Two dozen trainees make their way to a circle of chairs at a retreat center near Fort Collins. It is day two of facilitator training, learning how to sit with people through psychedelic experiences.
Elemental Psychedelics, a Fort Collins-based, state-approved training organization is leading the event. Co-founders, Dori Lewis and Shannon Hughes, guide the group through exercises and discussions about the history of natural medicine.
鈥淲e start there by building context, before we dive into building skills, for sitting, for holding space, for helping people,鈥� Hughes said.
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Eventually, these students will learn how to be with someone while they trip on mushrooms for several hours鈥� keeping them safe and helping them in challenging moments. Hughes sees psychedelic-assisted therapy as a new tool, especially when current mental health treatments like pills and talk therapy aren鈥檛 always enough.
鈥淭here's just so much suffering that just
continues, and people are hurting, and people maybe have tried everything,鈥� said Hughes. 鈥淲e get calls like, 鈥業've tried everything for 15 years, and I'm still in pain, and I still don't want to be in this world.'鈥�
suggests that psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, can treat issues including trauma, anxiety and substance abuse. Lewis adds that while occasionally a client will experience significant relief following a single psychedelic session, that is unusual.
鈥淚 will say, mushrooms are not going to quickly alleviate that feeling, but they will help somebody understand maybe what they need to do to begin the process of moving toward relief,鈥� Lewis said.
Hughes and Lewis are cautiously optimistic about psychedelic-assisted therapy in Colorado, following that decriminalized mushrooms and allowed for healing centers. While this industry has been active underground for decades, Colorado is only the second state in the country to regulate natural medicine. .
We鈥檙e all holding our breath
Colorado regulators with the new Natural Medicine Division, are now working to issue licenses for people to do this work. But launching a brand new industry takes time.
鈥淚 have a 200-plus waitlist at my practice of people who are interested in mushrooms,鈥� Lewis said. 鈥淧eople don't understand, that we can't offer this yet, and so it's been really difficult to try to support people and be compassionate and also be like, 鈥榃e can't do anything with you yet.'鈥�
In order for clients to receive psychedelic-assisted therapy, two key developments need to take place: healing centers need to be licensed as well as mushroom growers, known as cultivators.
Tasia Poinsatte has been involved since the beginning as the Colorado director of the Healing Advocacy Fund. She helped draft the 2022 ballot measure and weighed in on the state鈥檚 regulations.
鈥淲e鈥檙e all holding our breath for the next phase which is that people are actually starting to come and access care,鈥� said Poinsatte.
One hold up is . While communities can鈥檛 ban natural medicine businesses, some haven鈥檛 decided where they can be located.
鈥淪ome cities and counties are putting in place restrictions,鈥� said Poinsatte. 鈥淏ut more often, we're seeing that they just haven't really taken action one way or another.鈥�
We had to do that work already
Josh Walker, a cultivator who set up shop in Berthoud a few months ago, is in the middle of the licensing process.
before he can run this operation as a business. In the meantime, he鈥檚 working on product development, growing several strains of mushrooms鈥� some brown, some white and blue.
鈥淭his is basically like a Labrador Pug situation that we're doing with mushrooms. We're just taking traits that we desire and we move those forward,鈥� Walker said.
Walker is training employees and scaling up production but he can鈥檛 sell anything yet. Still, he has to be ready for when a healing center does open its doors.
鈥淏ecause if I tell somebody that we can accommodate the mushrooms that they need now, we had to do that work already, you know, two and a half months before,鈥� said Walker.
At the end of March, people in Colorado鈥檚 mushroom business got some good news: state regulators approved the first healing center license for a facility in Denver. A few days later, a cultivator was licensed.
Shannon Hughes and Dori Lewis, the co-founders of Elemental Psychedelics have been waiting for this development. So far, their students have had nowhere to get the in-person hours needed for full licensure.
鈥淲e're literally just waiting to be able to do practicum here in Colorado with our students,鈥� said Hughes. 鈥淪o this is a big milestone being reached to actually have a licensed healing center, licensed natural medicine, and now we can really move forward with getting our students fully trained.鈥�
Then, this week, the pair found out that their healing center license, in Fort Collins, was approved.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the misspelling of Tasia Poinsatte's last name.
