"We're all just walking each other home."
--Ram Dass
What a time to be alive!!
This month, Colorado officially launched its Natural Medicine Program - joining Oregon as the second state to create legal access to psilocybin mushrooms.
Of course, when I say "legal access to psilocybin mushrooms"... I'm willfully ignoring the fact that these powerful gifts remain federally illegal, and have been so since the Nixon administration. While you may find them growing naturally in the forest (or magically in a friend's closet), you'll also find them on the list of Schedule 1 controlled substances alongside heroin, GHB and bath salts.
And that's why the success of the new Colorado Natural Medicine Program is so critical.
Thanks to the snowballing body of research around the benefits of psychedelics, there is an avalanche of public curiosity about the risk/reward of these medicines.
A recent YouGov survey suggests that 28% of U.S. adults have tried psychedelics for themselves, despite the legal status. It's hard to find someone (outside of the FDA or DEA) who doesn't concede that these compounds were made illegal in 1970 primarily for political purposes, and not to protect the public from itself.
But it's hard work to unlearn something that has been embedded for so long. And the most formidable opponent to change is not just the Pharmaceutical lobby - but rather inertia.
The tie goes to the status quo.
And the status quo is unacceptable.
The federal prohibition of psilocybin mushrooms steals from us a tool to manage our depression, anxiety and addiction. It blocks from us a path to find release from unprocessed grief. It denies us our right to explore our own consciousness. It perpetuates fear and ignorance. It pushes to the underground a potential source of personal expansion and spiritual growth - through which so many of us have found such profound joy, gratitude, self-love, connection and understanding.
That's why we're so proud to be a part of this burgeoning new industry, and why we hold ourselves and others in this ecosystem to such high standards.
That's why our sister company, ETC Hospitality, is opening a Healing Center in Golden, Colorado - with plans to serve our first dose of psilocybin tea this summer - in broad daylight, to a properly screened and well-prepared participant.
That's why we can't wait to share the data we'll be generating at our facility.
And that's why you're going to be hearing a lot more from us in the coming months, as we prepare for launch and gladly share what we've learned on the path so far, including:
Best and worst practices in microdosing
How to prepare for a mushroom experience
The bustling psychedelic underground
Oregon learnings from the first 18,000 doses served
Observations from ongoing clinical trials
Much more...
Because when you learn about something that can help so many people in this life... you want to shout it from the mountaintops.