In this May 24, 2019, file photo a vendor bags psilocybin mushrooms at a pop-up cannabis market in Los Angeles. Voters in Oregon in November 2020 approved a measure that legalized therapeutic, regulated use of psilocybin.
Richard Vogel / AP
A company based in the Netherlands wants to host psychedelic retreats from a historic resort southeast of Ashland. The choice will be up to Jackson County voters.
The Synthesis Institute bought the Buckhorn Springs Resort last year, in hopes of hosting therapeutic psilocybin retreats starting in 2023.
The therapeutic use of psychedelic mushrooms was approved by Oregon voters in 2020. But, on Tuesday, Jackson County commissioners voted to let local residents decide whether to allow psilocybin-related business take place in the county. The November vote will only apply to unincorporated parts of Jackson County, which includes the location of Buckhorn Springs.
Myles Katz, a co-founder of the Synthesis Institute, says he thinks there may be a stigma against laws allowing the use of psilocybin because of recent problems with illicit cannabis in Southern Oregon.
“We would just support and encourage people to really learn about Measure 109, how it is fundamentally different from the recreation laws for cannabis,” Katz says.
If Jackson County residents decide not to allow the therapeutic use of psilocybin, Buckhorn Springs will remain as an event-for-hire space.