New Mexico has officially joined the movement toward legal, state-regulated psychedelic therapy. In April 2025, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the Medical Psilocybin Act (SB 219) into law, directing the Department of Health to build a supervised medical program for psilocybin treatment. The law takes effect in mid-2025, with full implementation due by December 2027. A new Medical Psilocybin Advisory Board—including clinicians, Indigenous representatives, and behavioral health experts—will guide rulemaking, clinical standards, and safety protocols. The program will allow qualified patients, under the care of licensed providers, to access naturally derived psilocybin for conditions such as treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, substance use disorders, and end-of-life anxiety, with room for expansion as research evolves.
I recently had the chance to speak with State Representative Andrea Romero, who sponsored the bill through the house. She described the state’s unique approach. This program will be very different from what we have in Oregon and Colorado. Below are the key themes and why they matter for anyone working to make regulated psychedelic therapy both accessible and durable.
From Crisis to Cohesion
Rep. Romero grounds her work in a lived reality: northern New Mexico has been a long-standing epicenter of the opioid crisis. Her policy lens is shaped by that history and by a career in entrepreneurship and food systems. She calls the vision a “healing economy” — not a single intervention but an integrated set of practices that help people restore health, meaning, and connection. That includes immersive experiences in nature, culturally rooted practices, and clinical care where appropriate.
For Althea, that framing resonates. Regulated psychedelic care is not a standalone industry; it’s a bridge across communities, mental health, public health, spiritual, indigenous, and small business. The program design has to reflect that complexity.
A New Funding Model for Psychedelic Therapy
Colorado and Oregon launched programs that aimed to be fee-funded and budget neutral. Oregon’s program, launched in 2022, is now running at a $3.5 million budget shortfall. Because these programs rely on license fees to fund them, operators of psilocybin clinics are paying 20x more than liquor stores for state licensing, while providing services that arguably provide positive externalities in their communities. The steep licensing fees are often cited as a major contribution to high prices of psilocybin therapy in these pioneering states.
New Mexico is trying something else. Unlike Oregon and Colorado, New Mexico is approaching psilocybin as a public-health investment rather than a self-funded regulatory experiment. The state holds a substantial sovereign wealth position and is using behavioral-health funds to seed access and implementation. There is also an intent to recycle a portion of cannabis revenue back into behavioral health.
Two new funds anchor this approach: the Medical Psilocybin Treatment Equity Fund, designed to make therapy affordable for low-income residents, and the Medical Psilocybin Research Fund, which will support ongoing clinical and academic studies through state universities. These mechanisms aim to create equitable access, collect real-world outcomes data, and build a foundation for future Medicaid or insurance reimbursement.
The message is clear: fund the outcomes you want. Treat psychedelic services as a public-health investment with positive spillovers in Medicaid spend, mental health, substance use, homelessness prevention, and crisis care. This approach invites rigorous evaluation and sets the stage for long-term, equitable access.
New Mexico’s legislators established an access fund early, not as an afterthought. That matters. If we want these services to reach people with the highest need like veterans, people managing substance use disorders, and communities carrying intergenerational trauma, affordability and navigation must be built into the system from day one.
Science and Ceremony, Together
New Mexico has one of the largest Indigenous populations in the country. Romero asked the right question: how do we keep the sacred sacred while supporting a regulated, research-informed program that welcomes ceremony without diluting it? That will require respectful governance, authentic community leadership, and regulatory humility. This is a challenge that will lay ahead in the rulemaking process.
Parallel to this cultural work, UNM researchers are exploring questions that could reshape practice patterns. For example, group medicine models that can be both effective and cost-efficient. Group formats are not a budget hack; when done well, they foster belonging, enhance integration, and make care more accessible.
Measure What Matters
Here’s a blunt lesson from early programs: if a state doesn’t measure outcomes, it can’t defend, adapt, or scale its model. Oregon collected minimal program-level outcomes. Colorado stepped a bit further but still leaves too much to chance. New Mexico has an opportunity to link public funding to a simple, privacy-preserving outcomes backbone that shows whether the program is reducing depression and anxiety, improving well-being, shortening time in crisis care, and changing trajectories for substance use.
Our suggestion is practical and light-touch:
- Core clinical measures: a small set of validated tools (e.g., PHQ-9, GAD-7, WHO-5) at baseline and post-journey, with optional longitudinal follow-ups.
- Safety signals: standardized adverse-event reporting that centers learning, not punishment.
- Social determinants: brief indicators tied to housing stability, employment, and community support to reflect the “healing economy” vision.
- Program analytics: de-identified, aggregate dashboards for policymakers and the public, with strict privacy by default.
Althea already runs this workflow for the majority of centers and facilitators in Colorado and Oregon. We can help New Mexico stand up a version that is simple for providers and meaningful for policymakers.
Why New Mexico’s Experiment Matters
If New Mexico demonstrates that a publicly supported, equity-first program can deliver measurable mental-health gains and cost offsets, it changes the national conversation. Other states can move beyond fee balancing and toward investment logic. Medicaid and commercial insurers get better insights to justify their actuary models. Communities get better outcomes. And the field gets a model that honors lineage while meeting modern standards for safety and accountability.
The rulemaking process is now underway, with input from universities, healthcare providers, tribal nations, and advocacy groups. No clinics are yet operating—those will open only after licensing and safety frameworks are finalized—but the direction is clear: New Mexico is positioning itself as a model for integrating psychedelic therapy into mainstream behavioral health. By combining Indigenous wisdom, clinical oversight, and public funding, the state is creating a blueprint for how psychedelics can serve both healing and social good.
I’m grateful to Rep. Romero for the conversation and her vision. If you’re building in New Mexico as a facilitator, center operator, researcher, or community leader, we would love to connect and compare notes on what will make this program succeed for the long run.
