More States May Legalize Psychedelic Mushrooms

Alex Jones says a trip in Jamaica saved her life. Not a trip to Jamaica: a hallucinogenic trip in Jamaica.

Severe depression had descended on her at age 10, and stayed there, relentlessly, for the next two decades. She couldn’t work, couldn’t bear the sight of herself in the mirror, and for days on end could barely lift herself off her couch. The temptation to end it all was always at the periphery.

“I felt like I was the walking dead,” said Jones, who is now 34.

She endured hours of talk therapy and rotated through 30 different drug regimens. She did light therapy and then dark therapy. She tried an experimental ketamine nasal spray and then a ketamine infusion. She underwent rounds of electroconvulsive therapy and sleep deprivation. She submitted to transcranial magnetic stimulation, where she wore a big helmet equipped with magnets.

None of it worked, or at least not for long, and some brought severe side effects. Doctors told her she was “treatment resistant,” meaning seemingly beyond help.

But in 2019, she happened upon a “60 Minutes” report on clinical studies showing strongly encouraging results in using psilocybin, a psychedelic agent derived from mushrooms, to treat patients with depression, anxiety and addiction. Outside of the trials, the treatment was not available in the United States, where psilocybin remains illegal under federal law.

Jones booked a one-week stay at a Jamaican retreat. There, under supervision, she underwent three psychedelic mushroom sessions, followed by sessions with “facilitators” on the island and on her own for months back home in Tacoma, Washington, unravelling the psychedelic trips she had experienced.

What she discovered was that she felt better. Much better.

“It woke me up,” she said. “I was alive, I was me again. I could see the beauty in the world. Even the physical changes were surprising. The next day after my first dose, I was charging up sand dunes. Before that, I had a hard time going up the stairs.”

Five months ago, she told Washington legislators considering a bill that would legalize the use of psilocybin that the trips she experienced in Jamaica “had saved my life.”

With research showing promising results for patients, lawmakers in other states and cities also are considering loosening psilocybin restrictions. A few states want to legalize psilocybin treatment for all adult patients, while others want to limit it to veterans or others with PTSD. Other states have formed task forces to study the issue.

Studies in recent years have found that psilocybin and other psychedelics can have beneficial effects for a variety of mental health and other conditions such as PTSD, anorexia, chronic pain, fibromyalgia and addiction. Indigenous populations around the world have recognized the beneficial effects of psychedelics for hundreds of years and incorporated them in spiritual rituals.