When psychedelic-assisted therapy becomes available in Colorado next year, the state will be just the second in the U.S. to regulate the production and use of psilocybin mushrooms.
Oregon was the first state to legalize psilocybin therapy in 2020 and mental health-focused businesses there began offering it in 2023. Unsurprisingly, local regulators have looked to Oregon for guidance as they develop their own rules and regulations.
There are already lessons to be learned. A year and a half after the nascent industry got off the ground, some of Oregon’s psilocybin service centers are struggling to stay open. One in Portland closed earlier this year after operating for just six months.
Oregon’s service centers are where people go to have a therapeutic psilocybin experience or a guided trip, if you will. (In Colorado, these facilities are called “healing centers.”) But in Oregon, owners say the cost of doing business is so expensive that it threatens the model altogether.
Last June, Dee Lafferty opened Inner Guidance Services in Albany, Ore., which served about 165 clients in its first year. But when the time came to renew her center’s license, which costs $10,000 annually, Lafferty launched a crowdfunding campaign to cover the expense.
“Unfortunately the program in Oregon is not set up in a way to where it is profitable. So we do not have the $10,000,” Lafferty said in a Facebook video promoting her campaign.
But the community stepped up, and within two days, eight people had donated enough money to help Inner Guidance Services reach its goal. While that provided a stopgap, Lafferty doesn’t know how she’ll cover next year’s fee.
“When you look at what you have to pay for the facilitators, for the space, rent, electricity — all of the things that you have to have — what have you to pay sums up to more than what you make reasonably,” she said.
Licensing fees are a hot topic in Colorado, as regulators barrel toward finalizing what it will cost for entrepreneurs to participate in this new industry. It’s one of the last pieces to get settled after they spent a year-plus determining occupational requirements for facilitators and rules governing the business ecosystem surrounding psychedelic therapy.
Dee Lafferty, one of the first licensed psilocybin therapists in the country, sits inside one of the treatment rooms at Inner Guidance Services Inc. in Albany, Oregon. The center has operated for a year, but the business model is not profitable, she said. (Photo by Kristina Barker/Special to The Denver Post)
Challenges like the ones Lafferty described were common in the early days of marijuana legalization, said Rachel Gillette, a Denver-based attorney and head of the cannabis and psychedelics group at the Holland & Hart law firm. Even today, banks, landlords and insurance companies often upcharge businesses that work with federally controlled substances because they’re considered more risky, she said.
Additionally, these businesses are subject to a federal tax code that prohibits them from deducting operating expenses from taxable income, …read more
Source:: The Denver Post – Business
