Marijuana Moment: Massachusetts Lawmakers Pass Bill To Legalize Psychedelic Therapy With New Pilot Program

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The Massachusetts House of Representatives has voted to create a five-year pilot program allowing the use of psychedelics to treat mental health conditions.

Under the proposal, which is part of a $561 million bond bill that was approved by a vote of 148-2 on Wednesday, “clinically appropriate patients” could use “naturally occurring psychedelic materials” for “on-site administration by a multi-disciplinary care team in a supervised licensed mental health clinic setting.”

Under the legislation, there would be a new Medical Psychedelics Fund, and the Department of Public Health would issue up to three permits to mental health clinics to participate in the program “for the purposes of establishing the best and safest clinical practices for psychedelic mental health treatment programs” and for the purposes of “collecting patient outcomes data regarding the benefits of psychedelic pharmacotherapy.”

Participating clinics could not be “subsidiaries, affiliates or members of cannabis industry organizations, psychedelic molecule development companies or pharmaceutical companies,” it says, and they would need to “track patient care outcomes data related to the identification, diagnosis and psychedelic treatment of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorder.”

The measure specifies that current state drug criminalization laws “shall not apply to the medical use of psilocybin and psilocin as provided under the pilot program.”

With respect to other psychedelics, the legislation says that state health officials will “coordinate with research institutions, as it deems appropriate, to facilitate, expand and expedite federally-authorized research on psychedelic-assisted therapies, including, but not limited to, psilocybin, ibogaine, 5-methoxy-n,n-dimethyltryptamine, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, in the commonwealth, including efforts to pursue federal approvals and available state and federal funding in compliance with applicable federal regulations.”

The department would be charged with issuing regulations to oversee the effort, including on the “process of storing, dispensing and administrating psychedelics.”

“The department shall establish by regulation all standards and requirements governing the production and cultivation of naturally occurring psychedelic materials necessary for the pilot program, including, but not limited to, producer licensing and operations,” the bill says.

The psychedelics reform was championed by Rep. Marjorie Decker (D) and was folded into a larger amendment that was adopted to the bill in a unanimous vote. The House-passed economic development bill next heads to the Senate and then, potentially, to the desk of Gov. Maura Healey (D).

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“It’s pretty mind-blowing to see that psychedelics offer, under the right medical guidance, real treatment, and I want to be bold to say it cures,” Decker told The Boston Globe. “It’s not a lifetime of treatment. It’s a cure.”

“It’s great to see that there’s an alignment in which the federal government and state government is moving in the same direction of trying to make people’s lives better,” she said, referring to a psychedelics executive order President Donald Trump signed in April. “But we certainly have not been a state…that has been waiting for the winds of change at the federal level to decide how to take care of people in our state.”

The passage of the psychedelics legislation comes after Massachusetts voters in 2024 defeated a ballot measure that would have broadly legalized psychedelics, allowing adults 21 and older to legally possess, grow and share certain amounts of substances such as psilocybin, ibogaine and DMT.

Advocates praised the new legislative development.

“This is a triumph for a new kind of politics in the psychedelics movement, built on integrity, compromise and mutual, earned trust among grassroots advocates, lawmakers, scientific researchers, national organizations and philanthropists,” Graham Moore, educational outreach director for Mass Healing, said in a press release. “At the beginning of this legislative session, the psychedelic movement was operating with a trust deficit in Massachusetts because of catastrophic mismanagement. This victory was possible only through responsible leadership: unafraid to confront bad actors, admit mistakes, and operate dynamically.”

Jamie Morey, the group’s executive director, said that the group was “born from the ashes of the failed 2024 psychedelic ballot question and fueled by my passion as a mother on a mission to keep fighting for legal access to psychedelic healing for my own family and others across Massachusetts.

“The House’s passage of this bill is a victory for everyone affected by PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, addiction and other serious mental and physical health conditions who urgently need new treatment options,” she said.

During the current legislative session, various pieces of psychedelics legislation have been filed, with some clearing committees.

The Massachusetts Psychiatric Society endorsed several of the psychedelics reform bills, including one to decriminalize psilocybin possession.

In 2024, the governor signed a military veterans-focused bill that includes provisions to create a psychedelics working group to study and make recommendations about the potential therapeutic benefits of substances like psilocybin and MDMA.

Meanwhile in Massachusetts, state officials have formally certified that an initiative to roll back that state’s marijuana legalization law will appear on the November ballot.

The anti-cannabis campaign, however, is facing a new challenge to some of its most recently submitted signatures.

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