Monument Town Council recently approved rules for healing centers that can administer psychedelics, largely banning them across town.
Voters approved the new centers in a statewide ballot measure in 2022. The centers will allow those over 21 to use psychedelic mushrooms with supervision. Psilocybin in mushrooms has been used to treat depression and other mental health disorders.
The ballot measure prohibited towns from banning the centers, but they can limit where they can open.
In Monument, town staff drew on the same regulations in place for medical marijuana businesses to write the rules for psychedelic centers, explained town attorney Bob Cole. The town does not have any medical marijuana dispensaries.
Health Colorado's first psilocybin clinics to open this summer Marissa Ventrelli [email protected]
The zoning rules would limit the centers to four small areas. A town map shows the centers would be allowed at a site near Interstate 25 and Colorado 105, on land at the very northern edge of town, a site south of Eighth Street near I-25 and south of Monument Lake. The site south of Monument Lake is completely undeveloped.
The council voted 6-0 in mid-December to approve rules governing the centers after hearing from only one person, a licensed professional counselor interested in the potential for psychedelics to treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.
The council discussed the measure in early December and seemed to favor tight restrictions for the potential healing centers, floating short hours for the healing centers, such as requiring them to close at 3 p.m. The council decided to limit the hours of the centers from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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Vincent Bruno, the only interested person to speak at either meeting, highlighted the potential of psilocybin to treat PTSD in veterans, as well as hypervigilance and major depression. As a Monument resident, he said he was interested in potentially working in town.
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"If we don't allow regulated practitioners to show that it can be done properly, what we are going to end up is unregulated folks who maybe aren't as interested in harm reduction as I am," he said during the Dec. 16 meeting.
Bruno referenced research from Johns Hopkins Medicine that has seen success. A recent study from the research hospital found that psilocybin reduced major depression in patients and kept its severity low.
Government Colorado Springs passes zoning limit for psychedelic healing centers, with some dissent Brennen Kauffman [email protected]
The Department of Veterans Affairs is also interested in investing in psilocybin research to treat PTSD and depression, it announced earlier this year.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse outlines some risks of using psilocybin particularly in unsupervised settings, such as dangerous behavior and experiencing extreme fear and paranoia. It can also cause high heart rate, blood pressure and nausea.
Councilman Steve King encouraged Bruno to return to the town council to give the board feedback on the new regulations.
"We can certainly expand the areas it can go into, if we needed to at some point," he said.
Mayor Mitch LaKind said the regulations needed to be in place ahead of the state allowing centers to open next year.
The Colorado Natural Medicine Division expects the first centers to open early in the summer, Colorado Politics reported.
The Colorado Springs City Council approved similar regulations for the centers, limiting them to areas around the Colorado Springs Airport and in the far northeast portion of the city.