A New York lawmaker has introduced a bill that would create a pilot program to provide psilocybin therapy to 10,000 people, focusing on military veterans and first responders, while the legislature also considers broader psychedelics reform.
Assemblymember Pat Burke (D), who has championed various psychedelics measures over recent sessions, filed the therapeutic psilocybin pilot program legislation on Wednesday.
It would create the program under the state Department of Health, which would be required to provide funding to cover the therapy and develop training guidelines for professional facilitators. It would need to issue a report on findings and policy recommendations to the governor and legislature every two years after enactment.
A total of 10,000 patients could participate, including veterans and their families, first responders and people who suffer from cluster headaches. They would need to reside in the western region of New York.
The pilot program would end if psilocybin is approved for medical use by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“Psilocybin therapy offers serious potential benefits to assist with mental health, but it suffers from a lack of substantial medical testing,” a memo attached to the measure says. “This bill would alleviate that problem by establishing a pilot program to test psilocybin therapy’s effectiveness on mental health.”
“This pilot program would help record the effects of this treatment on their conditions in order to better understand the effects of this new therapy which promises substantial benefits,” it says.
Under the legislation, the health department would be able to enter into agreements with experts, non-profit organizations, universities or other institutions “for the performance of an evaluation of the implementation and effectiveness” of the program.
Hellbound and Down 