New Colorado Law Enables Psychedelic Pardons, Statewide Study

Governor Jared Polis has signed a bill ordering the state to collect data from law enforcement, public health and consumer protection agencies related to natural psychedelics. The measure also gives the governor authority to pardon people convicted of crimes connected to psychedelics that are now legal actions, similar to what Colorado has done with former cannabis offenders.

Sponsored by Senator Matt Ball and Representative Lisa Feret, Senate Bill 25-297 passed the Colorado Legislature one day before the 2025 session ended. Polis signed the bill on June 3, but didn't address it until a week later.

"Great news, Colorado! I've signed a bill to allow low-flow-level possession of psilocybin, ibogaine, and DMT, which is now legal today, to be removed from criminal records. We're working towards a fairer future," Polis wrote in a social media post on June 10.

The act gives Polis (or any Colorado governor after this) permission to grant pardons to people previously convicted of crimes that are now legal under the Natural Medicine Health Act, which decriminalized the cultivation and possession of certain natural psychedelics — DMT, ibogaine, psilocybin and mescaline (not from peyote) — in Colorado in 2022.

Although there are relatively few people who fit this designation, drug reform advocates still appreciated the move.

Under the new law, a triage of state health, revenue and regulatory agencies will create a pilot program for collecting information and data "related to the use of natural medicine and natural medicine products," according to SB 297 bill drafters, including law enforcement incidents, adverse health events, impacts on health-care facilities and systems, consumer protection claims, and behavioral health impacts.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment will be in charge of collecting the relevant information, which must be "de-identified" and not include an individual's personal information, the bill notes. Eventually, the CDPHE, along with the state departments of Revenue and Regulatory Agencies, will publish an annual report detailing Colorado's natural medicine program implementation. 

The three state departments will also create and maintain a database with information collected by legal psychedelic healers and facilitators, including "health outcome data, demographic information, information related to the outcome of a participant's administration session, information concerning natural medicine services provided by the facilitator, and other relevant information as determined" by the Department of Regulatory Affairs. According to the law, this information will also be de-identified and will not be admissible as evidence in private civil actions.

According to the Department of Revenue's Natural Medicine Division, most of the public data concerning psychedelics, which are still illegal at the federal level, is too broad and not dialed into Colorado.

On top of creating a set of baseline data concerning the public impact psychedelics have on Colorado, SB 297 removes a fingerprint requirement during background checks on employees and business owners in the legal psychedelic space. The new law also clarifies that any licensed products infused with psilocybin or other natural medicine cannot have product labels with cartoons, pictures, the words "candy" or "candies," certain colors and other gimmicks that are attractive to people under 21.

Senate Bill 297 had a relatively smooth ride through the legislature, but it hit a bump with some lawmakers in the Senate Health & Human Services Committee, who worried that language in the measure as originally drafted was too loose in allowing donations and gifts toward the production and management of the state's natural medicine database.

"It's not okay to get around budgetary issues by passing the funding off to publicly funded institutions...I think that's a problem," Senator Lisa Frizell said during an April hearing.

Legislative worries over funding include potential conflicts of interest and donations from public institutions that accept taxpayer funds. However, if the database effort doesn't receive enough donations, gifts or grants, then the project would likely shut down due to insufficient funding.

Ball, the bill's main sponsor, said during a Senate hearing that legislators have a commitment from the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative to fund the database pilot program for its entire duration of five years. A nonprofit based in California, PSFC was founded in 2017 as a "funding collaborative dedicated to supporting leaders and organizations advancing access to psychedelic healing," according to its website. Per the bill's fiscal note, the first two years of the program are estimated to cost around $865,000.

Colorado's long-awaited legal psilocybin program was considered fully launched and ready to operate in May, when the state's first testing lab was licensed, allowing growers to submit their products for lab approval before sending them off to healing centers. According to the Natural Medicine Division, as of June 12, three psilocybin growing operations and seven healing centers have been approved by the state.