Psychedelic therapy gains support in NM, momentum nationwide

District 12 state Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, the committee's vice chair, told the Taos News that, despite the fact that he "support[s] working on this potentially valuable expansion of our treatment modalities," which he believes "has great potential for good," he is already overcommitted to other proposed legislation and can't take on the psilocybin therapy bill.

"There's that culture built into ski towns and people who have been stewards of these experiences and substances for many years," said Moore. "Grateful Dead and Phish, the kind of underground current — these were the most frequent users in that quiet period after the 60s really quieted down. Ski towns played a part in that. They were kind of a hub in the same way cities like San Francisco were."

Psychedelics Today, which produces copious amounts of podcasts and articles on topics like "Ketamine and psychedelic-assisted therapy as employee benefits," has been adjacent to several successful psychedelic therapy initiatives as well as decriminalization efforts in a number of states. Colorado voters, for example, approved a ballot measure last month that will decriminalize "possession, use and sharing of natural medicine," specifically: psilocybin mushrooms, psilocin, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ibogaine and mescaline. 

According to psychedelicalpha.com, Connecticut convened a working group to study the medical use of psilocybin last year, while Washington, D.C. made possession of entheogenic plants and fungi its lowest law enforcement priority. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is studying the benefits of MDMA-assisted therapy for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, which experts predict will lead to ecstasy becoming a federally-authorized medicinal psychedelic at some point in the next two years. 

Legislatures or local governments within more than a dozen other states are considering or have passed legislation to study or establish psychedelic therapy programs including psilocybin-based frameworks, or decriminalize possession of entheogenic plants or substances, with several proposals focusing on the potential therapeutic benefits for veterans, cancer patients and individuals diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. 

The time has come today for psychedelic therapy to be established in the Land of Enchantment, according to the New Mexico Psychedelic Science Society. 

Psilocybin mushrooms "could be utilized as a therapeutic modality here in New Mexico, specifically for substance-use disorders and behavioral health, which New Mexico has been struggling with for decades," said Marisa C. de Baca, president of the New Mexico Psychedelic Science Society. "Since COVID, those numbers have skyrocketed. Also, what's happened since COVID is definitely a psychedelic renaissance happening throughout the nation. And we want to take a methodical, careful approach with what we're doing here with New Mexico Psychedelic Science Society."

According to a Psychedelic Science Society fact sheet on the bill, it "would include an ethical framework for service provision, provider training requirements, and for the regulated production and administration of psilocybin products" in "the context of a unique treatment paradigm where the medicine is administered in a very limited number of sessions, typically one to three, while in the presence of certified providers" after patients undergo a thorough medical assessment and evaluation.

"Each active session is scheduled for a whole day and typically, the individual remains onsite overnight for safety monitoring," according to the fact sheet. "Much of the therapeutic benefit is derived from subsequent drug-free integration sessions that are delivered over weeks and months. New Mexicans who will benefit from equitable access to psilocybin-assisted therapy include:

• individuals who have been diagnosed with difficult to treat forms of mental illness;

• individuals who struggle with addiction and substance abuse;

• individuals who have suffered severe trauma, including first responders, veterans, and victims of domestic abuse;

• individuals facing existential distress due to a diagnosis of a terminal illness. 

Heike Karsch, secretary for the Psychedelics Science Society, noted that the proposed bill is focused on a regulated therapeutic framework that will take time to months or more to develop. She said they plan to establish a psilocybin advisory board [made up of] a group of professionals from various backgrounds, state agency representatives, people with different training that will be advising on the parameters [and] implementation of this program."

"A lot of stakeholders have to be considered and ultimately we want to make sure that they only benefit, with minimal risk to anyone," Karsch added.

Other research has shown, however, that use of psychedelic substances among people at-risk for or who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia can carry risks.

But generally psilocybin is considered to be among the least dangerous psychoactive substances commonly consumed, according to research undertaken — at the behest of the British government, which was seeking to reform its drug laws — about 14 years ago by David Nutt, who at the time was a psychopharmacology professor at University of Bristol in England.

Nutt's research, which upon its release resulted in his defenestration as chair of a British government drug advisory group, produced an "overall harm score" chart that showed psilocybin mushrooms contribute minimal harm to users and the people around them, while alcohol contributes more harm than any other drug that was studied, including heroin, crack and methamphetamine.

Additionally, by writing into the bill a provision that specifies cultivated mushrooms as the only permitted source of psilocybin (not synthetic psilocin), Karsh said the legislation should assist New Mexico to develop its own businesses to grow, test and deliver the therapeutic fungi at a low cost to all New Mexicans who might benefit from it in a controlled setting.

"We have the opportunity to allow New Mexicans to set up a stake an become manufacturers of psilocybin and play various roles within the space," she said. "If we wait until there is a national rescheduling [of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration controlled substances schedule], then these large companies that have been gaining momentum for years can just move in and start dominating the space and dictating the parameters for delivery."

Moore echoed C de Baca's sentiment about the timing of the bill amid a "psychedelic renaissance," the rise of which he attributed to three figures.

"Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, he's been kind of a bridge from the early era to now in a lot of ways," Moore said. "He's spent countless years and resources brining MDMA through the FDA pipeline as a nonprofit entity. Then with MDMA getting really popular, Joe Rogan gave psychedelics quite a bit of attention even before Michael Pollan was there. 

Pollan's 2018 book, "How to Change Your Mind," along with the more recent Netflix series of the same name, "was an immediate catalyst," Moore said, acknowledging that some communities with longstanding relationships with entheogens — including some native communities — aren't comfortable with powerful psychedelics being legislated.

Taos-based Wumaniti co-founder and psilocybin guide Kristin 'Gemma Ra'Star' DiFerdinando acknowledged some truth to what Moore said about ski towns attracting psychonauts and spiritual seekers — "Yeah, what's up with that?" she said — and planted herself firmly in the camp of those opposed to government regulation of psychedelic mushrooms for therapeutic use.

While DiFerdinando supports decriminalizing psilocybin mushrooms and other "natural plant medicines," but doesn't trust what she considers sacraments in the hands of state or federal regulators. Her organization offers membership cards to individuals who "follow our tenants of faith and code of ethics," and believe, as Wumaniti membership cards state, that "all plants, herbs, flowers, vines, mushrooms and cactus produced by Great Creator Mother Earth [...] are sacred religious earth-based plant medicine sacraments."

"You don't have to get all complicated with it," DiFerdinando said, refuting the notion that one must be diagnosed with mental illness, a disorder or be in "existential distress" in order to take psilocybin mushrooms. 

"Our cards help people sleep at night," she said. "Because a lot of people like don't want to go to a doctor; they don't want to go through a mental health [assessment]. That stuff triggers people, sometimes. It's not for everybody. They want to be able to microdose with their sacraments, listen to their shaman, sit in ceremony and have self discipline every day without having a label put on them that they're sick or bad."