Tag: psychedelics

Colorado Governor Could Grant Mass Pardons For Psychedelics-Related Convictions Under Newly Filed Bill

Colorado lawmakers have introduced a bill that would empower the governor to grant pardons to people who’ve been convicted of psychedelics-related offenses, while revising rules for the state’s psychedelics legalization law.

Sen. Matt Ball (D) and Rep. Lisa Feret (D) filed the legislation on Tuesday, proposing reforms to authorize Gov. Jared Polis (D) or future governors to grant mass clemency for people with convictions for low-level possession of substances such as psilocybin, ibogaine and DMT that have since been legalized for adults under state law.

In 2023, Polis called on lawmakers to take steps allowing him to issue mass pardons for people with prior psychedelics convictions as the voter-approved legalization policy was being implemented.

The governor said at the time that he needed the legislature to act to provide him with pardon authority, “so anybody who has something on their criminal record that is now legal can have that expunged and doesn’t hold them back from future employment opportunities.”

In addition to granting the governor that authority, the newly introduced measure would also require the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), Department of Revenue (DOR) and Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) to “collect information and data related to the use of natural medicine and natural medicine products.”

That would include data on law enforcement activities, adverse health events, consumer protection claims and behavioral impacts related to psychedelics.

“Subject to available appropriations, CDPHE shall also collect relevant data and information related to the use of natural medicine from facilitators and healing centers,” the bill says. “CDPHE is required to create and maintain a database of the information collected.”

The legislation, which is scheduled for a hearing before the Senate Health & Human Services Committee on Wednesday, further amends rules around licensing and ownership of psychedelic healing centers. For example, it removes a requirement for fingerprint background checks for owners and employees of licensed facilities, making it so they would only be subject to a name-based criminal background check.

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A trip too far: The LSD experience that blew up the Huxley family

In November 1956, three people gathered in a converted Connecticut barn to take LSD, a powerful psychedelic drug that was legal at the time. 

The children had just been put to bed upstairs. In the converted barn’s main room, Elizabethan ballads drifted through smoke-thick air as someone scattered chrysanthemum petals across a sheepskin rug. The flowers seemed to reanimate in the candlelight, blooming and dying with each flicker. Two of the participants lay hand-in-hand in ecstatic communion, while a third sat rigid and apart, his detachment crumbling into barely contained fury. 

By midnight, everything would shatter. 

One participant spiraled into visions of nuclear war. Another transformed into a 10-foot colossus of feminine power. And in the space between these extremes, a marriage began its quiet collapse. 

The aftershocks would reverberate through three generations of Britain’s most celebrated intellectual family, the Huxleys, leaving wounds that simmered in private letters for more than sixty years. 

It’s fitting that this story should be told on Bicycle Day, the annual commemoration of April 19, 1943, when Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann first rode his bike home under the effects of LSD — and ushered in the modern psychedelic era. Nearly 14 years after that inaugural ride, the drug had drifted from the lab into the lives of artists, seekers and intellectual elites like the Huxleys. 

The trip’s architect was Dr. Humphry Osmond, the psychiatrist who had first guided Aldous Huxley — the author of “Brave New World” and “The Doors of Perception” — in experiments with mescaline. and coined the term “psychedelic.” His subjects that evening were Aldous’ only son, Matthew Huxley; Matthew’s wife, Ellen; and Francis Huxley, Matthew’s cousin and the son of biologist Julian Huxley. 

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Florida Senate Passes Bill To Ban Psychedelic Mushroom Spores, As Companion Measure Also Advances In House

Florida’s Senate on Wednesday passed a wide-ranging agricultural bill that contains provisions to outlaw fungal spores that produce mushrooms containing psilocybin or psilocin. The vote came a day after a House committee advanced a companion bill in that chamber.

Senators voted 27–9 to approve SB 700, from Sen. Keith Truenow (R). HB 651 is moving through the House, meanwhile, having advanced out of the Commerce Committee on Tuesday.

The proposed ban on spores of mushrooms that create psilocybin or psilocin is a small part of the roughly 150-page legislation, which would make a variety of adjustments to Florida’s agricultural laws, including around agricultural lands, utilities and wildlife management.

With respect to psychedelic mushrooms, both measures would outlaw transporting, importing, selling or giving away “spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms or other material which will contain a controlled substance, including psilocybin or psilocyn, during its lifecycle.”

Violating the proposed law would be a first-degree misdemeanor, carrying a maximum one year in jail and $1,000 fine.

While lawmakers on the Senate floor and House committee spent considerable time debating various other portions of the bills—especially a proposed ban on fluoride in local water supplies—there was no mention of the provision concerning psychedelic mushroom spores.

“This bill at its core is meant to help farmers and consumers and students who want to become farmers one day,” Truenow said ahead of the floor vote.

Psilocybin and psilocin are the two main psychoactive compounds in psychedelic mushrooms. Although spores themselves typically do not contain psilocybin or psilocin, they eventually produce fruiting bodies—mushrooms—that do contain the psychedelic compounds.

Because the spores don’t contain any controlled substances, the federal government deems them legal.

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Zelensky’s Troops Injected With Various Party Drugs to ‘Promote Battle Readiness’

Facing a shortage of soldiers and the ravages of war, Ukraine has turned to the animal tranquilizer-turned party drug ketamine, the rave-scene classic MDMA and the lesser known hippy hallucinogen ibogaine to ‘promote battle readiness’. Perhaps more importantly however, by keeping its population comfortably drugged, the soldiers and citizens of Ukraine would, assumably, be less apt to protest the continuation of the war. Instead, they are likely to be satiated by the chemical-induced “Valhalla,” as one drugged Ukrainian solider recently described it.

Fascinatingly, during the Joe Biden administration, the United States Department of Defense (formerly Department of War) funded a study which allowed for the injection of ketamine or fentanyl into non-consenting Americans following a traumatic accident, like a car crash. It enrolled unconscious Americans into forced medical experiments regardless of their willingness to participate. The goal was to further develop treatment modalities for battlefield medical operations, specifically the practice of drugging soldiers and finding out if they develop a drug addiction later. The direct link between the U.S. and Ukrainian militaries became deeply intertwined during the Biden-era, as was exposed by Alex Jones in 2022 and eventually The New York Times in 2025.

The proposal to use wartime Ukraine as a testbed for psychedelic drug abuse was made by Dmytro Gurin, a member of the parliament in Kiev. Gurin is a member of the Servant of the People political party, the same party that the country’s Dictator Vladimir Zelensky is part of. Gurin is also a member of the country’s health committee. Gurin wanted MDMA (the primary drug within ecstasy, a mainstay of the electronic dance music scene) to be administered as a first-line treatment for war-related issues, not as a last-ditch effort to treat soldiers woes.

“He’d like E.U. financial support for Ukraine to develop a nationwide clinical trial to test MDMA-assisted therapy as a first treatment for trauma, rather than as a last resort, as is normally recommended,” Politico said in 2023.

While a drugged military may be a happy military, it may also be a productive military. By reducing trauma from the war via drug abuse, Kiev’s armed forces can make the most out of what manpower they have remaining. Ukraine’s military has been facing staffing shortages since soon after the war began. Conscription teams scour the country abducting young men.

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Trump’s Veterans Secretary Had ‘Eye-Opening’ Psychedelics Talk With RFK Jr.—And He Plans To Press Congress To Act

The head of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) says he had an “eye-opening” talk with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Trump administration’s top federal health official, about the therapeutic potential of psychedelic medicine. And he intends to press Congress to take action on the issue.

VA Secretary Doug Collins, a former Republican congressman, also said during an interview on the Shawn Ryan Show that was posted this week that he’s open to the idea of having the government provide vouchers to cover the costs of psychedelic therapy for veterans who receive services outside of VA as Congress considers pathways for access.

Collins noted that VA has already been conducting clinical trials into the therapeutic use of psychedelics for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI), and the initial results show it’s “working,” with “tremendous change” among participants.

The secretary said he and Kennedy, the health and human services secretary, “sat in my office two weeks ago and talked about this very issue,” including how to navigate the regulatory and bureaucratic barriers to freeing up funds to support psychedelics access.

“Because we’re actually a hospital, a healthcare organization, we’re bound by some of the laws that Congress has made that have bound us into what we can use and what we can’t use,” he said, adding that marijuana is a “big example” of an alternative therapy that VA isn’t able to provide under current law.

“You’ve had a lot of congressmen say, ‘We’re not gonna do that. We’re gonna keep it where it’s at’” under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). “And so that it binds us a little bit.”

Asked for details about his conversation with the HHS secretary, Collins said it was “eye-opening because, of course he is very ‘Make America Healthy Again—getting the food additives out, getting those kind of stuff.”

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Iowa Lawmakers Unanimously Approve Bill To Create Psilocybin Program That Would Treat Up To 5,000 Patients With PTSD

An Iowa House committee has unanimously approved a Republican-led proposal to create a state-regulated therapeutic psilocybin program for adults with PTSD.

The bill, HF 620, from Rep. John Wills (R), passed the House Ways and Means Committee on a 23–0 vote at a hearing Thursday.

If enacted into law, it would allow up to 5,000 patients in the state to legally access psilocybin produced in-state by licensed entities. Administration sessions would need to be supervised by registered facilitators—mostly medical professionals—who would need to complete state-specified psilocybin education.

Psilocybin providers would need to be doctors, advanced nurse practitioners, advanced practice nurses, psychologists or social workers who complete psilocybin continuing education requirements, register with the state and pay a registration fee.

Administration sessions themselves would need to be at registered clinical locations and would need to be video recorded. Those records would need to be available for inspection by state officials upon request.

The psilocybin itself would be produced by state-licensed establishments. Local governments could not outright ban those facilities, nor could they deny them appropriate licenses based merely on the fact that psilocybin violates federal law.

Notably, a licensed psilocybin production facility could be co-located with one of the state’s few licensed medical cannabis producers—known in Iowa as medical cannabidiol producers—and the bill says regulators may grant psilocybin licensing preferences to those existing cannabis producers. Facilities couldn’t be located within 1,000 feet of a community location or 500 feet of a residential area.

Only people 21 and older and without “a misdemeanor for drug distribution or any felony” could work at psilocybin producers, and licensees themselves would face background checks.

Up to four independent testing labs could be licensed under the bill, and the state could also establish its own lab.

License applications would be accepted beginning July 1, 2026.

To oversee the system, the legislation would create a state Psilocybin Production Establishment Licensing Board under the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Appointed by the director of that department, the board would include a member of the public with knowledge of psilocybin, a member with knowledge and experience in the pharmaceutical or nutraceutical manufacturing industry, a law enforcement member, a university chemist or researcher with experience in manufacturing, a member who has a background in fungus or mushroom cultivation and processing.

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Nevada Lawmakers Discuss Plan To Create Psychedelic Therapy Pilot Program

A Nevada bill that would create a psychedelic therapy pilot program for military veterans and first responders had its first committee hearing on Wednesday. Lawmakers heard testimony from reform advocates, veterans and their families and members of a state Psychedelic Medicines Working Group, which late last year called on lawmakers to establish a system for regulated access.

The legislation, AB 378, was filed March 10 by Assemblymember Max Carter (D) and 18 other cosponsors. Under the proposal, the state would establish an Alternative Therapy Pilot Program under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The program would allow the medically supervised use of psychedelics including psilocybin, DMT, ibogaine and mescaline, specifically among military veterans and first responders with certain mental health conditions.

While the Assembly Committee on Health and Human Services didn’t act on the legislation at Wednesday’s hearing, they took testimony and asked questions of some speakers.

Carter, speaking to the panel, said that psychedelic therapy—involving ketamine, which is not part of the current bill—helped him overcome “profound, deep grief, treatment-resistant depression” and complex post-traumatic stress disorder after the traumatic death of his wife.

He explained that the pilot program would focus on first responders and military veterans because “those are demographics that everybody can identify with, but more importantly, they’re ones with accelerated—or exacerbated—suicide rates.”

“When we come back here in two years,” Carter told colleagues, “my belief is this will be mainstream therapy.”

Notably, no members of the public at Wednesday’s hearing spoke in opposition to the proposal, nor did any offer neutral comments.

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Florida House And Senate Panels Pass Bills To Criminalize Sales Of Psychedelic Mushroom Spores

Agricultural legislation in Florida containing a provision to outlaw psychedelic mushroom spores has proceeded past two more lawmaking panels in the House and Senate.

The proposed ban on spores of mushrooms that create psilocybin or psilocin is part of roughly 150-page companion bills that would make a variety of adjustments to Florida’s agricultural laws, including around agricultural lands, utilities and wildlife management.

With respect to psychedelic mushrooms, both would outlaw transporting, importing, selling or giving away “spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms or other material which will contain a controlled substance, including psilocybin or psilocyn, during its lifecycle.”

Violating the proposed law would be a first-degree misdemeanor, carrying a maximum one year in jail and $1,000 fine.

On Wednesday, the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee passed HB 651, from sponsor Rep. Kaylee Tuck (R), on a 14–4 vote. Prior to the vote, the body adopted an amendment that simplifies the language of the psychedelic spore prohibition but doesn’t meaningfully change it.

Tuck explained to members at the hearing that the change “restructures” the language “to simplify the prohibition without changing the substance of the underlying bill.”

Later in the day, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment and General Government favorably reported SB 700, by Sen. Keith Truenow (R).

While senators didn’t discuss the bill’s spore provision at the hearing, one public commenter, identified as Daniel Freeman, opposed it.

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