The operations manager Relief from her depression With the help of psilocybin, the main ingredient in “magic mushrooms,” veterans His post-traumatic stress hindrance Work-from-home moms are being treated with the synthetic compound MDMA, colloquially known as “ecstasy” or “molly.” LSD (aka Acid) to Treat Anxiety.
Stories like these about the healing powers of psychedelics are reported almost daily.
These stories are so-calledPsychedelic RenaissanceIt was most commonly associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, but today there is a renewed interest in drugs. Therapeutic, not recreational.
Led by Oregon and Colorado, several states are leading the way in legalizing the use of various natural psychedelics. In 2020, Oregonians Passed Measure 109legalized the controlled use of psilocybin and established a new system for its production and consumption.
And in 2022, Coloradans Proposition 122, Natural Medicine Health Acthas created a psilocybin program similar to Oregon’s. So far, only Oregon and Colorado have enacted such programs, but many other states are considering such bills.
As Drug ResearcherI have been conducting interviews with psilocybin advocates, service center owners, manufacturers, researchers, and policymakers in Oregon. My goal is to hear their perspectives on the advantages and disadvantages of Oregon’s psilocybin legalization model.
Oregon will open its first psilocybin therapy treatment center in 2023.
For adult use, not for medical use
Oregon’s Bill 109 would have put in place a strict “adult use” program, making psilocybin treatment available to anyone over the age of 21. Without a medical diagnosis.
Under the program, consumers must purchase psilocybin through a state-licensed service center and ingest it in the presence of a state-licensed facilitator who is licensed by a state-approved training institute and does not need to have any special medical background. Pharmaceutical companies like Compass Pathways are developing— will be allowed. The first class of facilitators graduated in spring 2023, and the first service center opened that summer.
of Facilitator Licensing Process Becoming a facilitator isn’t that hard: You need a high school diploma or equivalent, a relatively clean criminal record, and complete 160 hours of state-certified training, including 40 hours of work experience. This ease of obtaining a license to practice was intentional: Measure 109’s framers wanted to make room for people from different backgrounds to become facilitators. “Some people are great at what they do, so school might not be the path for them,” one facilitator told me.
Still, many service center owners and facilitators found additional qualifications and training useful: One interviewee suggested that some courses of required training could be taught by a psychiatrist or neurologist, as many of the clients receiving psilocybin services already have a diagnosed mental illness and may already be taking a range of psychiatric medications.
Research has shown that psychedelics can have a clinically positive effect on people with mental illness.
The price of psilocybin
As everyone I interviewed acknowledged, the main problem with the Oregon model has to do with cost. The average itinerary is Approximately $1,500This includes $500-2,000 for the facilitator, $300-600 for the room, and $150-200 for the psilocybin itself. For more intensive facilitation in more expensive facilities, the cost can reach $5,000 or more per session.
Part of the prohibitive cost is the large start-up costs. Measure 109’s authors wanted the state’s psilocybin service offices to be self-funded. As a result, annual licensing fees for brokers ($2,000 per year), service centers ($10,000 per year), and manufacturers ($10,000 per year) are relatively high. Specialized manufacturing equipment and high taxes further drive up costs.
All this translates into higher prices for consumers, Psilocybin service centres are not attracting people That’s about what you’d expect. The vast majority of psilocybin therapy clients Outside the stateThis is likely due to the fact that psilocybin is cheap and easy to obtain for most Oregon residents outside of the legal market.
As one service center owner told me, “We don’t have a really scalable or profitable model. The middleman side is very labor intensive. Investors typically expect a return of five times their investment, but I don’t think that’s possible with the current structure of the industry.”
Two facilitators monitor a subject’s experience taking psilocybin during a drug study at Johns Hopkins University. Wikimedia, CC BY-SA
Other states moving towards legalizing psilocybin
Colorado will be the second state to implement a psilocybin program. Naturopathic Health It was passed in 2022.
For now, the term “natural therapy” in legal medical treatment refers only to psilocybin, but this law will be expanded in the future to include DMTA’s, Ibogaineand Mescalineand other naturally derived hallucinogens.
The Oregon program created a single facilitator license, while Colorado’s Proposition 122Establish A phased approachFacilitator licenses are available for those with and without clinical degrees. Proposition 122 also decriminalized the possession, use, cultivation, manufacture, and even sharing of natural medicines for “personal use.”
Other states are considering similar programs but have yet to pass them into law. Recently failed in CaliforniaIn Arizona, Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs exercised veto invoice A bill was passed in June 2024 to allow psilocybin treatment and testing in the state. The bill Republican Senator TJ Shope.
But for the most part, these bills have received support from both parties, a sign that state-level psilocybin laws are likely to move forward in the coming years, in tandem with the Food and Drug Administration, which has already approved several psychedelic drugs. “Breakthrough treatment” statusThis designation speeds up the drug development and review process.
FDA Trends
Major pharmaceutical companies Johnson & Johnson While there are companies investing in psychedelic drug development, this emerging industry is actually being driven by smaller market disruptors, such as: Compass and MindMedBoth companies have applied for FDA approval of their patented hallucinogen formulations.
Many industry experts believe the FDA will approve certain psychedelics. Contains synthetic psilocybinin the coming years. Because Oregon and Colorado’s programs only cover natural substances, and FDA-approved psychedelics are likely to only be prescribed by medical professionals, synthetic psilocybin cannot be used at the service centers under current law.
The development of a market for potentially FDA-approved psychedelic drugs is on a parallel trajectory to the psychedelic drug renaissance, and while some interviewees predicted an eventual clash between the state-level legalization trajectory and the trajectory of FDA-approved drugs, my research suggests that this clash is likely years away from surfacing.
Benjamin Y. Fong is a drug researcher and Distinguished Professor at Arizona State University. This article is reprinted from conversation Under Creative Commons License. read Original Article.
