On November 8, 2022, Colorado voters approved Proposition 122, but when will psilocybin therapy be available?
This proposition decriminalized the possession, growing, and personal use of psilocybin and started a real path towards legal psychedelic healing and therapy by licensed professionals. If you didn’t know, Ketamine-assisted therapy is already available in Denver because it has been approved by the FDA for therapy.
With this approval, Colorado became the second state (after Oregon) to approve psychedelic-assisted therapy. Even though the proposition passed, psilocybin doesn’t become immediately available for therapists to use with their clients. Therapists who use it psychedelic therapy are at risk of losing their licenses because they could be administering it before it’s legal to do so in this capacity.
However, this is where the work begins on a state level to operationalize the proposition that people in Colorado approved. Officials in Colorado are now responsible for creating rules to licensed psychedelic therapists and clinics, also known as facilitators and healing centers in this new world. In the future, people over the age of 21 will be able to go to a healing center and use psilocybin with the help of a facilitator.
According to Filter Magazine, here’s what the timeline looks like for psilocybin-assisted therapy to be available in Colorado:
- January 31, 2023: State appoints a Natural Medicine Advisory Board of 15 people who must be recommended by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate.
- September 30, 2023: The NMAB makes recommendations to the Department of Regulatory Agencies about safety, harm reduction, training requirements, and education.
- January 1, 2024: State sets rules on education and qualification requirements for people who facilitate psilocybin therapy.
- September 30, 2024: State adopts rules for implementing natural medicine, specifically psilocybin, and starts accepting applications for licenses. The state will have up to 60 days to accept or reject applications for licenses.
- June 1, 2026: State will decide whether to expand the program to include therapy with ibogaine, mescaline, or DMT.
As you can see from the timelines, psilocybin-assisted therapy won’t realistically be available until 2025, but real steps are set to make psilocybin therapy have a real presence in Colorado.
We’re one of the leading therapy providers of legal Ketamine-assisted therapy in Colorado today, and we’ll be keeping up with announcements related to psilocybin therapy to see if and when we can provide it for our clients.
