk hero to frame Yes on 4 as a duplicitous, out-of-state cash grab while selectively amplifying conservative critiques of other opposition groups like the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society.
You can access the three, previously released parts of the postmortem on Substack through these links:
My goal remains to offer transparency to strengthen our shared mission.
Thank you for your continued support and commitment to this cause.With gratitude,Graham Moore(Former Yes on 4 Staffer)