The Changing Landscape of Psilocybin Laws
The last few decades have seen major changes in the attitudes and laws around psilocybin. In the United States, the culture has shifted to an increased interest in medical psilocybin, and all of the potential benefits magic mushrooms have to offer, which has in turn led to adapted policies. So, are psychedelic mushrooms legal? While the specific laws differ state to state, mushroom spores are legal in most areas, and the movement happening around the country shows that we may be at the precipice of historic changes toward psychedelic decriminalization.
United States Psilocybin And Drug Laws Before 1950
To put psilocybin’s legal status into perspective, it’s helpful to understand the early legal landscape around all psychoactive substances in the US. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was the first consumer protection law regarding what ingredients could go into consumable products on the market. Although the act didn’t involve psilocybin directly, it concerned the transparency around all drugs. At the time, the US population was susceptible to ‘snake oil’ cures with unknown ingredients. The Pure Food and Drug Act dictated basic consumer protections, preventing the sale of drugs or medicines with mysterious ingredients or unreliable effects.
The Pure Food and Drug Act mostly concerned mislabeling and transparency issues, rather than prohibiting specific substances. At the time, the concept of American liberty still included the liberty to use drugs. As time went on, the law began to shift toward a paternalistic approach, which intervened with the individual liberty to use drugs. The paternalistic approach to drug policy prioritizes preventing harm to the individual, the family, and the economy, over individual liberties. Drug use, which was once considered an individual freedom, came to be regarded as morally wrong because of its potential harm to society.
Still, the sale of all drugs was relatively unregulated until the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, sometimes called the Harrison Tax Act, which was designed in response to the unregulated trade of opium at the time. The Harrison Tax Act required opium to be prescribed by a doctor and taxed, effectively placing a ban on many common drugs. Some scholars argue that this act was specifically designed to make drugs prohibitively expensive and difficult to obtain, because banning drugs outright was considered unconstitutional. In an ironic twist, the Volstead Act of 1919 marked the beginning of alcohol’s prohibition throughout the entire United States. The Volstead Act demonstrated a striking shift in the perception and treatment of drug use as a criminal act. Prejudices around racial and class lines started to inform broader perceptions of drug use and addiction as alcohol use became a crime.
A Brief History of Psilocybin and Its Legal Status
Decades later, in the 1950s, investment banker Gordon Wasson traveled to Mexico and tried psilocybin for the first time. Although psilocybin was well known throughout the indigenous communities of Mexico, Wasson was the first to introduce it in the US. Wasson shared some of these genetics with Albert Hoffman, who then synthesized the active compounds in the mushrooms (psilocybin and psilocin) in 1959. Sandoz, the company Hoffman worked for, began selling the synthesized compound for psychotherapy. The initial ‘discovery’ of psilocybin throughout the US snowballed into a craze of clinical trials throughout the US.
Many of these clinical trials, such as the Harvard Psilocybin Project led by Timothy Leary, established the widespread use of psilocybin and other psychedelics among students. The 60s and 70s are often referred to as the “psychedelic era’ because psychedelics influenced the culture, from art, to music, to literature, so substantially. It was during this era that psychedelics enthusiasts began learning more about mushrooms like Psilocybe Cubensis, and developing more sophisticated techniques for growing mushrooms.
The Controlled Substances Act
By the late 60s, a perfect storm of events led to stricter controls on psilocybin use, even in a clinical setting. Most people cite the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which was part of Nixon’s broader ‘War On Drugs’ as the catalyst for this huge shift in policy regarding psychedelics. Paradoxically, the countercultural movements and disruptions of the status quo which arose from psychedelics, at least in part, led to stricter regulations around these substances. Although the Controlled Substances Act purported to protect public safety and prevent drug abuse, it also just so happened to come during a time when the anti-war movement was gaining momentum among the nation’s youth, and psychedelics were thought to contribute to these kinds of radical ideas.
Issues With Clinical Research Related To Medical Psilocybin
The changing tide against clinical research on psychedelics was a result of far more than just the Controlled Substances Act. Incidents in the scientific and medical community also played a major role in how clinical trials were conducted across the board. The aftermath of the Thalidomide disaster of the late 50s and early 60s changed the legal landscape around clinical trials. Thalidomide was widely prescribed throughout the Western world to treat morning sickness and other issues during pregnancy. At first, the medical community was optimistic that the drug held so much promise for increasing a person’s quality of life during pregnancy. It was soon discovered that babies born to mothers who had taken Thalidomiide were often born with severe birth defects, or even died during infancy. The victims of this tragedy were not even trial participants, but regular people who had no reason to believe that a drug they were prescribed would carry so many risks. The suffering caused by the Thalidomide disaster revealed the importance of strict testing requirements for new drugs, and prudent approaches to clinical research to make sure that drugs and trials are truly safe.
Other considerations around clinical research started cropping up during this time. When it comes to clinical research, the gold standard is a double-blind randomized controlled trial. In this type of experiment, researchers study a drug compared to a placebo to determine whether the drug itself has any real impacts. Neither the participant nor the researcher knows whether the drug or the placebo has been administered, which allows them to measure the effects without bias from either party. Compared to other types of drugs, psychedelics are more challenging to study in a double-blind randomized controlled trial because blinding is challenging. Clinical research was also curbed when Sandoz, the primary manufacturer of psychedelic substances used in clinical trials, stopped providing drugs for research.
As a result of all these factors, clinical research regarding psychedelics proved challenging after the 1970s. In the 90s, technological advancements around neuroimaging boosted the interest in psychedelic trials in neuroscience, with more and more of these clinical trials opening up ever since. Decades after psychedelics being banned in 1970, the US is now seeing a resurgence of decriminalization efforts and psychedelic research bills, with diverse models for decriminalization and research cropping up across the country.
Psychedelic Decriminalization: What It Means and Why It Matters
In the wake of Nixon’s harsh drug policies, critics often argue that the federal punishment for psychedelics is disproportionate to the risks they actually pose. Given the healing potential of medical psilocybin, its history of use, and its relatively low risk, many citizens advocate for various forms of decriminalization to put this powerful healing substance back in people’s hands. While spore syringes and other forms of mushroom genetics are already legal for research purposes, decriminalization would remove the penalty for individuals growing and using mushrooms on a small scale.
The criminalization of psychedelics often ends up disproportionately targeting certain groups such as indigenous communities. With a plethora of well-documented traditions in Central America, many activists argue that criminalization restricts the religious freedoms of indigenous people to practice cultural rituals that have been passed down since time immemorial. Further, with so many species of psilocybin-containing mushrooms growing naturally throughout the United States, mycologists and nature enthusiasts argue that it’s nonsensical to have criminal penalties around something that grows freely in the wild.
Amidst a mental health crisis in the United States, advocates also see psilocybin as a major tool to help those battling addiction, PTSD, and other mental health issues. Many citizens wish that the policing priorities in their area were more focused on violent crimes, and don’t see the use in prosecuting psilocybin, which has been shown to have low addiction potential and low risk of bodily harm. Especially given that the current mental health system fails too many who suffer from mental health issues, Americans are ready to embrace psilocybin as an option in their mental health toolkit. Through the democratic process, Americans can push for this change at both the state and local levels.
The Legal Framework Behind State’s Rights Regarding Psilocybin Laws
For those wondering what states are magic mushrooms legal in, a look at the history of state-by-state cannabis legislation might serve as a model. The example of cannabis sets a framework for any novel substance that is banned at the federal level, showing how and why different rules are possible at the state level.
In 2009, the Cole Memorandum laid out how investigations for medical marijuana jurisdictions should happen. It outlined a hands-off approach from the federal government, stating that it was a waste of federal resources to punish cannabis use in states that diverged from federal law. As long as a state enacted decriminalization or legalization in a controlled manner, through a licensed industry with well-regulated frameworks, (i.e., not allowing distribution to minors or allowing organized crime to thrive in the industry) the federal government would allow the decision on cannabis to be left up to the states. In 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Cole Memo, which led to confusion and concern about how markets would change in states that had legalized cannabis. Despite the panic it caused, the Cole Memo’s rescission didn’t make a huge difference in terms of how federal cases were prosecuted, and cannabis is still primarily left up to the states.
We can look at this example to understand how psilocybin legalization is shaping up today: As long as states create provisions for a controlled and medicalized psychedelic environment, it’s unlikely that the federal government will take issue with these decisions and prioritize prosecuting them. However, there are key differences between the legalization model of cannabis, and the decriminalization of psilocybin.
Psilocybin Legalization vs. Decriminalization: Key Differences
States that have legalized cannabis mostly use a dispensary system to ensure products are thoroughly tracked every step of the way, and buyers are of legal age. Many states place high taxes on cannabis, generating income for the state while making sure the substance is highly regulated. Although dispensaries technically operate outside of federal law, the highly strict framework of legalized dispensaries allows them to function this way.
The psychedelic industry is shaping up to be a bit different from the cannabis landscape. With many people wondering if psychedelic mushrooms are legal, it’s helpful to understand what psychedelic legalization will look like. The decriminalization of magic mushrooms does not mean cannabis-style dispensaries will open up to sell psilocybin. Compared to the cannabis legalization movement, the decriminalized psychedelics movement often emphasizes the medical benefits of psilocybin, advocating regulated use in clinical settings. For this reason, changes in psilocybin laws are more likely to look like controlled medicalized access, or decriminalization instead of the recreational dispensary model we see with cannabis
By decriminalizing psilocybin, a state decides not to penalize small-scale, individual psilocybin use, which allows them to shift priorities in prosecution without having to manage as many complex regulatory plans as they do for substances like cannabis. The responsibility of managing a whole new unprecedented industry has already raised alarm bells for many of the states discussing opening up psilocybin right now; a change like this could further strain already tight city and state budgets. At the same time, when a state forgoes the responsibility of regulating a new industry like this, they also miss out on generating the taxation revenue like many states do from cannabis.
What States Are Magic Mushrooms Legal In? A U.S. Overview
As the benefits of psilocybin mushrooms become more evident, an increasing number of states and municipalities are choosing to rethink their policies on magic mushrooms. This can look like decriminalizing mushrooms, opening up medical use and clinical trials, or loosening legal restrictions around them. Because it’s all so new, the path to decriminalization looks different for each area.
The most notable shift so far has been in Colorado. In 2019, Denver, Colorado voted to decriminalize psilocybin, marking a turning point for localized approaches to psychedelic policy. Then in 2022, the entire state passed Proposition 122, the Decriminalization and Regulated Access Program for Certain Psychedelic Plants and Fungi Initiative. Prop. 122 mostly concerned psychedelic plants and fungi that grow naturally, ensuring that those who grow and use these substances at a small scale won’t be punished for doing so. It also established a framework for licensed psychedelic therapy programs. In 2020, Oregon followed suit by decriminalizing many psychoactives including psilocybin, and creating provisions for legal psilocybin therapy services.
Since this initial example set by Denver’s local government, many major cities in the US have voted to decriminalize psilocybin along with other psychedelic substances. Oakland, California has also decriminalized psilocybin at the local level. As cities like Oakland take steps to decriminalize psilocybin, the question remains: are magic mushrooms legal in California? While California has introduced some of the most progressive bills regarding psilocybin legalization, the state is still waiting on a decriminalization measure to be passed like we see in Colorado or Oregon.
Seattle, Washington is the largest US city so far to enact decriminalization measures, but other metropolitan areas like Washington D.C, Detroit, and Minneapolis have taken similar steps. Smaller cities and municipalities like Ann Arbor, Michigan have also decriminalized psilocybin, deciding as a community that small-scale personal use of psychedelics isn’t worth putting resources toward policing.
The Future Of Psilocybin Legalization:
What we haven’t seen yet from any of the areas that have decriminalized psychedelics, is the highly structured and regulated dispensary model we often see with cannabis. Because many of these municipalities have simply decriminalized these substances, and not legalized them, we aren’t seeing dispensaries, which would have to answer to a long list of state laws around distribution. For this reason, states are also missing out on the potential revenue from a dispensary-style model for psilocybin. Wherever cannabis dispensaries are in place, the tax revenue that comes from cannabis sales goes right back to the states. Massachusetts, which already has several major cities with decriminalized psilocybin, voted on HB 4255 which would have created a taxed regulatory system for psychedelics. Although it didn’t pass, HB 4255 would have created a commission that would make regulations for the eventual regulation and taxation of psychedelic substances. This means we could see something closer to a ‘legalization’ model for psilocybin laws, where there is a legal avenue for purchasing psychedelics instead of simply decriminalizing personal use.
Psilocybin Therapy Bills
Some states recognize the potential benefits of psilocybin, but don’t feel ready to fully decriminalize psilocybin due to potential public health concerns. Psilocybin therapy bills are one more guarded approach, strictly allowing for licensed facilities to administer psilocybin for therapeutic purposes. Several states, such as Washington and Illinois, have it on the books right now, and a similar psilocybin therapy bill recently passed in Arizona. So are psychedelic mushrooms legal in areas with medical psilocybin bills? Opening up access to medical psilocybin makes magic mushrooms legal in specific medical contexts, such as in a therapist’s office. By legalizing psilocybin as a potential treatment option, it provides a pathway of legal access for anyone who qualifies for treatment.
The House Committee On Veterans Affairs is also hearing a similar bill to make psychedelic therapy treatments accessible and legal for veterans. The bill before this committee would encompass a wide range of substances including psilocybin, with the intent of providing more treatment options for veterans who suffer from PTSD.
Psilocybin Research Bills
Some states take the approach of allocating funding for psilocybin research to better assess its risks before making any changes regarding criminalization. Several states have proposed bills to commission research pilot programs or provide funding for psilocybin research to learn more about the safety and efficacy of these treatments. Washington State is currently halfway through a study commissioned by one of these bills, and Wisconsin and Indiana are among the states with similar bills on the books in 2025.
State-Appointed Psilocybin Regulatory Agencies
As states open up psilocybin to varying degrees, most create regulatory agencies to provide guidance on the subject of psilocybin or psychedelics as a whole. Because psychedelics are novel legal territory, the responsibility often can’t be easily absorbed by already existing state agencies, so states elect to create new ones. These task forces are typically a committee of industry experts– those in the medical field, law-enforcement, and those in the emerging psychedelics industry who can weigh in on policy decisions from their professional standpoints. Arizona, Washington, Minnesota, and Illinois, are all implementing a psychedelic task force or comparable regulatory agency to help their states adapt to emerging challenges in the field.
The Global Movement: Countries Leading the Way in Psychedelic Reform
Although states in the US are just now rethinking their approach to psilocybin, a more relaxed approach has been the norm in many countries around the world for a while now. This often takes the form of decriminalization, or even being fully approved for recreational use.
Most prominently, countries like the Netherlands have long had legal loopholes that allowed the psilocybin industry to proliferate, until the market was fully regulated and legalized in 2019. Portugal also entered the spotlight recently when they decriminalized all drugs. Notably this system doesn’t lead to the same type of highly regulated psilocybin industry as psilocybin legalization. However there are many other approaches to psilocybin decriminalization that set compelling examples for what is possible.
Especially where psilocybin mushrooms grow in nature, it’s uncommon to have the strict laws around psilocybin that people in the US are familiar with. Psilocybin is legal in the Virgin Islands and Jamaica. Beyond that, several countries technically consider psilocybin illegal, but don’t really enforce their laws around it. Countries like Nepal treat psilocybin so leniently that it’s effectively legalized. In the Czech republic, psilocybin technically isn’t allowed, but psilocybin-containing mushrooms are exempt from this restriction, and decriminalized for personal use. While mushrooms aren’t technically legal in Greece, there isn’t any enforcement of the laws against mushrooms as long as they aren’t being sold. This law effectively decriminalizes mushrooms for personal consumption.
Countries around the world have shown that it’s possible to take a more hands-off approach to psilocybin policy. Advocates for legalization and decriminalization can look to these examples when considering what’s possible in their own countries.
Scientific and Medical Perspectives on Psilocybin Legalization
Many clinicians and therapists are optimistic about the potential benefits of psilocybin legalization, but it’s not uncommon for medical professionals to have reservations or believe the benefits need more in-depth research. Most of the skepticism around psilocybin is based on gaps in our scientific understanding owing to the period of research inactivity that followed the War On Drugs.
After decades of roadblocks to psychedelic clinical trials, the 2020’s is shaping up to be a renaissance for psychedelic research and treatment. This renaissance comes as a result of increased awareness around the potential benefits of psychedelics, as well as significant advancements in clinical research methods and technology. This places us in a historic moment in which science has the opportunity to investigate all these gaps in our knowledge to make more medical and legislative progress.
Even when things don’t go as planned, we still see the discourse changing. For example, MDMA trials were just up for approval with the FDA, and even though the proposal was shot down, the fact that it was up for discussion to begin with shows a notable shift in public attitudes and the range of acceptable research. At the end of the day, medicalized psilocybin trials must hold up to potential critiques by addressing the concerns of its toughest skeptics by meeting specific, scientifically verifiable claims.
Psilocybin Research Questions
Scientists are interested in further investigating the effects of psilocybin on neuroplasticity, and the long-term impacts of psilocybin on the brain, which haven’t fully been studied among a cohesive cohort. Advancements in neuroscientific research technology open up more research questions and ways to gather data. The main two imaging techniques used in psilocybin research are fMRI, which observes blood flow in the brain, and PET (Positron emission tomography) scans, which uses a small amount of radioactive material, which can show how energy is metabolized in the brain to measure the activity of neurons. Researchers can use these techniques to gain a deeper understanding of what’s really going on in the brain during psychedelic experience, and even measure how things change in the brain over time. Even though there are observable changes in the brain, researchers hope to identify more specific biomarkers of psilocybin’s impacts.
Researchers are particularly interested in psilocybin’s impact on the 5-HT2A receptor, which is a specific protein that binds to serotonin in the brain. Although there fourteen serotonin receptors, experts aren’t sure yet which receptors are involved in psilocybin’s antidepressant effects. 5-HT2AR has several functions throughout the body, but its impacts on cognition and psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia are of particular interest. Results from preliminary research around psilocybin’s effects on 5-HT2AR have mostly been limited to rodent studies, and there’s much more research to be done around psilocybin’s impact on serotonin receptors.
Given the changing technological legal and cultural landscape, the scientific community has the opportunity to answer more sophisticated questions about the effects of psilocybin– questions that previous research hasn’t been able to answer yet.
Challenges and Controversies in Psychedelic Decriminalization
With so much research left to be done, many academics and policymakers still consider psilocybin to be uncharted territory in terms of our knowledge around its safety and effectiveness. With policy evolving so rapidly and differently around the US, people who are more lukewarm on the issue have doubts about whether any single approach to psilocybin is the right one.
Much of the emerging policy also addresses newer developments such as synthetic psilocybin. With so much emphasis on plant medicine and the decriminalization of naturally occurring substances, the development of crystalline polymorph psilocybin, which is a synthetic version of psilocybin, creates new policy challenges, along with new therapeutic possibilities.
Intense debate around the application of medical versus recreational bills has also caused major controversies and roadblocks to passing legislation. Many citizens are concerned that all-out decriminalization is too rash, and may encourage dangerous use of psilocybin, while others see decriminalization as a form of harm reduction. More restrictive medicalized bills present their own host of problems. Concerned citizens argue that more restrictive medicalized psilocybin bills will end up reproducing the same inequities we see in the judicial and healthcare systems. Some experts see medicalized psilocybin bills as recreational bills that put recreational psilocybin behind a paywall. Others still see the decades of criminal penalties around psilocybin as so unjust, that any way to reverse those policies through legislation is a better path forward.
The Future of Psilocybin Laws: Trends and Predictions
Although the legislative path is often winding, we are finally seeing major changes in psilocybin policy–both in the US and around the world. The sheer volume of psilocybin-related bills has skyrocketed over the last five years, showing a huge shift in attitude and the range of acceptable opinion. This means for people wondering ‘are psychedelic mushrooms legal?’, we are about to see major progress. Between 1971 and 2019, US states didn’t introduce any legislation relating to the legalization of psilocybin, but between 2020 and 2024, at least seventy pieces of legislation were introduced relating to the study, decriminalization, and medical use of psilocybin. With forty nine relevant pieces of legislation being introduced across the country just this year, it’s clear that the psychedelic movement is quickly gaining momentum throughout the United States.
Even federal agencies are starting to fund psychedelic research. The US Department of Defense is currently funding a study at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio to investigate the effects of MDMA on those who suffer from PTSD. We’re likely to start seeing more resources going toward psilocybin clinical trials, especially through entities that provide support to veterans and first responders.
The Road Ahead for Psychedelic Policy Reform
If previous years are any indication of what’s to come, not all of this year’s bills will pass the first time around, but that’s not necessarily something to be discouraged about. Successful legislation is usually the result of decades worth of activism, and multiple rounds of revision over the years. This is a long game, and many states have just begun that journey towards more research, psilocybin therapy, or potentially decriminalization.
Here at Inoculate The World, we are closely watching the path toward psychedelic decriminalization. Whether things evolve toward decriminalization of personal use, or industrially grown mushrooms for medical purposes, our library of psilocybe cubensis and other species of psychedelic mushrooms provides a range of options for legal growers around the country. Our role as a trusted voice in the space situates us well to speak out on the pressing matter of decriminalization and use our voice to help push for positive change. As one of the most prominent vendors of mushroom spores, we are ready to adapt to our role in this rapidly changing industry. This era is truly a historic moment for psychedelic science, and we couldn’t be more excited to see what’s to come.