Colorado voters are set to decide whether to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms for those 21 and older and create state-regulated 'healing centers' where participants can experience the drug.
Fresh off his third tour of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Jason Lopez awoke in crisis from an alcohol-induced nap during a family gathering in Colorado in 2014. The Army Special Forces soldier, thinking he was once again in battle, grabbed the heavy coffee table in front of him and threw it across the living room.
If the initiative passes, Colorado would join Oregon in establishing a regulated system for substances like psilocybin and psilocin, the hallucinogenic chemicals found in some mushrooms. After June 1, 2026, Colorado would allow an advisory board to add other plant-based psychedelic drugs to the program, including dimethyltryptamine, commonly known as DMT, ibogaine and mescaline not derived from peyote, a type of cactus that some conservation groups are trying to protect.
But critics of the latest ballot initiative note that the Food and Drug Administration has not approved the psychedelics as medicine. They also argue that allowing"healing centers" to operate, as well as allowing private personal use of the drugs, would jeopardize public safety and send the wrong message to kids and adults alike that the substances are healthy.
"They started with medical marijuana and then went to recreational marijuana. Now they're starting with medical psychedelics. We can only assume that they'll go to recreational psychedelics from here," said Niforatos, whose group has raised about $50,000. He warned that the use of the drugs could cause prolonged psychosis, persistent hallucinogenic disorders and lead to impaired driving.
Even so, the FDA has designated psilocybin a"breakthrough therapy" to treat major depressive disorder. The designation can expedite research, development and review of a drug if it might offer substantial improvements over existing treatments.also found that psilocybin may ease depression in some hard-to-treat patients. The modest effects waned over time, but they helped people who previously had gotten little relief from standard antidepressants.
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