{"id":21366,"date":"2025-07-16T00:35:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T06:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-city-invites-public-to-weigh-in-on-magic-mushrooms-regulations\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:06:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:06:05","slug":"update-city-invites-public-to-weigh-in-on-magic-mushrooms-regulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-city-invites-public-to-weigh-in-on-magic-mushrooms-regulations\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: City invites public to weigh in on \u2018magic mushrooms\u2019 regulations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Marine
Marine Corps combat veteran Matt Metzger, who grows his own mushrooms for microdosing psilocybin, displays prepared doses in packets Wednesday, March 26, 2025, in Olympia, Wash. (AP Photo\/Lindsey Wasson)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Lindsey Wasson)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

In the near future, Cortez residents will simply be able to walk into a cozy space not unlike a therapist\u2019s office and be administered a dose of psychedelic \u201cmagic mushrooms,\u201d albeit, with the city\u2019s calculated approval.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday evening, the Cortez City Council invited the public to comment on how the city should handle licensing and regulations concerning the use of psychedelic \u201cnatural medicines,\u201d as the state calls them, including trip-inducing magic mushrooms as the main player.<\/p>\n

The opportunity for public comment was the latest ripple in a statewide roll out of supervised psychedelic mushroom usage. Local municipalities like Cortez must figure out their own approaches to oversight, with uncertainty drifting in the air like spores from a mushroom cap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still one of the first in the state that is tackling this and we\u2019re not gonna get it 100% right,\u201d City Manager Drew Sanders said to the city council during a work session on June 17.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can take our best shot at it and as time goes on we can perfect it a little more later.\u201d<\/p>\n

In November 2022, Colorado voters approved a ballot measure that decriminalized psychedelic drugs. Soon after, in May of 2023, Gov. Jared Polis signed SB23-290 into law<\/a>, regulating these psychoactive medicines further and making Colorado the second state to legalize the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms under personal use or through the administration of therapeutic \u201chealing centers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Psychedelics have gained traction in recent years for their usefulness in therapeutic contexts, being applied to treat everything from PTSD to depression.<\/p>\n

SB23-290 also established the Natural Medicine Division within the Colorado Dept. of Revenue. Not only are healing centers licensed under the division\u2019s eye, but so too are other players considered natural medicine businesses, like those who grow or test the mushrooms.<\/p>\n

Much is still up for Cortez to determine, however. During Tuesday night\u2019s meeting, city officials openly navigated some confusion about how to properly oversee the new market for psychedelic-assisted therapies in the community.<\/p>\n

Once an illegal drug, now a recognized natural medicine<\/div>\n

Earlier this year, in February, the city council voted unanimously to halt the local approval process behind the opening of such new natural medicine businesses<\/a> for six months, pushing the city to adopt its own regulations until the moratorium ceases on Aug 25.<\/p>\n

In the interim period, a city council work session was held on June 17 and served as an opportunity to parse through the regulations Colorado has in place. Cortez public officials need to figure out what other rules the city wants to specify.<\/p>\n

\u201cMostly what we want to do is keep it away from public spaces and children and make sure that it remains in a therapeutic, safe context,\u201d Council member Robert Dobry said.<\/p>\n

The height of a screen fenced around an outdoor mushroom ceremony, which hours businesses can be open, properly storing and disposing of psychedelic products, the quality of surveillance cameras in cultivation centers \u2014 these were just some of the factors that the city council discussed during both the June work session and Tuesday night\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

Tuesday evening\u2019s public comment session was an opportunity for more members of the public to offer their voices, even though only three members of the public appeared at the 6:30 p.m. meeting to ask questions.<\/p>\n

Dr. Jennifer Gero, chief medical officer at Southwest Memorial Hospital, gave a brief presentation at the meeting\u2019s start, helping to explain some of the science behind psilocybin, the psychoactive compound inside of magic mushrooms, and walk attendees through an overview of regulations in place.<\/p>\n

Interim Police Chief Andy Brock also spoke, describing the numerous confusing instances of policing a once-illegal, but now regulated drug.<\/p>\n

Beyond what happens inside natural medicine businesses, Coloradans over 21 can use psychedelic mushrooms on their own at home, Brock said.<\/p>\n

People can\u2019t sell mushrooms to one another, but technically they can sell the services of psychedelic-assisted therapy to each other, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what they\u2019re expecting law enforcement to do with that,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not saying good or bad or indifferent. I\u2019m just saying I don\u2019t see any definite line for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state can penalize natural medicine businesses that fall out of compliance at a higher level, whereas Cortez law enforcement could cite a businesses for not following the city\u2019s codes, said Patrick Coleman, attorney for Cortez.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where city council\u2019s new rules will enter.<\/p>\n

But the bulk of the meeting was spent with city council figuring out what standards of compliance they\u2019d draft.<\/p>\n

Some areas of oversight drew in more concern than others.<\/p>\n

For instance, Council member Dennis Spruell said that signage on natural medicine businesses should be regulated, so as not to convey the message, \u201c\u2019welcome to Cortez, your psilocybin capitol of the world,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Cortez doesn\u2019t want these products \u2014 reserved only for those 21 and older \u2014to get into the hands of children. To safeguard against that, Cortez is requiring that no products be manufactured into candy or chocolate.<\/p>\n

Council members also said they wouldn\u2019t want patients coming down from a psychedelic trip getting behind the wheel to drive home. After a psilocybin session at a healing center, patients should be accompanied home, say, by a designated driver, just in case the effects of the mushrooms still caused impairment, the council members said.<\/p>\n

While proceeding cautiously, Cortez can only abide by the statewide decision to legalize psychedelic mushroom use.<\/p>\n

Additional safety measures are left for the city to decide on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to do what\u2019s right for the city of Cortez,\u201d said Council member Spruell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

adopting rules on how it will oversee centers that cultivate or administer psychedelic mushrooms <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-21366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77279,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21366\/revisions\/77279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21366"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=21366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}