Colorado Progresses Toward New Model of Mental Health Care as Regulations Gain Approval for Psychedelic Therapy
Colorado’s Department of Revenue recently finalized rules and regulations for psychedelic therapy, clearing the way for providers to begin offering this new model of therapeutic care in 2025. The new rules provide requirements for businesses entering the field of psilocybin as healing centers, cultivators, and manufacturers.
While studies on the psychedelic’s effectiveness for treating mental health have been conducted at institutions like Johns Hopkins, University of California Los Angeles and New York University, Vail Health’s recently-created Behavioral Health Innovation Center is preparing to conduct its own study into the effects of psilocybin in Colorado. This effort will be led by Dr. Charles Raison, who joined the Vail Health research center as its director in 2023.
Chris Lindley, the executive director of Vail Health Behavioral Health, said, “The thing we’re most interested in is the safe and effective use of these agents within our patient population. We are absolutely going to be using it on patients in a research setting. The question that we don’t have the answer for yet is what will Vail Health’s role be with the new (state) regulations related to healing centers and facilitator training.”
Lindley said that Vail Health is “actively working” with the state to better understand its rules and determine “how that might fit into a future care model that we can operate with.”
