Mushroom Legalization Bill Clears House Committees, Approval on Horizon

Colorado's first bill addressing the decriminalization and legalization of certain psychedelics has cleared the state Senate and two important House committees, and could be passed by the full House early next week.

Introduced less than two weeks ago by Senate President Stephen Fenberg, Senate Bill 23-290 would implement and regulate the landmark psychedelics ballot initiative passed by Colorado voters last November. Proposition 122 legalized therapeutic psilocybin and decriminalized the personal cultivation, use and sharing of psilocybin mushrooms as well as DMT, ibogaine and mescaline (not from peyote) for people 21 and older, with the last three up for review for potential medical legalization in 2026.

While licensed therapy centers could open by late 2024, Prop 122 did not allow for the establishment of retail psychedelic operations, only healing centers, so there won't be mushroom stores popping up like the hundreds of cannabis dispensaries currently in Colorado.

But the ballot measure didn't include limits on the personal cultivation of mushrooms or criminal penalties for illegal trafficking, either, and was short on clinical and therapeutic psychedelic regulations.

Prop 122 was short on regulatory responsibilites, leaving the creation of Colorado's new psychedelic framework to the state Department of Regulatory Agencies, which is currently overseeing a Natural Medicine Advisory Board, and any laws passed by the legislature. More legislation is almost certain to be proposed next year, but with just over a week left in the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers "don't have a choice" but to pass this bill, according to SB 290's House sponsor, Representative Judy Amabile.

"We have to do it. We don't have a choice, and I understand that a lot of people who didn't want the ballot measure also don't want the bill," Amabile told her colleagues on the House Finance Committee on April 27. "We would still want that policy to be implemented, because that's what the voters said they wanted, and I believe in that."

Fenberg's bill cleared the Senate in a week, and was then approved by the House Finance and  Appropriation committees. The measure proposes guardrails for unlicensed psychedelic facilitators, restrictions for personal mushroom and natural-medicine cultivation, and criminal penalties for the unlicensed sale or distribution of psychedelics. The state Department of Revenue, responsible for overseeing Colorado's liquor, marijuana and gaming industries, would be charged with regulating licensed psychedelic manufacturing, distribution, testing and other business activities.

Local governments have the right to enact time, place and manner regulations on psychedelic facilitation centers and businesses, but neither Prop 122 nor SB 290 give local governments the power to ban psychedelic centers, despite calls to roll back those protections from coalitions representing counties and municipalities.

Although lawmakers have protected Prop 122's statewide impact so far, psychedelic advocates believe the bill creates too many restrictions on unlicensed psychedelic facilitation and communal use, pointing specifically to language banning the public consumption of psychedelics and paying unlicensed facilitators more than expenses, both of which can be components of religious or ceremonial use by Indigenous cultures. Under the law, unlicensed facilitators can operate and take donations to recoup the costs of their services and psilocybin mushrooms provided for them, but grassroots activists believe facilitators and spiritual healers need more remuneration for their services.

Stakeholders in the psychedelics community have also argued that bill sponsors didn't include them in conversations surrounding SB 290.

"When we're saying that we just want to maintain communal protections, what we're saying is that we want to make sure that community itself is decriminalized. We're asking for the support of legislators to have more space and time to work with you all for all of our shared concerns," Matthew Duffy, co-founder of Denver psychedelic activist group SPORE, told the House Finance Committee. "We're asking for the ability without legal threat to be able to take care of each other, to make sure that medicines are being responsibly stewarded. What happens here in Colorado will set precedent for the rest of the country, and it's vital that we take our time and don't make any sweeping changes."

So far, amendments to the bill include looser restrictions for psilocybin laboratory testing and psychedelic harm reduction providers, and the creation of a state advisory board tasked solely with preserving the Indigenous use of psychedelics. During the April 27 Finance hearing, Amabile successfully passed amendments that would allow people on parole or probation to take psychedelics without violation, create a record-clearing process for psychedelic arrests that are no longer illegal in Colorado, and require psychedelic license applicants to submit their fingerprints for law enforcement background checks.

The bill now has to clear three House floor votes and a Senate vote on House amendments. Lobbyists expect the measure to receive its next hearing as early as today, April 28, or at some point this weekend as lawmakers race to complete the session.