By Ben Senator, Michelle Priest, Beau Kilmer

Nearly one in four U.S. adults think psilocybin “magic” mushrooms should be legal, according to a new RAND study. This level of support mirrors attitudes toward cannabis in the mid‑1990s—just before states began allowing medical use.

The study, which draws on data from the 2025 RAND Psychedelics Survey, finds that public attitudes vary greatly depending on the substance: While 23 percent of respondents support legal use of psilocybin mushrooms, only about 10 percent said the same about LSD and MDMA.

Among those who support making psilocybin use legal, 56 percent favor its use for treating mental or physical health conditions, but just 42 percent believe adults should be free to use it for any reason. And among those opposed to legalizing psilocybin, 62 percent believe it should be illegal for any reason.

The survey also asked about how legal psilocybin should be obtained: 49 percent of respondents favor supervised use in a medical facility, 28 percent support dispensary sales, and 23 percent endorse allowing adults to grow or forage for personal use.

These findings highlight the complexity of Americans' views on psychedelics, particularly psilocybin. And although it remains to be seen whether public opinion—and public policy—on psilocybin will follow a similar path as cannabis, such insights can help inform policy discussions.

By : Lienke Hutten, Lars Merkus, Joeri Vig

To effectively counter organised crime and high-risk criminal networks, criminal law alone often
falls short. Across the European Union, the administrative approach is increasingly recognised as
a crucial strategy to disrupt the infiltration of criminal networks in the legal economy. This study
maps both the legislative framework and practical initiatives that support the administrative approach
on organised crime drawing on contributions from six member states: Sweden, Belgium,
the Netherlands, Spain, Bulgaria, and Italy. This study maps both the legislative framework and
practical initiatives that support administrative interventions. A structured template was used to
collect country-specific information on relevant laws, the policy framework, and national and local
initiatives. In addition, EU-level strategies and directives were reviewed to assess the broader
policy context and identify shared priorities.

Findings reveal considerable diversity in the design of the legislative frameworks and initiatives.
Countries such as Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands have developed robust and proactive
frameworks, blending preventive and repressive instruments with administrative possibilities
on the local level. Others, like Sweden, demonstrate how general administrative laws can be
creatively adapted to serve crime prevention goals. Spain and Bulgaria show more centrally arranged
administrative bodies and sector-driven efforts. These differences make it apparent that
there is no one-size-fits-all model for the administrative approach. Gaining insight into the diverse
legal and institutional frameworks across countries enables mutual learning and the identification
of promising initiatives for all member states.

Legislation and initiatives at the European level such as AML directives, procurement rules and
asset recovery reforms can serve as important enablers, though their impact heavily depends
on coordinated implementation. Overall, the administrative approach is gaining attention as an
essential component of internal security, offering flexible and preventive tools with local possibilities
to reduce the infiltration and influence of high-risk criminal networks.

By Ali Malik

The increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events in the UK, such as storms, flooding, heatwaves, and severe cold spells, recognised as consequences of the climate crisis, have placed significant operational and organisational pressures on police, emergency responders and local authorities. This research adopts an in-depth qualitative case study design and a temporal analogues approach, which draws on past experiences and events to develop an understanding of the present and inform future learning. Doing this provides insights into the role of the police and Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) in preparing for and responding to extreme weather eventsThe findings highlight that LRFs are essential for locally led emergency planning. However, due to resource constraints, these partnerships often rely on relational capital, negotiated agreement and goodwill. Decisive leadership, situational awareness, experience from past events and routine work were also described as key factors for effective emergency response. LRFs cannot mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis without national support. Local preparedness depends on safe homes, green spaces, reliable transport networks and affordable clean energy. The research also points to the need for greater professional, analytical, and specialist support for LRFs, along with targeted funding to resource localised efforts for preparedness, recovery, and long-term climate adaptation.

By Devon W. Carbado 

This Article employs the Law Review’s Discourse symposium on my book, Unreasonable: Black Lives, Police Power, and the Fourth Amendment, as a starting point to foreground and elaborate on an idea that I reference in that text: police power abolition. The Article begins by describing the central insight that motivates Unreasonable—namely, that simply limiting the frequency with which the police interact with Black people could save Black lives. If the police have fewer opportunities to stop and question Black people, they have fewer opportunities to kill us. That observation led me to think about the range of structural forces that facilitate contact between Black people and the police. Fourth Amendment law is one such force. From pedestrian checks, to traffic stops, to stops and frisks, to searches and seizures at the border, Fourth Amendment law permits the police to interact with and enact violence against Black people on the thinnest, most unreasonable of suspicions. The Article does not reprise precisely how Fourth Amendment law performs that racially subordinating work. For that, you will have to read Unreasonable and the broader body of work on which the book is based. Instead, the Article summarizes the core arguments Unreasonable propounds, links them to what I call “police power abolition,” and explains how police power abolition can provide an entry into and render more legible broader discourses about abolition. Throughout the Article, I draw on and react to the generous and generative review essays that participants in this symposium have written about the book. In the context of doing so, I explain why, notwithstanding the limitations of law as space for antiracist interventions, the legal terrain should remain a critical (though not the only or most important) site for advancing

racial justice.

UCLA School of Law, Public Law Research Paper Forthcoming

69 Pages Posted: 20 Nov 2025

By William Downs

Police disciplinary proceedings are brought in cases where it is agreed, following an investigation, that a police officer has a case to answer for: • misconduct (meaning a breach of the standards of professional behaviour that justifies disciplinary action of at least written), or • gross misconduct (meaning a breach of the standards of professional behaviour that is so serious to justify dismissal) A decision on whether there is a case to answer is based on whether there is sufficient evidence upon which a misconduct panel “could make a finding on the balance of probabilities” that an officer’s behaviour amounted to misconduct or gross misconduct. The Commons Library briefings Police standards: Complaints and Police Standards: Conduct explain in more detail how allegations of police wrongdoing are investigated.

London: UK Parliament. House of commons Library.. 2025. 19p.