THE BULLETIN • THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2022 A3
STATE & NATION
PSILOCYBIN
More states consider legalizing psychedelic mushrooms
MICHAEL OLLOVE
Stateline.org
Alex Jones says a trip in Jamaica saved her
life. Not a trip to Jamaica: a hallucinogenic trip
in Jamaica.
Severe depression had descended on her at
age 10, and stayed there, relentlessly, for the
next two decades. She couldn’t work, couldn’t
bear the sight of herself in the mirror, and for
days on end could barely lift herself off her
couch. The temptation to end it all was always
at the periphery.
“I felt like I was the walking dead,” said Jones,
who is now 34.
She endured hours of talk therapy and ro-
tated through 30 different drug regimens. She
underwent light therapy and then dark ther-
apy. She tried an experimental ketamine nasal
spray and then a ketamine infusion. She under-
went rounds of electroconvulsive therapy and
sleep deprivation. She submitted to transcranial
magnetic stimulation, where she wore a big hel-
met equipped with magnets.
None of it worked, or at least not for long,
and some brought severe side effects. Doctors
told her she was “treatment resistant,” meaning
seemingly beyond help.
But in 2019, she happened upon a “60
Minutes” report on clinical studies showing
strongly encouraging results in using psilocy-
bin, a psychedelic agent derived from mush-
rooms, to treat patients with depression, anx-
iety and addiction. Outside of the trials, the
treatment was not available in the United
States, where psilocybin remains illegal under
federal law.
Jones booked a one-week stay at a Jamaican
retreat. There, under supervision, she under-
went three psychedelic mushroom sessions,
followed by sessions with “facilitators” on the
island and on her own for months back home
in Tacoma, Washington, unraveling the psyche-
delic trips she had experienced.
What she discovered was that she felt better.
Much better.
“It woke me up,” she said. “I was alive. I was
me again. I could see the beauty in the world.
Even the physical changes were surprising. The
next day after my first dose, I was charging up
sand dunes. Before that, I had a hard time go-
ing up the stairs.”
With research showing promising results for
patients, lawmakers in other states and cities
also are considering loosening psilocybin re-
strictions. Oregon became the first state to le-
Rebecca Champagne/TNS
Corey Champagne, a Marine Corps veteran from Washington, stands in Olympic National Park last year.
Champagne traveled to Peru in 2021 to take psychedelics, which he said helped relieve his anxiety and de-
pression. Several states might legalize psychedelic mushrooms to help treat medical conditions.
galize therapeutic use of psilocybin after voters
approved it in 2020. A few other states want to
legalize psilocybin treatment for all adult pa-
tients, while others want to limit it to veterans
or others with PTSD. Other states have formed
task forces to study the issue.
Studies in recent years have found that psi-
locybin and other psychedelics can have ben-
eficial effects for a variety of mental health
and other conditions such as PTSD, anorexia,
chronic pain, fibromyalgia and addiction.
In 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administra-
tion named psilocybin a “breakthrough ther-
apy” in treatment for severe depression, a desig-
nation the agency applies to drugs that in early
trials demonstrate substantial improvement
over existing treatments.
Not everyone is ready to give mushrooms the
go-ahead. In written testimony in February to
the Maine joint legislative committee oversee-
ing health and human services, which was con-
sidering a psilocybin legalization measure, Dr.
Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for
Disease Control and Prevention, cautioned that
there are not yet enough recognized medical
standards to ensure the safe use of psilocybin.
“While there may be early evidence for the
use of psilocybin to assist in treatment of re-
fractory depression and PTSD, this research
is ongoing and there are not currently clinical
practice guidelines or FDA-approved treat-
ments to ensure safe and appropriate use of the
therapy,” he said.
Oregon created a department under the
state health authority, Oregon Psilocybin Ser-
vices, to license and regulate the manufactur-
ing, transportation, delivery, sale and purchase
of psilocybin products. Psilocybin will not be
sold retail directly to the public like recreational
marijuana.
In its budget bill this year, the Connecticut
legislature started the process toward legalizing
centers in which veterans and first responders
could be administered psilocybin and MDMA,
a synthetic psychedelic. Some veterans groups
have long pushed for making psychedelic treat-
ments available for veterans, particularly those
with PTSD.
Texas, Utah and Washington state have set up
task forces or funded research into the medical
use of psilocybin. Maryland has created a $1 mil-
lion fund to study alternative treatments, includ-
ing psychedelics, for PTSD or traumatic brain in-
jury, and to pay for such treatments for veterans.
Ballot initiatives that would legalize psilocy-
bin are underway in Colorado and California.
Last month, the president of the New Jersey
Senate introduced a bill that would legalize psi-
locybin to treat certain disorders.
But even those states that might put a regula-
tory system in place would not do so in a med-
ical setting, a concern raised by Maine’s Shah.
The Maine bill, which didn’t pass, contemplated
psilocybin centers, that, Shah testified, “would
function like recreational use facilities rather
than medical treatment facilities, puts limita-
tions on the department’s ability to regulate safe
use, and does not incorporate sufficient behav-
ioral and public health input to the structure.”
Proponents say they are comfortable with
psilocybin use outside the medical system but
with regulation and licensing in place.
Washington state Sen. Jesse Salomon, a
Democrat, sponsored a bill this year that would
have set up a regulatory system like Oregon’s. It
would have adopted standards for cultivating
mushrooms and processing psilocybin as well
as licensing centers and providers who would
administer the drugs to patients.
The bill did not move out of committee, but
lawmakers appropriated $200,000 for a task
force to study the issue. Salomon said the orig-
inal bill generated keen interest, particularly
during a two-hour hearing in February, during
which several veterans testified.
“I got 50 times the interest in this bill than any
bill I’ve ever done,” Salomon said. “I had no idea
that would happen. I just threw it out there.”
The legislative efforts around the country
have been propelled by positive clinical studies
on the effects of psilocybin.
One influential 2020 study in the Journal of
the American Medical Association Psychiatry
found that 71% of the patients with severe, pre-
viously treatment-resistant depression, showed
“clinically significant improvement” that lasted
at least four weeks and with “low potential” for
addiction. More than half were considered in
remission at four weeks.
“I would say at this stage the research is
showing that in safe settings, this provides re-
lief from debilitating mental health problems
for some people,” said Alan Davis, one of the
study’s co-authors, a neuroscience researcher at
Ohio State University and adjunct professor at
the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and
Consciousness Research.
Davis said imaging conducted on patients
shows that the psilocybin causes changes in the
brain, although it will take further study to de-
termine the meaning of those changes. What’s
clear is that patients felt they had a mystical or
spiritual experience during their trips, one that
profoundly altered their perspective.
And it’s apparent, he said, that psilocybin
works on the brain differently than other medi-
cines used to treat psychiatric conditions.
“Regular (psychiatric) medicines don’t cure
anything,” he said. “But with psilocybin, with
two or three doses, some people are in com-
plete remission.”
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