Politics
Oregon Regulators Grant First License To Psilocybin Edibles Manufacturer, Company Announces
Regulators in Oregon have licensed the country’s first-ever state-legal psilocybin edibles manufacturer, the Southeast Portland company announced last week.
Spiritus Oregon, maker of the Horizon Edibles brand of psilocybin products, said that earlier this month it was “granted the state’s first Psilocybin Edibles license, making it the first legal psilocybin edible company in the United States.”
The Milwaukie-based company’s Horizon Edibles brand includes “dark chocolates precisely dosed with dried, homogenized mushrooms,” which it said in a press release “have a chocolate-forward flavor with nutty and earthy notes from the mushrooms.”
The first manufacturer license granted by the Oregon Health Authority, meanwhile, went to the woman-owned business Satori Farms PDX LLC in March 2023.
Other license types were issued in April and May of last year, including the state’s first psilocybin facilitator and service center licenses as well as the first license to lab test products.
The newly licensed company, Spiritus, makes its own psilocybin edibles and offers white label products, according to its website. Horizon’s press release notes that the brand is also licensed as a commercial kitchen.
“Our products, like our mushroom chocolates, are meant to be eaten,” said Michael Briggs, president of Horizon Edibles. “We wanted them to be as safe or safer than consuming a dried mushroom. Customers expect products to be as safe as anything they would buy in a grocery store and we’re here to provide that.”
Regarding dosing precision, the company claims its standards allow only 0.5 milligrams of deviation on larger doses (containing 20 mg to 50 mg psilocybin) and 0.2 mg of deviation on microdoses (2 mg to 5 mg).
Oregon allows 20 percent deviation in the amount of psilocybin in products, but Horizon’s press release says that “a variation of that size could mean a wildly different experience” for patients and consumers.
“People should trust that they’ll have a consistent experience—something that lines up with their expectations. These treatments can be expensive and we want to ensure customers are getting exactly what they’re paying for,” says Briggs “A major problem with psilocybin treatment can be how variable it is. We have solved that problem.”
Horizon also says a shift to more sophisticated manufacturing of psilocybin products means benefits for consumers, noting that some people experience gastrointestinal distress after eating dried mushrooms.
“Mushrooms with psychoactive properties are often hard on the stomach, with a fiber made of chitin, the same material that makes up crab shells,” the company said. “Horizon Edibles’ process extracts actives of all types (the industry term for psychoactive chemicals) and fully removes the chitin, resulting in easier digestion.”
“Some industry insiders suggest steeping the dried mushrooms in hot water (to make a tea) or in citrus juice (often referred to as LemonTek) to reduce upset stomach,” it continued. “This process takes time (20 to 30 minutes), does not fully extract actives, and could cause additional stomach discomfort with acid reflux.”
Meanwhile, a newly filed federal lawsuit against Oregon officials says the state’s first-in-the-nation psilocybin law discriminates against disabled individuals who can’t travel to designated service centers where the substance is administered, unfairly depriving them of potential benefits to health and well-being.
Under state law, “the provision of psilocybin services is explicitly restricted to licensed service centers under the supervision of a psilocybin service facilitator,” says the 11-page complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Oregon. “Because services may only be provided at licensed service centers, many disabled and terminally ill individuals—those who would benefit from access to psilocybin the most—are denied access to those services because their physical condition prevents them from travelling for treatment.”
Plaintiffs are four care providers—three licensed psilocybin facilitators and a physician specializing in advanced and terminal illnesses—who want to be able to offer psychedelic-assisted services but say they’ve been told by OHA officials that there’s no way to accommodate homebound patients under the state’s psilocybin law.
Some recent reports also indicate that Oregon’s legal psilocybin industry is struggling to attract paying clients despite significant early interest in the program.
Oregon voters legalized facilitated psilocybin services through a 2020 ballot measure. The state approved its first service center a little over a year ago.
Earlier this year, psilocybin service providers and entrepreneurs met for a conference in Portland, where they recalled a year of life-changing experiences for clients but also a litany of challenges, red tape and inconsistent interest in facilitated psilocybin use, which can cost individuals hundreds or thousands of dollars.
This spring the governor also signed a bill to roll back a state law that previously decriminalized small amounts of drugs for personal use.
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