States across the U. S. are accelerating psychedelic reform.
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Missouri Cannabis Education
What’ s Happening with Psilocybin Legalization in Other U. S. States?
States across the U. S. are accelerating psychedelic reform.
Leah by Leah Maurer, contributing writer
Leah Maurer, a native Missourian, is a canna journalist and activist living in Portland, OR. She is a co-owner of The Weed Blog www. theweedblog. com Co-Owner 420-420 Digital Media Solutions and the text code 420-420. In 2014, Maurer founded Moms for Yes on Measure 91 through grassroots efforts alone, which proved pivotal in adult-use legalization in Oregon. During that time, she also co-founded Show-Me Cannabis to help launch the legalization effort in Missouri. Maurer is a social justice activist at the core and hopes to see the end to the prohibition of cannabis globally.
Missouri has some interesting discussions around policy change and psilocybin law reform, as was covered recently here in The EVOLUTION Magazine. There is a long backstory to this, and other states are also considering similar law reform in 2025.
In the last half-decade, the U. S. has seen a patchwork shift away from total prohibition of psilocybin driven by city ballot measures, state ballot initiatives, and new regulatory programs. Local decriminalization( cities / counties) has spread widely since 2019, reducing enforcement priority in many jurisdictions but not creating legal retail markets. However, psilocybin remains a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law, so interstate commerce and unlicensed production or sale are still federal crimes.
States across the U. S. are accelerating psychedelic reform, with a few key wins already secured and many more bills in motion. At the moment, only Oregon and Colorado have fully legalized psilocybin and implemented regulated systems.
To give a little background, Oregon voters approved Measure 109( psilocybin services) on November 3, 2020, creating the nation’ s first statewide regulatory framework to license facilitators, manufacturers, and service centers to provide psilocybinassisted sessions for adults 21 and older. The Oregon Health Authority now implements the Oregon Psilocybin Services program and issues licenses and rules for production, testing, and supervised use. Separately, on the same ballot, Oregon approved Measure 110( decriminalization of small amounts of some substances). The practical effect is that supervised, state-regulated psilocybin services are legal for adults 21 and older through licensed providers, but possession or sales outside that regulated framework remain illegal under federal law.
Then, Colorado voters approved Proposition 122( Natural Medicine Health Act) in November 2022. The measure decriminalized personal possession, cultivation, and sharing of certain natural psychedelics, including psilocybin. Colorado began issuing facilitator and healing-center licenses and opening regulated access in 2024 – 2025. Currently, adults( 21and older) may possess and use psilocybin without criminal penalties under state law, and there are licensed healing centers and licensed facilitators, but not unregulated retail sales.
Also, in Washington, D. C., voters approved Initiative 81 in 2020, and the District of Columbia codified a policy that makes investigation and arrest for non-commercial cultivation, possession, and personal use of entheogenic plants and fungi( including psilocybin) among the lowest law-enforcement priorities. This effectively deprioritized enforcement but did not create a state-run licensed marketplace( no sales), and interstate issues remain illegal under federal law.
There are also a handful of municipalities that have decriminalized psilocybin. Some of the current proposed policy changes hinge on the city and county decriminalization wave that we have been riding since 2019. Before and after the state-level actions, many U. S. cities and counties passed local measures or resolutions that deprioritized enforcement for psilocybin and other entheogens. Some early examples of this are Denver, CO( Initiative 301, May 2019), Oakland, CA( June 2019), Santa Cruz, CA( Jan 2020), Ann Arbor, MI( Sept 2020), and Seattle, WA( Oct 2021). Since then, many municipalities and some counties( and several Massachusetts cities such as Somerville and Cambridge) have passed similar resolutions. These local actions typically instruct police and prosecutors to make enforcement of entheogen possession a low priority but do not create statewide regulated markets.
12 November 2025