As the legality around psychedelic care in the U.S. evolves, individuals seeking healing through plant medicines are faced with a complex set of options. This article outlines legal routes, such as clinical trials and state-regulated centers in Oregon and Colorado, alongside alternative paths like domestic retreats and self-sourcing models.
As the legality around psychedelic care in the U.S. continues to evolve, individuals seeking healing through plant medicines and mind-altering substances are faced with a nuanced set of options for having a therapeutic psychedelic experience.
With ongoing research, clinical trials, and shifts in state legislation, determining the right avenue—whether through legal frameworks in certain states or alternative routes like retreats and facilitated experiences—can be complex.
Understanding your options and assessing your personal readiness is crucial. Navigating the industry’s evolving landscape also involves knowing when it is safe for you to shift from research into active participation.
This article explores key indicators of readiness, outlines current legal options across the U.S., and discusses alternative ways to access psychedelic care, providing a comprehensive guide for those seeking clarity and direction in their healing journey.
We hope this information brings you clarity around the current state of psychedelic therapy in the U.S. and moves you toward the appropriate tools and support for your intentional psychedelic use.
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Key Takeaways
- Legal and Alternative Avenues: There are both legal and alternative options for accessing psychedelic therapy, from clinical trials and state-regulated centers to domestic retreats and self-sourcing models.
- Personal Readiness: Assessing personal readiness—emotionally, mentally, and logistically—is critical before engaging in a psychedelic experience. Support systems and preparation are key.
- Accessible Facilitation: Guided psychedelic journeys provide an accessible option for those unable to engage with traditional, legal avenues or travel out of the country for international retreats.
- Psychedelic Passage: Your Psychedelic Concierge — The easy, legal way to find trustworthy psilocybin guides, facilitators, and psychedelic ‘coaching’ near you in the United States.
How to Know if You’re Ready For a Psychedelic Journey
Being ready for a psychedelic experience requires a combination of personal introspection, external research, and practical considerations. A strong support system—both personal and professional—also acts as an important resource in your toolbelt when laying the groundwork for a positive journey.
Additionally, it’s important to have realistic expectations about the process and outcomes. If there’s a sense of desperation or an assumption that psychedelics are a panacea, that may signal the need for further reflection before proceeding.
Assessing your logistical situation—such as time, money, housing, and emotional bandwidth—is also crucial, as the journey requires attention, focus, and practical readiness as well.
Of course, many people are looking to psychedelics for healing or life improvement in some way, so we aren’t saying your life has to be perfect before engaging with these substances. It is important, however, that you have enough foundational stability before proceeding with the process.
Think about your car, for example. Maybe you need some new tires, and you need to take them to the shop to get replacements. If your tires have enough tread to make it to the shop, all is well. Let’s say, however, that your tread is so low that they could pop any second, and, on top of that, the roads are icy.
Driving your car to the shop could be dangerous in these conditions, and while the shop is exactly where you need to go, you might require some additional help in getting there safely, or maybe you need someone to deliver and install them at home if possible.
In the same way, sometimes we aren’t ready to make that journey. The bumps in the road during a psychedelic experience could be too much for us currently, and it’s important to distinguish if your emotional tires have enough tread to get you safely through the trip.
Luckily, if you need new tires pretty badly but are not at immediate risk of spinning out in the rain, there are plenty of tire shops available. We will go through those options later in this article… (We’re talking psychedelic therapy again, not actual tire shops.)
Once you’ve explored your options and feel confident about the potential outcomes, it’s essential to step into the present moment and allow the process to unfold. Here are, first, some indicators that you are ready to work with psychedelics therapeutically:
Indicators That You Are Ready to Work With Psychedelics Therapeutically:
- You have access to a support system (personal and/or professional) so that you aren’t experimenting alone.
- You’ve already explored internal and external means of personal growth, healing, and development, whether that be through deep introspection, therapy, or other modalities. Psychedelic use shouldn’t be your first line of defense.
- You have a general understanding of psychedelics and how they work through your own bit of research.
- You have a positive and reasonable outlook on psychedelics and the way they work. You aren’t approaching them with unrealistic expectations or desperation.
- You understand the potential risks and have the capacity to sit with discomfort in the event that you have a bad trip.
- You do not have extenuating circumstances that require additional care or could render the psychedelic to be too disregulating (suicidal ideation, psychosis, etc.). Check out our article on who should not take psychedelics.
- You are logistically ready when it comes to time, money, and ability to take time off of work if needed. Do you have a base level of security and stability in life when it comes to housing, food, and basic needs?
- You are ready and willing to engage in proper preparation and integration practices.
Lastly, when it comes to timing, some people take weeks to determine readiness, and others take months or even years. It’s okay to go at your own pace, to be a bit cautious or nervous, and to even begin exploring your options. Often, beginning your exploration can be the thing that helps you decide whether you are ready or not.
Understanding Your Options For Psychedelic Therapy: Legal & Alternative Routes
Navigating the legal landscape of psychedelic therapy in the U.S. can be overwhelming, but there are growing opportunities to access this type of healing through both legal and alternative channels.
Whether you’re seeking a structured clinical experience or exploring other options, it’s important to understand the various avenues available based on your location and personal needs.
Legal Options for Psychedelic Therapy
1. Psychedelic Clinical Trials
As psychedelics gain more attention in mental health care, clinical trials are a key entry point for individuals who want to access therapy in a controlled, research-based setting. These trials typically focus on conditions like PTSD or depression, and participation is often free of charge.
Going this route has some significant downsides, however, namely that it is inaccessible to most people. Trials often have specific restrictions and qualifications for participants, such as on the basis of age, condition, and merely just the number of people they allow in.
We have found that far more people are looking to benefit from psychedelics than are allowed to participate in these trials, which leaves a huge bracket of people seeking out other options for psychedelic therapy.
Relevant Resource:
2. Oregon Psilocybin Service Centers
Oregon led the way in legal psilocybin therapy, with regulated centers providing licensed facilitation of psilocybin sessions. Their framework requires that participants go through state-owned psilocybin clinics and licensed facilitators for their treatment.
While this was a huge step forward for psychedelic care, Oregon’s plan has been largely criticized for its lack of substantial requirements for facilitation licensure, and it would be a stretch to say that it’s gone well since passing in 2020.
There is currently talk of recriminalization in the state due to the worsening opioid crisis; however, psilocybin and psychedelics would still be accessible through strictly regulated therapy clinics (Jarrow, 2024).
Relevant Resources:
3. Colorado’s Dual Opportunity
Similar to Oregon, Colorado passed legislation to regulate psychedelic use in therapeutic contexts in 2022, creating another legal avenue for those seeking this type of care.
The Colorado model differs, however, because it accounts for the decriminalization of personal use of psychedelics while also providing a regulatory framework for facilitation licensing and programs.
Colorado also allows for psychedelics to be “gifted” under the current state laws, meaning that as long as there is no monetary exchange for the substance, individuals and facilitators can gift psychedelics to friends and clients.
Relevant Resources:
4. Other Decriminalized Jurisdictions
These areas have decriminalized the possession, sale, purchase, and cultivation of magic mushrooms:
- Washington D.C.
- Arcata, California
- Oakland, California (check out our article on psychedelic law in California)
- Santa Cruz, California
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Hazel Park, Michigan
- Somerville, Massachusetts
- Northampton, Massachusetts
- Easthampton, Massachusetts
- Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Seattle, Washington
Relevant Resource:
5. International Retreats
Many psychedelic-curious folk opt for traveling out of the country for a psychedelic retreat experience, many of which are ayahuasca retreats that take place in shamanic, traditional contexts in Central and South American countries where the substance is legal.
While there are certainly international retreats dedicated to psilocybin and other psychedelics beyond ayahuasca, you may find that this option is, first of all, difficult to access and, second of all, limited in options and support.
If you don’t have the time or money to travel to a new country, and if you would prefer one-on-one or more neutral support, international retreats may not be for you. Many people coming to psychedelics prefer a scientific approach rather than a spiritual one, and that’s okay.
More often than not, international retreats are overtly spiritual and shamanic, pricey, and inaccessible to the average person. We believe it’s important for people to have access to medicine in a container that feels aligned with their needs and values, no matter their preferences regarding spirituality.
Relevant Resource:
Alternative Routes of Therapeutic Psychedelic Use
So, what other options are there in the U.S. for facilitated psychedelic use? While you can attempt to source and take psychedelics on your own or have a friend sit with you during your journey, we recommend having more experienced and neutral support, especially if it’s your first time or if you’re journeying with a bit of baggage.
If you’re ready to dive in but feel like there isn’t an option that suits your needs, knowing what else is out there is important. The first alternative option is to find a domestic retreat. These exist within the U.S. and hopefully take place in a supportive retreat setting.
Depending on location, these retreats may be operating underground, require travel, and posit some of the same issues as international retreats. The second alternative option would be the at-home model, in which you source the medicine yourself and set up the proper container and support for your individual journey.
Being the most accessible option for the majority of U.S. citizens, individuals who are unable to travel or prefer a more personal approach can utilize services like ours to experience psychedelics therapeutically with professional support from beginning to end.
We provide preparation, ceremonial, and integration support to ensure that you find the right setting and dosage, work through pre-trip anxiety, establish healthy intentions, and manage expectations beforehand.
Furthermore, having a neutral and experienced guide gives additional peace of mind and an extra perspective who can help work through whatever comes up for you along the way.
After the journey, integration support helps bring the experience full circle and creates a sense of closure and understanding about the journey. These additional support services are extremely important, especially for those looking to use psychedelics to improve mental health outcomes.
MDMA for PTSD: Rejection & Moving Forward With Psychedelic Therapeutics
Just this year, there was a movement for FDA approval of MDMA (otherwise known as ecstasy) for its therapeutic use in the treatment of PTSD. The perceived advance in mental health treatment was a hot topic of debate in recent months after being rejected.
”Getting MDMA in front of FDA regulators was the culmination of decades of advocacy by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a nonprofit founded by psychedelic evangelist Rick Doblin in the 1980s. Doblin and his colleagues have long believed that MDMA’s ability to open the mind and heart puts people in the right headspace to work with a therapist to process, and ultimately move on from, traumas that leave psychological scars” (Ducharme, 2024).
Unfortunately, a lot still needs to take place before this issue is revisited with the FDA, meaning that any regulated options for MDMA therapy are likely a long way off. In the meantime, we will continue providing guidance around MDMA use in hopes that those choosing to proceed with this powerful substance do so in safe ways.
Connect With a Psychedelic Coach You Can Actually Trust
Hi there! We sincerely hope that you’ve found valuable takeaways that resonate with your current intentions. To explore research-based education, stay updated with psychedelic news, and benefit from practical how-to articles, we encourage you to head over to our resources page.
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