Final election results will be released on May 16, he said.

“I think today’s outcome really demonstrates that the conversation is going to continue, and the world is ready for it,” said Cindy Sovine, chief political strategist for the campaign to decriminalize the drug.

“Psychedelics are already here. Now we can start to have the conversation about using them mindfully,” she added.

Organizers turned to the same strategy that marijuana activists used to decriminalize pot possession in the city in 2005. That move was followed by statewide legalization in 2012. A number of other states have since broadly allowed marijuana sales and use by adults.

Organizers say their only goal in the mushroom measure is to keep people out of jail in Denver for using or possessing the drug to cope with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress and other conditions.

“We’re not talking about legalization, we’re talking about not putting people in jail,” Sovine said.

The initiative effectively decriminalizes use or possession of psilocybin by people 21 and older, making it the lowest enforcement priority for police and prosecutors. It does not legalize psilocybin or permit its sale by cannabis businesses.

Kevin Matthews, director of the Decriminalize Denver campaign, said psilocybin has helped him deal with depression for years.

“This is not something you have to take every day,” the 33-year-old Denver native said. “It provides a lot of lasting benefits, weeks and months after one experience.”

Psilocybin has been federally outlawed since the 1960s when it was widely known as a recreational drug. The ban stymied medical research, but small studies in recent years have found the substance had positive effects on anxiety and depression for cancer patients.

Users have described seeing vivid colors and geometric patterns and experiencing powerful spiritual connections and emotions.

Magic mushrooms have been used in religious practices for decades because of their powerful effect on perceptions and spiritual experiences. Those same effects have appealed to recreational users dating to the 1960s counterculture movement.

A California effort to decriminalize psilocybin failed to qualify for the statewide ballot in 2018. Organizers in Oregon are trying to gather enough support to put an initiative to a statewide vote next year.

It took the pro-psilocybin organizers in Denver three tries to develop language approved by city officials for the ballot. They collected more than 8,000 signatures to qualify for Tuesday’s election.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and District Attorney Beth McCann opposed the initiative, but there was no organized campaign against decriminalization. The city’s election largely focused on a six-way race for mayor and a heated effort to end Denver’s “urban camping” ban that affects people without housing.

Voters roundly rejected an end to the camping ban. In the mayor’s race, incumbent Michael Hancock will face a June 4 runoff election against challenger Jamie Giellis.

The mushroom ordinance also prevents city funds from being used to pursue criminal penalties on possession or use and creates a panel to study the effects of the change.

The flooding began in earnest in March, causing billions of dollars of damage to farmland, homes and businesses across the Midwest. Rivers in many communities have been above flood stage for more than six weeks following waves of heavy rain.

Some parts of Kansas received up to 10 inches from Tuesday through Wednesday morning, said Kelly Butler, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Wichita. She described that as a “ridiculous amount of water” on top of grounds that already were saturated by days of rains. Several Kansas districts canceled classes, and numerous water rescues were reported.

Emergency management officials began evacuating people from their homes near the Kansas college town of Manhattan around 5 a.m. Wednesday as Wildcat Creek overflowed its banks. The Cottonwood River spilled over in Marion County, prompting more evacuations and the surging Slate Creek also forced people from their homes in Wellington and closed a stretch of the Kansas Turnpike near the Oklahoma border.

“It seemed like our poor fire department folks were going out constantly overnight, whether it was sandbagging, barricading streets or assisting citizens,” said Keri Korthals, the emergency management director in Butler County, where crews rescued around a dozen people from vehicles stuck in rising water from the Walnut and Whitewater rivers.

Flash flood watches also are in effect in Missouri, Nebraska, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, as well as flood warnings along the Mississippi River.

A severe thunderstorm caused flash floods in the Houston area Tuesday, leading to abandoned vehicles and drenched homes. About 60 students had to spend the night at an elementary school after flooded roads prevented buses from leaving and parents from picking them up.

The rainfall didn’t compare to the deluge Houston experienced during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, but flooding is an experience one expert said was becoming the new normal.

“We’re going to have to learn to live with flooding in Houston and we haven’t quite accepted that reality yet,” said Jim Blackburn, co-director of the Severe Storm Prediction, Education, and Evacuation from Disasters Center at Rice University in Houston.

The national Storm Prediction Center said rain remained in the forecast for Wednesday and Thursday in the Central Plains and Mississippi Valley, which could cause more problems because the soil is so saturated.

While the river was slowly going down from St. Louis and to the north, it continued rising in southern Missouri and southern Illinois. The Mississippi was nearing an expected 44-foot crest in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, 12 feet above technical flood stage. A concrete floodwall there protects the historic downtown, but low-lying areas of Cape Girardeau and neighboring communities were underwater.

The Illinois River remained nearly 10 feet above flood stage at Peoria, Illinois, where sandbags were helping to fortify downtown. One major concern in Peoria and other Illinois River towns was that the water level is expected to remain extraordinarily high into next week.

Other parts of the country also were dealing with flooding.

Buildings and roads were flooded along the St. Clair River in Algonac, Michigan. The river links Lake Huron and Lake St. Clair, and flooding is possible along those lakes as well as the Detroit River and western Lake Erie.

Among several high water rescues reported in Oklahoma, a school bus became stranded as it carried students to school Wednesday morning near El Reno, about 30 miles west of Oklahoma City. Firefighters said the bus driver was trying to avoid high water on the road and got stuck on a verge while attempting to turn around. Students were picked up by another vehicle and taken to school.

Meanwhile, a stretch of Interstate 29 in northwestern Missouri opened Wednesday for the first time since floodwaters shut it down in March. Many other roads and highways in northwestern Missouri and southwestern Iowa remain closed due to damage from late March and early April flooding on the Missouri River.