Checking in on Oregon’s regulated psilocybin industry

It’s been a year since the first licensed psilocybin service centers in Oregon opened – facilities where people 21 and older can legally ingest psychedelic mushrooms in a supervised, therapeutic setting.

Oregon became the first state in the nation to approve and regulate the use of psilocybin through a legal framework set up and administered by the Oregon Health Authority. The agency has currently awarded licenses to 28 psilocybin service centers which continue to face regulatory and economic headwinds.

According to recent reporting in the Capital Chronicle, entrepreneurs are struggling with getting customers through the door, given state restrictions around using social media to advertise and waning interest since the market opened last year. The Oregon Health Authority is also threatening to revoke approval for a school in Ashland that is claiming religious exemption from state rules around the training of facilitators who supervise clients during their psychedelic trips.

In March, OPB reported on the closure of the Synthesis Institute, a psilocybin training program that declared bankruptcy after charging students thousands of dollars for its curriculum. Joining us to talk about the state of the legal psilocybin industry in Oregon is freelance journalist Grant Stringer.

This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. It’s been a year since the first licensed psilocybin service centers in Oregon opened. These are the first in the nation facilities where people 21 and over can legally ingest psychedelic mushrooms in a supervised setting. Freelance journalist Grant Stringer has been reporting on this one-year anniversary. He wrote in the Oregon Capital Chronicle that entrepreneurs are struggling to get enough customers through their doors. He wrote in Willamette Week about a facilitator training program in Ashland that the Oregon Health Authority is threatening to shut down. He joins us now to talk about both of these stories. It’s great to have you in the studio.

Grant Stringer: Thanks for having me.

Miller: You wrote that participants at a recent psilocybin industry conference in Portland talked about a year of challenges, red tape and waning interest in guided mushroom trips. Can you give us a sense, first, for the numbers? For how many clients there have been?

Stringer: We don’t know for sure how many people have done mushrooms legally in Oregon at this point. But the best number we have is about 3,500 and that was as of last month. So maybe it’s a little bit more than that.

Miller: What do industry folks you talk to say that they’re expecting in terms of growth or their clientele over the next year?

Stringer: I’ve heard expectations all over the board, I really have. You know, some people are adamant that demand is going to pick up. Some people think that a new reality is here, if you’re trying to run a business like this. And that reality is that there’s probably less interest in this now than there was in the fall when all of these mushroom centers came on board, and people were flying in from out of state and across the country and from all over the world to do mushrooms here.

So it’s really hard to say. The main lobbying group for Measure 109, which is the framework we have for legal psilocybin here, they’re hopeful that about 7,000 or 8,000 people will do mushrooms here legally by the end of the year. And I don’t know whether that’s true, but they’re certainly hoping for that.

Miller: How much do these trips cost right now, on average?

Stringer: They can be anywhere from virtually free to more than $2,000. Mostly they’re gonna be in the $1,000 to $1,500 range, is what I’m hearing from folks.

Miller:  Virtually free. Are people actually getting the discounts that the state has asked centers to provide, in the name of equity and accessibility?

Stringer: We don’t have hard data on that, so I can’t say for sure. We will have that information beginning next year. But just anecdotally, I’ve heard that lots and lots of people are offering discounts in mushroom centers. Some facilitators who actually supervise people on mushrooms are working for virtually free to find clients.

Miller: After spending a lot of money to get trained.

Stringer: That’s right.

Miller: This is an issue we’ve talked about for a while, but this is worth reviewing because it’s a one-year anniversary. From the beginning, there’s been this tension between two competing priorities at the state level. On one hand, the state said that they wanted this service to be widely available; on the other, they instituted a pretty broad set of testing and training, and administrative or administration requirements. Clearly, they knew from the beginning it was going to lead to high prices. What does that tension look like right now?

Stringer: It’s really playing out for business owners and for clients. This really touches everyone, and what we’ve created in Oregon is a highly regulated system. There’s cameras in the facilities. The actual handling of mushrooms is very tightly regulated in them. Licensing fees are very high. It’s hard to get a federally backed mortgage. All of these things contribute to really high costs for entrepreneurs here and those are passed on to customers. Those concerns absolutely played out here. And now people in this space are trying to figure out how to roll with it.

Miller: We heard early on that the majority of clients were coming from out of state, sometimes from very far away, adding obviously enormously to the cost. Is that still the case? Is this a kind of rich tourist activity?

Stringer: I think that’s mostly the case still, but I don’t know for sure. And the clientele can really vary from mushroom center to mushroom center. There are more than 25 of them at this point. I think the general trend has been that, at the beginning, all of these centers opened up in the fall and last summer, [and] a lot of people flew in from out of state. When folks got to the winter, people stopped flying in. And that’s where the financial reality set in for some folks, of trying to run something like this. And now, the industry really is trying to cater to Oregonians and reach Oregonians. And discounts are a big part of that. Advertising is a big part of that.

Miller: That’s one of the issues you explored in your recent article. What are the challenges you heard from service center owners about advertising?

Stringer: This is another tightly regulated aspect of this. If you go on Instagram, you’ll see all sorts of people selling mushrooms illegally, and they’re freely advertising …

Miller: We said on Instagram and Facebook, “Hey, what are your thoughts about this?” We got a lot of folks who said, “My thoughts are, you should hit me up, because I have mushrooms to sell you.”

Stringer: Exactly. There are stickers all around town with people’s phone numbers next to a mushroom emoji. But in the legal industry it’s really tightly regulated. Folks who are running these businesses can’t really advertise online, and that’s really hamstrung them.

And that’s because the state doesn’t want those advertisements to reach people who are underage, even though you have to be 21 to actually use mushrooms in a service center. So entrepreneurs are really relying on word of mouth, and I’ve heard some kooky examples of advertising. One woman I know who runs one of these mushroom centers in Hood River has been speaking at Lions’ Clubs and Rotary Clubs in the area, and she said the reception has been pretty good.

Miller: Is the idea there, perhaps, to reach older folks who may not have thought about this for themselves?

Stringer: I think the idea is to reach anyone.

Miller: You note in your article in the Oregon Capital Chronicle that training facilities are pumping out hundreds of facilitators – people who are paying thousands of dollars to get this state-required licensure, the state required training. Are there going to be jobs for them when they get out?

Stringer: I’ve talked to a lot of people about this, and there are two minds. The first opinion about this, which is very widespread, is that we are producing a lot of facilitators, but there’s absolutely jobs for them, and that they’re jobs that are important. People are flying in to use psilocybin. Oftentimes, it can be one of the most meaningful experiences of a person’s life. And the supervised aspect of it, science tells us that’s really what can make this impactful for someone, especially someone who’s really grappling with trauma, addiction, PTSD, etc.

The other camp is that there really are too many facilitators at this point. There are almost 30 training programs. They’ve pumped out at least 300 [to] 400 licensed facilitators at this point. And all of those people are competing with each other to find clients in this market. And it’s a grind. It’s definitely a hustle. A lot of people are trying to stand out from each other, and find ways to do that, and build a brand, and find clientele. And for some folks, it hasn’t been easy.

Miller: Did you hear specific policy changes from industry members that they want the OHA to institute?

Stringer: I’ve heard some people call for the OHA to cap the number of mushroom centers in the state and cap the number of training programs.

Miller: … to sort of artificially decrease supply to increase demand?

Stringer: Yeah, the concern is that Oregon is already over-saturated because the demand is lower than was expected for mushroom services, at least legally. So, that would be one way to help people who already have businesses.

Miller: Has the state responded to that proposal?

Stringer: I hadn’t asked them about that at the conference that I attended last month. Someone from OHA said that the agency doesn’t have that authority at the moment.

Miller: I want to turn to one particular facilitator training center that you wrote about last week in Willamette Week. It’s called Myco-Method. It’s in Ashland. It was created by a woman named Shasta Winn. What’s her background?

Stringer: Shasta is from the East Coast. She was an addiction counselor and she worked in clinics and halfway houses. She’s 42. Over time, she became pretty disillusioned with that approach and turned toward psychedelics and spirituality – a blend of the two. And [she] decided that the best way to help people is through psychedelic-assisted therapy, and through community building and things like that.

Miller: Can you describe Myco-Method?

Stringer: Myco-Method is one of 25 training programs that’s been approved by the Oregon Health Authority. Like all of the others, it produces facilitators who, at least on paper, are trained to supervise mushroom trips in Oregon. And it’s produced about 20 graduates so far.

Miller: The state is now threatening to shut this training center down. Why?

Stringer: They’re threatening to de-certify Myco-Method, and it’s a point of contention whether they can actually shut it down. This goes back to that regulatory framework that we were talking about, and how there really is so much red tape to run something like this.

To run a training program, you need two things. You need approval from the Oregon Health Authority and you also need approval from something called the Higher Education Coordinating Commission, which oversees career schools. Shasta obtained approval from the OHA but not from HECC. And for that reason, OHA is going to boot Myco-Method off of its list of approved training programs.

Miller: And her argument is that she should have a religious exemption – that this is not a secular school, part of the OHA’s system, but this is a part of a religious tradition. You note that the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission denied that claim, saying that they are effectively a secular school. What is the religious claim that Winn is making?

Stringer: It’s that Myco-Method is a branch of this decentralized, left-leaning spiritual network that she co-founded in 2011 called Saba Cooperative. Her idea is that the state really has no authority to regulate what Myco-Method does and what its students can do, because it’s essentially a faith-based organization.

Miller: And the state is saying, “No, you’re churning out graduates who are going to work in this heavily regulated licensed system, just like cosmetologists or other people who go to professional schools.” She is fighting the state with the help of the AI text generator, Chat GPT, sort of a fascinating detail at the end of your article. But let’s say that she loses her challenges. What would that mean for her school’s graduates?

Stringer: She just graduated about five students. And those folks wouldn’t be able to work in Oregon’s legal industry, but they can still be facilitators. They would just be working illegally, or they can go to Jamaica or Mexico, where a lot of people do go and work, and they’ll have a credential.

Miller: Grant, thanks very much.

Stringer: Thank you.

Miller: Grant Stringer is a freelance journalist. He has written recently two different articles in Willamette Week and the Oregon Capital Chronicle, marking the one-year anniversary of the start of Oregon’s supervised psilocybin program.

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