Vic Mensa has pled guilty to possession of a controlled substance, but won’t do any time behind bars. The sentence is the result of a plea deal between Mensa and the prosecution. As a result, he will also have to take a substance abuse assessment and perform 25 hours of community service.
Mensa’s arrest came in January at Dulles International Airport after customs flagged his stash of shrooms. He was returning from a trip to Ghana with fellow Chicagoan Chance The Rapper. The arrest resulted in felony possession charges for Mensa.
Vic and Chance took the trip to Africa with other Chicago artists to promote tourism in the region. The two even posed for a photo with Ghana’s president Nana Akufa-Addo.
Vic Mensa Speaks Out On Guilty Plea
In Vic Mensa’s statement to TMZ regarding his guilty plea, he attested the usage of the drugs to his mental health.
“In this case, I have decided to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge,” he said. “I have been extremely vocal about my mental health, the culture at large and access to mental health treatment. It is important to note the extensive research being done on the topic of psilocybin [shrooms] and the many significant movements underway for legalization and decriminalization.”
Progress has furthered in research on psychotropic drugs such as shrooms. For example, a study by UC San Francisco and Imperial College London in April found that psilocybin could be a potential alternative to traditional depression treatment methods. However, psilocybin is currently a Schedule I substance under federal law.
Mensa has always spoken out when it comes to matters such as mental health, homelessness, gun violence and racism. He even addressed his own history with addiction in an interview with Okayplayer.
“I was badly addicted to one thing after another,” Vic said. “I was addicted to escaping. When I started doing music sober, I was making a lot of my favorite music.” Mensa then spoke about sobering up. He “realized the drugs were teleporting me to the top of a hill I really had to get the strength to walk up myself.”
Written by Olan Bryant
