The next committee meeting is set for May 13, 2024. Contact the bill co-sponsors to have your voice heard on how psychedelic medicines are rolled out in California. This bill looks a lot like Oregon’s, with licensed “facilitators”, not “therapists”, yet still requiring medical screening. Psychedelic access in Oregon is not covered by insurance as a result.

While there will always be the “don’t medicalize psychedelics” crowd, it is the medical and mental health establishment that brings these medicines through FDA approval through years of scientific study. This allows these medicines to be adjuncts to psychotherapy, an existing infrastructure of clinicians which may be covered by insurance plans, increasing access to at least people who are covered by insurance.

Creating a new “psychedelic facilitator” license, ignoring ketamine, and bypassing the currently-licensed medical and mental health providers exacerbates the bottleneck of a huge demand for services limited by starting with literally zero “facilitators”. Is there a yes, and way of doing this where mental health and medical specialists have a psychedelic certification, and non-health providers practice under the new proposed facilitator license?

Once California rolls this out, your state will follow, eventually. Is Oregon’s model the one to copy?