Denver, Colorado, will open the state’s first legal psilocybin healing center within the next month—a historic moment. It’s the culmination of a years-long process after voters approved a limited legalization ballot measure in 2022. There will be no psilocybin mushroom dispensaries; consumers will have to pay to use the drug on-site under trained supervision—no diagnosis needed.
On December 31, 2024, the Colorado Departments of Regulatory Agencies and Revenue started accepting business license applications from prospective mushroom cultivators, testing labs, product manufacturers, healing centers and facilitators. Colorado’s model has parallels with Oregon, whose voters also approved legalizing psilocybin services in 2020, but with some important differences.
The mushrooms will be handled by various entities under Colorado’s system: A cultivator must grow them in a hygienic facility, then a lab has to test them. A manufacturer will then package products for commercial use. A healing center will purchase the finished products before selling them on to customers. Finally, a facilitator will be assigned to supervise the customer during their trip. All these services will be factored into the sticker price, which is likely to be out of reach for many.
According to CBS, Denver’s first legal center will by at the Center Origin, which expects to offer six-to-eight hour sessions at a cost of $3,500 each.
A parallel option exists because Colorado voters simultaneously decriminalized possession—and that includes growing, gifting and sharing.
But a parallel option exists because Colorado voters simultaneously decriminalized possession of naturally occurring psychedelic substances—and that includes growing, gifting and sharing without payment. There’s also legal protection for people who supervise others using the drug, perhaps acting as a “trip guide”—they can even be compensated, though they cannot advertise their services. In Oregon, there is no legal possession of mushrooms outside of licensed psilocybin service centers.
To get a better sense of where psychedelic reform stands in Colorado and beyond, Filter spoke with Joshua Kappel, an attorney and founding partner at Vicente LLP, based in Denver. Kappel and his firm focus on cannabis and psychedelics law in Colorado and nationwide. We discussed the new laws unfolding in Colorado, where else to look for reform and the Trump factor. Our interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Alexander Lekhtman: As the first psilocybin healing center is opening soon in Denver, where do you think psychedelic healing stands in Colorado?
Joshua Kappel: Things are going better than expected. We have some healing centers licensed, cultivation, manufacturing. We’re waiting on a testing lab. We’ve seen a number of micro healing centers open, that allows people to create healing centers on pre-exisiting businesses and lowers the cost to entry.
We might have natural medicine services in the next month or two. We have a decriminalization and personal use law; those are going pretty well. There haven’t been many abnormal adverse events; overall the program is rolling out in a pretty modest fashion. It’s not like cannabis where there was a crazy green rush. This is being treated as a modality of care that professionals are using as a tool to help people.
“Flexibility around multi-use premises lowers the barriers to entry and treats psychedelic care more as a modality of care than a standalone business.”
AL: Do you have any idea what the range would be in the sticker price for psilocybin services?
JK: It’s not going to be much different from what you see in the underground—from $500 for a group session to thousands of dollars for a higher end private session, and everything in between. The initial price in the first few months will be more expensive than it will be a year later.
AL: When we compare this to psilocybin in Oregon, what do you think are the key differences in how Colorado is executing this?
JK: There are three key differences. One is by splitting the agencies up that regulate this program. The Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) regulates the new facilitator profession, while the Department of Revenue focuses on the regulations of natural medicine businesses and they don’t have to try to reinvent the wheel.
The other difference is here we have clinical facilitators. That’s someone who’s trained as a facilitator but holds a secondary license to treat or diagnose a specific illness. Once they’re licensed they can integrate psychedelic care into their practice. If they’re a professional counselor working on someone with depression, they can bring psilocybin into that treatment plan. This should allow more adoption and safe care, but also more access overall.
The third difference is that healing centers don’t have to be standalone businesses. In Oregon they are standalone licensed premises, but here they can overlap with another business premise. They can’t be at a bar or a cannabis dispensary, but if someone has an addiction center they can get a healing center license on top to integrate that into addiction care. If they have a center where they do yoga and wellness retreats, the occasional wedding, they can get a healing center on that property and operate every now and then. This flexibility around multi-use premises lowers the barriers to entry and treats psychedelic care more as a modality of care than a standalone business.
“When the DEA has come after physicians for state programs that violate federal law, the DEA has generally lost.”
AL: How does a “micro-healing” license work?
JK: You have micro-healing centers and cultivation facilities. The big difference is they can’t store much product but don’t need as much security, and have lower fees. The micro-healing center is designed for a solo practitioner who wants to have services at a therapist’s office. It allows individuals and small groups to operate in a more cost-efficient manner, as opposed to building out a huge facility with many treatment rooms.
What we’ve heard is a lot of these therapists don’t want to do psilocybin therapy every day, they want to do it a couple times a month with patients who really need it. They want this to be a tool, not their sole business.
And on the cultivation side, it’s trying to meet the psychedelic space where they are. People have been practicing psychedelic care in the underground, out of their houses, growing small amounts out of their closets. To now ask that group to open these large businesses doesn’t make sense.
AL: What are the legal and professional risks that come from doing this? Psilocybin is a federally illegal drug; if you’re a licensed psychiatrist or therapist you have to meet certain laws and regulations.
JK: For licensed professionals in Colorado, they don’t need to worry about their state license. The agency that regulates facilitators most likely also regulates their other profession. There’s a lot of coordination with these agencies to make sure wires aren’t getting crossed. Every licensed counselor won’t need to worry about losing their license by becoming a clinical facilitator.
This program is illegal under federal law, and it’s illegal to possess or distribute psilocybin, period. We dealt with this with cannabis—the entire multi-billion-dollar industry is illegal under federal law. But with health care practitioners and prescribers, things get interesting. If you have a DEA registration that allows you to prescribe a controlled substance, how does that interact with you handling an illegal substance? Is there a risk there? Yes. But do they have to handle it? No, they don’t. They can still be part of the preparation, safety screening and integration, without handling, touching or administering the substance.
When the DEA has come after physicians for state programs that violate federal law, the DEA has generally lost. They tried to come after physicians for recommending medical cannabis; when it went to the 9th Circuit they lost. Again, regarding Death with Dignity and euthanasia, the DEA tried to revoke physician licenses and they also lost. The standard is it has to be in the public interest to revoke a license; and the practice of medicine has historically been relegated to the states. There’s some risk, but there’s also a fair amount of precedent.
There are issues: If a hospital wants to offer psilocybin, they might not be able to because they receive federal grants or Medicaid money. That could preclude an established health care facility from integrating this into their everyday practice. Being very careful about the overlap is important.
“I think Colorado is by far the leader. We’ve created a model that allows so many different pathways to access.”
AL: What do you think is the state of psychedelic reform, legalization or otherwise, nationwide?
JK: We saw a slowdown in the advance of psychedelic reform in late 2024, with MDMA being delayed by the FDA, and the Massachusetts ballot measure also failing. That was a huge setback for the psychedelic space overall and took a lot of wind out of the sails. I see a retrenching and re-strategizing in the psychedelic space. If the public is not yet ready for this reform, how do we show the benefits of it?
You see a lot of focus on funding and research bills or pilot programs at the state level. At the federal level, it’s hard to say. RFK Jr. and some other administration members seem to be supportive, but what that looks like remains to be seen. There may be hope that the FDA switches course on MDMA. And with Texas leading the charge on ibogaine research, the federal government may come around and see how beneficial it is.
AL: Which state or city do you think is the leader now on psychedelic policy reform?
JK: I think Colorado is by far the leader. We’ve created a model that allows so many different pathways to access, from models for integrated health care to regulated therepeutic to community use to personal agency. You don’t see that in any other state.
Photograph by Dick Culbert via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0
Show Comments