Politics
Federal Judge Allows Lawsuit Seeking Home Psilocybin Care To Proceed, Rejecting Oregon Officials’ Motion To Dismiss
More people in Oregon could eventually access legal psilocybin following a new federal court ruling in favor of plaintiffs who argued that the state’s first-in-the nation psilocybin law wrongfully prevents homebound patients from seeking care.
Four care providers—three licensed psilocybin facilitators and a physician specializing in advanced and terminal illnesses—sued the state about year ago, alleging that the state Psilocybin Services Act (PSA) discriminates against disabled individuals who can’t travel to designated service centers where the substance is administered.
The providers said they were told by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) that there was no way to accommodate homebound patients under the state’s psilocybin law.
In an 12-page ruling issued late last month, District Judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai denied the state’s motion to dismiss the suit, opining that the plaintiffs have standing to bring the challenge and that a modification of the state’s psilocybin law to provide a reasonable accommodation to homebound patients under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) would not violate principles of federalism.
“The Court agrees with Plaintiffs and finds that their requested remedy rests on physical access rather than use or distribution of a controlled substance in violation of state and federal laws,” the ruling says. “Plaintiffs do not ask the Court to order the provision of a controlled substance, as Defendants contend. Instead…Plaintiffs seek compliance with the ADA so that their disabled clients will have the same physical access to a service that is available to nondisabled individuals.”
Reached by email on Tuesday, plaintiffs’ attorney Kathryn Tucker, said she was pleased the court ruled in favor of the providers seeking to offer home psilocybin services.
“We are eager to ensure that homebound disabled and dying Oregonians can access psilocybin services, as they are among those most likely to benefit,” she wrote. “Opening access for these Oregonians will increase demand for psilocybin produced pursuant to the PSA as well as demand for services of facilitators, particularly those with expertise in providing care to disabled persons and those with advanced illness.”
“We hope to move this forward quickly now that the court has rejected the State’s effort to dismiss, recognizing that the ADA does apply to Oregon’s psilocybin program,” she added. “Because people with advancing illness may have little time left, delay in enabling access can mean that patients who might have obtained relief from debilitating anxiety and depression will die in unrelieved suffering.”
Notably, the new opinion, noted earlier by Psychedelic Week, does not order a specific remedy. It simply allows the underlying suit, Cusker v. Oregon Health Authority, to proceed toward a final decision.
As for what plaintiffs are ultimately seeking, their complaint filed last June asked the court to assume jurisdiction over the issue and require the state health authority to “provide the reasonable accommodation of home service when necessary to allow disabled individuals access to psilocybin services, and to notify all licensed facilitators that such accommodations are permitted.”
They further requested that the court declare that OHA violated state and federal anti-discrimination statues when refusing to find reasonable accommodations and prevent the state “from taking any disciplinary or other adverse action” against licensed facilitators for providing such reasonable accommodations.
“Public entities are required to make reasonable accommodations when necessary to allow disabled individuals to access programs and services unless doing so would result in an undue burden or a fundamental alteration of the program or service. Allowing disabled individuals whose disability prevents them from travelling to a licensed service center to receive psilocybin services in their homes as a reasonable accommodation would not result in an undue burden or a fundamental alteration of the psilocybin services program.”
Oregon voters legalized facilitated psilocybin services through a 2020 ballot measure. The state approved its first service center in mid-2023.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia/Workman.
