Politics
New Jersey Bill To Legalize Psilocybin Therapy Clears Another Assembly Committee
New Jersey lawmakers have approved a bill to legalize therapeutic access to psilocybin for adults with qualifying health conditions.
Weeks after the Assembly Health Committee advanced the legislation—sponsored by Assemblymembers Herb Conaway (D), Clinton Calabrese (D) and Anthony Verrelli (D)—the Assembly Appropriations Committee signed off on it on Thursday.
The Health panel last year amended the legislation in a way that aligns in with a Senate version. To advocates’ disappointment, however, that meant removing provisions that would have more broadly legalized psilocybin for adult use.
Initially, the legislation was introduced in identical form to what lawmakers proposed in the 2024 session—a plan that included personal legalization provisions, which the recent amended versions takes out. Those components would have made it legal for adults to “possess, store, use, ingest, inhale, process, transport, deliver without consideration, or distribute without consideration, four grams or less of psilocybin.”
The amended measures would nevertheless significantly expand on legislation introduced in late 2020 to reduce penalties for possession of up to one ounce of psilocybin. That reform that was signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy (D) in 2021.
Assemblywoman Lisa Swain (D), who chairs the Appropriations Committee, described the bill on Thursday as a “first step.”
“I mean, you’ve heard the testimony here,” she said, referring to witnesses who argued that broader reform is needed. “This bill creates an advisory board that will be able to make determinations—for instance, whether it should be natural mushrooms or synthetic mushrooms. So that option is still on the table. It’s a pilot program and we want to get started to make sure that, as you heard, people who really need to be treated” can get access.
In its amended version, the bill would charge the Department of Health (DOH) with licensing and regulating the manufacture, testing, transport, delivery, sale and purchase of psilocybin. There would be five license types: manufacturer, service center operator, testing laboratory, facilitator and psilocybin worker.
A Psilocybin Advisory Board would establish qualifying medical conditions for use, propose guidelines for psilocybin services and dosage, craft safety screenings and informed consent practices and oversee facilitator education, training and conduct.
Its stated goal would be to develop a long-term strategic plan for safe, accessible and affordable access to psilocybin for all people 21 and older.
Toward that goal, a social equity program would be tasked with establishing financial assistance to help low-income people cover costs of psilocybin services. DOH would also be directed to establish programs for technical assistance, reduced fees and other support services.
In order to access the psilocybin services under the bill, a patient with a qualifying condition would need to obtain a referral from a licensed health care professional. Services would also include mandatory preparation and integration sessions before and after the administration of psilocybin.
The Senate companion version of the bill has already cleared two panels in that chamber—the Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee and the Budget and Appropriations Committee.
A survey of New Jersey residents released last year indicates that a majority of state residents agree with making psilocybin available for therapeutic use, though they weren’t asked specifically about the specific legislation.
The poll, from Stockton University’s William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy, found that 55 percent of respondents supported legalizing psilocybin for medical use under a doctor’s supervision. Just 20 percent of respondents were opposed, while 24 percent said they weren’t sure. One percent of respondents refused to answer the question.
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In other New Jersey drug policy news, voters last month elected U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) to serve as the state’s next governor, and there’s now a decidedly clearer path to advancing a marijuana reform long awaited by consumers and advocates in the Garden State: A home grow option.
Meanwhile, as New Jersey’s first marijuana consumption lounges opened up over the summer, regulators shared information about where to find the sites and offering tips about how to responsibly use cannabis at the licensed businesses—including classic stoner cultural customs like “puff, puff, pass.”
New Jersey officials have also completed the curriculum of a no-cost marijuana training academy that’s meant to support entrepreneurs interested in entering the cannabis industry.
Separately, in May New Jersey Senate President Nick Scutari (D) filed a bill that would re-criminalize purchasing marijuana from unlicensed sources—one of the latest attempts to crack down on the illicit market and steer adults toward licensed retailers.
In March, a former New Jersey Senate leader unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination this year said “it is time” to give medical marijuana patients an option to grow their own cannabis plants for personal use. He also pledged to expand clemency for people impacted by marijuana criminalization if elected, and he expressed support for the establishment of cannabis consumption lounges.
The comments from Sweeney, who was the longest-serving Senate president in the state’s history, on home grow depart from what the current governor has said on multiple occasions, arguing that the state’s adult-use marijuana market needs to further mature before home grow is authorized.
Seemingly contradicting that claim, dozens of New Jersey small marijuana businesses and advocacy groups recently called on the legislature to allow adults to cultivate their own cannabis.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia/Mushroom Observer.
