Balancing Regulations, Profit, and Social Equity: Navigating the Colorado Psychedelic Industry's Path Out of the Grey Area

To say there are many grey areas within the psychedelic movement in Denver/Colorado is a massive understatement. 

Denver is awash in the psychedelic movement; from unknown people on the sidewalk selling mushroom chocolate bars to almost everybody all of a sudden having an excess of every strain on earth. The fact of the matter is that Denver is swimming in a deep ocean of this psychedelic movement with little knowledge of the currents therein. Now I think it’s a great thing, a wonderful and beautiful thing, however being a cannabis industry veteran I have seen first hand how an industry that prides itself on helping and providing top quality natural medicine can quickly turn to a for-profit model overnight with little regard to quality, morals, and social equity. Human greed quickly arises from how can we help as many people as possible to how much money can we make from people with the absolute least energy and effort into producing a quality and effective product.

Denver recently announced the formation of the Denver Natural Medicine Workgroup which is still going through it’s selection process in order to build off of the previous recommendations outlined by the Psilocybin Mushroom Policy Review Panel back in 2021 that initially looked at “use recommendations from the work group to propose any necessary ordinance changes to City Council before the state begins issuing licenses” (https://www.denvergov.org/Government/Agencies-Departments-Offices/Agencies-Departments-Offices-Directory/Business-Licensing/News/2020/Work-group-announced-to-explore-local-regulations-for-natural-medicine).

Now this natural medicine workgroup was an open call online and you can be a barber, roller skater, or candle stick maker and can apply to be apart of it. In my humble opinion this workgroup needs to be composed of a greater depth and breadth of individuals than previous similar workgroups with varying professional background and experiences (Please see attached PDF for the full report). Due to the almost infinite applications of natural medicine, MD’s and PhD’s should only compose a fraction of the group. What is needed is a diverse fabric of individuals who bring a cornucopia of experience to it, not a homogenous conglomeration of folks simply reciting facts. 

My question remains: (when) can/will big money override the recommendations and expected path like it did with cannabis despite professional workgroups giving sound researched and experience backed recommendations? The idea that cannabis is regulated like alcohol here is straight up laughable, perhaps it looks similar on the purchasing side but take a dive into the management and METRC side and you will soon find that the word micromanaging doesn’t even begin to describe the experience to the point that one misstep could cause an entire business to fold due to a type size. My fear is that, although every business like this is for-profit in a capitalistic system, is how can we buffer to keep it for the people and by the people for what they need? Enter social equity and its importance.

When is social equity going to be discussed with regard to who has the ability and who doesn’t have the ability to get what they need? Will they be able to start a psychedelic business just as easily as a mega corporation from Canada or Puerto Rico? In my opinion this remains the most overlooked aspect in ALL cannabis companies until lately despite it being legal here for over a decade (over 2 decades for the medical cannabis industry). Can we create a system that doesn’t rely on unfettered capitalism and can therefore function on the intentions, experience, and vision of local businesses whilst remain profitable?

This remains to be seen.

Psilocybin Mushroom Report 2021.pdf

Download PDF • 3.35MB