Colorado has begun accepting licence applications from would-be psychedelic therapy centres and their guides, setting in motion the second state-regulated psilocybin program in the United States and a closely watched experiment in mental-health treatment.
Under the framework voters approved in 2022, adults 21 and older will be able to take psilocybin — the psychoactive compound in “magic mushrooms” — at licensed healing centres, after a screening and preparation session, under the supervision of a licensed facilitator, and with a follow-up “integration” session to process the experience. The state Department of Regulatory Agencies’ Natural Medicine Program oversees facilitators, while the revenue department licenses the facilities and the supply chain.
Key Points
- Colorado voters approved the Natural Medicine Health Act (Proposition 122) in November 2022, following Oregon’s first-in-the-nation program, which opened in 2023.
- Psilocybin remains illegal under U.S. federal law; the state program operates within Colorado only.
- Some cities, including Colorado Springs, have imposed strict zoning; its council voted to keep centres at least a mile from schools and daycares over objections from veterans’ advocates.
Psychedelic therapy: the veterans who drove the campaign
The movement that carried Proposition 122 drew much of its force from veterans. Former Green Beret Lane Belone, among those who pleaded with Colorado Springs council not to choke the program with zoning, described years of searching for relief from post-traumatic stress after three combat tours in Iraq — and finding, in guided psilocybin sessions, a turning point. The Colorado Springs area is home to tens of thousands of veterans and Fort Carson; Belone and others argued that pushing centres to the city’s fringes would put treatment out of reach for exactly the population shown to benefit.
Clinical research gives their testimony some backing: trials at major universities have found psychedelic therapy with psilocybin can produce rapid, durable reductions in depression and PTSD symptoms for some patients. It is not risk-free — screening excludes people with certain psychotic disorders, and sessions require trained supervision — which is precisely the structure Colorado’s rules impose.
Background: decriminalization to regulation
Colorado’s path ran from the ballot box: Denver became the first U.S. city to decriminalize psilocybin in 2019, and Proposition 122 extended the logic statewide three years later — decriminalizing personal possession and cultivation of several natural psychedelics while building a regulated psychedelic therapy system for psilocybin first. The law allows the state’s advisory board to recommend adding substances such as DMT, ibogaine or mescaline later; peyote is deliberately excluded out of respect for Indigenous religious use and conservation concerns.
Oregon’s experience supplies both the template and the caution. Its centres have served thousands of clients since 2023, but high session prices — driven by licensing and labour costs — have kept the service a niche one, and some providers have closed. Colorado has tried to lower barriers, including a tiered facilitator licence that speeds training for already-credentialed clinicians.
What happens next
With applications open at the turn of the year, the first healing centres were licensed in the spring of 2025, and sessions began under state supervision. The questions that will decide whether Colorado becomes a model or a footnote are practical: what a session costs, whether insurers ever touch it, how safety data looks at scale — and whether Washington, which still classifies psilocybin as a Schedule I drug, leaves the experiment alone.
The licensed track is only half of what Colorado voters created, and the other half explains some of the politics. The same ballot measure decriminalized personal possession and home cultivation of natural psychedelics for adults, and protected the non-commercial sharing of them — the ‘gifting’ model under which experienced guides have long worked informally. Licensed centres therefore have to persuade clients to pay for something a lawful grey zone approximates for free. Regulators and clinicians answer that the licensed psychedelic therapy track’s value is exactly its discipline: standardized screening to exclude high-risk clients, tested product from licensed cultivators, documented sessions and accountable facilitators. The first year of Colorado data — on safety incidents, prices and who actually walks through the door — will do more to settle that argument than any campaign speech.
Sources: Colorado Proposition 122 (Natural Medicine Health Act, 2022); Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, Natural Medicine Program; Colorado Springs City Council proceedings; Oregon Psilocybin Services program data.
