Proposed New Mexico Medical Psilocybin Program Regulation Changes Spark Outcry

New Mexico Medical Psilocybin Program Regulation Changes Spark Outcry

Clinicians, Advocates and Lawmakers Rebuke New Mexico Health Department Over Restrictive Draft Psilocybin Rules

By Jack Gorsline

New Mexico State Capitol
Santa Fe, NM
Source: TourismNM.Com

SANTA FE, N.M. — Medical providers, military veterans, legal experts and the primary legislative author of New Mexico’s Medical Psilocybin Act delivered a unified rebuke to the New Mexico Department of Health during an Oct. 2 public rulemaking hearing, warning that newly added administrative mandates threaten to make the state’s landmark psychedelic therapy program inaccessible to its most vulnerable residents.

The two-hour hybrid hearing centered on proposed rule 7.35.3 NMAC and amendments to 7.35.2 NMAC, which establish the clinical, licensing and operational framework for the state-regulated program created under 2025 Senate Bill 219. With the health department accelerating the program’s launch to December 2026 (a full year ahead of the statutory deadline), stakeholders testified before Hearing Officer Craig Erickson and agency General Counsel Mr. Woodward that the draft regulations copy outdated restrictions from the state's nearly 20-year-old medical cannabis program. Across roughly 80 written public comment submissions and hours of oral testimony, speakers argued that the proposed prescriber gateways, landlord consent requirements and rigid staffing ratios exceed statutory authority, invite discrimination lawsuits and jeopardize health insurance coverage.

The regulatory clash marks a sharp reversal from the optimism seen in March, when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a state budget allocating a pioneering $630,000 to the Medical Psilocybin Treatment Equity Fund alongside $300,000 for University of New Mexico clinical research into end-of-life anxiety. Financed in part by state oil and gas trust fund revenues, that appropriation was hailed as a global first for state-subsidized psychedelic healthcare and followed intense lobbying by many of the same clinicians, lawmakers and advocacy groups who are now warning that the Department of Health’s draft rules could undermine the program before it launches.

When the equity funding passed, State Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, and Healing Advocacy Fund New Mexico Director of Strategic Support Denali Wilson praised the investment as proof that ability to pay would not become a barrier to care, though Las Cruces nonprofit founder Deborah Thorne of Sol Tryp cautioned that the fund's real-world reach would depend on keeping clinical delivery costs manageable.

A primary point of contention in the draft rules is the department’s proposed creation of a "certifying clinician" role. In oral testimony and a joint written filing from the Healing Advocacy Fund, the Psychedelic Mental Health Access Alliance and the Rudick Law Group, advocates argued that requiring an in-person exam with a prescriber violates the plain language of the Medical Psilocybin Act, which requires only that a licensed, permitted provider confirm a qualifying condition, such as treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorder or end-of-life distress.

"The certifying clinician requirement… goes beyond what was anticipated in the statute," Wilson testified. "We urge a model that preserves safety without a prescriber gateway. The Medical Psilocybin Act requires only that a patient have a qualifying condition, which any licensed provider authorized to diagnose can confirm."

While the state's medical cannabis statute required a prescribing clinician to authorize patients to possess an otherwise illegal substance on their own, medical psilocybin is administered strictly during supervised sessions at approved locations. Because psilocybin patients never possess the medicine outside of a supervised setting, requiring patient identification cards and a 30-day state review creates an unnecessary bottleneck, delays urgent care and establishes a state database of sensitive mental health records vulnerable to data breaches. Practical day-of-session safeguards, such as urinalysis to screen for unknown pregnancy or poly-intoxication, were recommended instead.

Chris Peskuski, a Marine Corps veteran in Albuquerque, Heroic Hearts Project Ambassador and a peer facilitator on the University of New Mexico’s psilocybin study for PTSD, urged the department to drop the controlled substance registration and patient application mandates, bring physicians in only when screening flags real medical risk, and allow individual sessions with a single licensed practitioner.

"Under our laws, licensed clinicians deliver every treatment. And these rules put a licensed behavioral health provider in the room for every dose. That's more clinical oversight than Oregon or Colorado required. Yet at the front door, these rules turn away from all of that and toward our medical cannabis program," Peskuski testified. "Under these rules, nobody gets in without a prescriber's signature, a recent in-person exam, and up to 30 days waiting on state approval. That gate doesn't add safety... Dangling access just out of reach is an insult to the veterans and first responders who need it. It will leave them coping in unhealthy ways. They survived combat, and the calls nobody else would take. Some won't survive the wait."

Bernalillo County firefighter Paul Walton, executive director of Firefighters for Plant Medicine, added that compounding hurdles cause first responders struggling with trauma to abandon treatment altogether. Dr. Lida Fatemi, an internal medicine and hospice physician at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, also criticized the in-person exam mandate, noting that Medicare permits hospice recertification via telehealth and that an in-person rule locks out rural, tribal and homebound patients.

Wilson also warned that the certifying clinician design and proposed provider supervision rules create severe insurance and malpractice liabilities, despite earlier verbal reassurances from the New Mexico Health Care Authority.

"A medical encounter whose only purpose is program entry lacks independent medical necessity, which is the requirement for billing insurance," Wilson testified. "And that is going to invite claims denials and clawbacks over time, which is a serious long-tail liability problem."

If the department retains the prescriber role, Wilson urged officials to recruit naturopathic doctors, doctors of oriental medicine, acupuncturists and chiropractors, who hold prescriptive authority in New Mexico, to help offset severe physician shortages. Additionally, she warned that placing non-clinical facilitators under the formal supervision of licensed practitioners could pull facilitators under New Mexico’s Medical Malpractice Act without granting them access to malpractice coverage, while giving insurers grounds to reject claims rendered in part by unlicensed staff. Advocates recommended replacing the supervisory structure with an independent care-coordination model.

As highlighted in coverage by the Santa Fe Reporter, the fiercest backlash of the hearing centered on provisions requiring written property owner permission before a patient can receive in-home care or before a healing center can operate in a leased commercial building.

Steinborn, the primary sponsor of the Medical Psilocybin Act, testified during the hearing covered by the Santa Fe Reporter that giving landlords veto power over state-authorized healthcare subverts the law.

"I am totally opposed to the landlord sign-off for homebound patients," Steinborn said. "By virtue of our law, the Medical Psilocybin Act, we have given people the legal right to access this plant medicine. And I believe it's totally inappropriate to subordinate that right, that individual right that we have given people, to a landlord. It forces someone to violate their right to their medical privacy in order to receive that care."

Steinborn also urged the department to remove the landlord consent mandate for commercial healing centers and shorten the 30-day patient paperwork review to a week or two. End-of-life advocates, including advisory board End-of-Life Committee Chair Dr. Larry Leeman, Taos hospice nurse Jennifer Johnson, and End of Life Options New Mexico board members Barak Wolff and Dr. Lance Chilton, noted that unlike cannabis, psilocybin produces no smoke or residue, and requiring landlord signatures places "unnecessary and deleterious burdens" on dying patients.

Attorney Brett Phelps, speaking for the Psychedelic Bar Association’s New Mexico Working Group, testified that forcing tenants to disclose medical treatment collides with fair housing laws and could trigger direct lawsuits against the state. Disability Rights New Mexico also submitted legal analysis opposing the rule, while advocates noted that similar litigation in Oregon has already cost regulators hundreds of thousands of dollars. Psilocybin advisory board chair Ian Dunn, the sole Gen Z representative involved in developing the program, told officials that the rule creates two classes of patients: "Those who own property can make decisions for themselves. Those who do not must ask someone else."

Speakers also criticized session staffing ratios and training gaps that could rapidly deplete the Treatment Equity Fund. Requiring both a practitioner and a facilitator at individual sessions doubles bedside costs, Johnson said, while Dr. Maria Feeney noted that group rules requiring five staff members for eight patients defeat the cost-saving purpose of group therapy. Furthermore, Steinborn, Leeman and Wilson urged the state to mandate specific minimum hours in the 75-hour curriculum for end-of-life care, trauma-informed care, suicidality screening and managing challenging experiences, while Indigenous healers and local educators (including Patricio Dominguez, Equity Committee Chair DezBaa', Dr. Courtney Hale and Cheyenne medicine woman Sage Romanos) called on the state to honor traditional curanderismo and Indigenous lineages rather than outsourcing training to out-of-state corporations.

Amid the widespread pushback over patient entry bottlenecks and property owner mandates, several clinical educators and mental health practitioners praised the New Mexico Department of Health for establishing rigorous training, supervision and workforce transition standards. 

During oral testimony, Changa Institute founder and CEO Lisa Ginsburg applauded regulators for prioritizing patient safety and creating a reciprocity pathway that allows accredited out-of-state programs to help train New Mexico's initial cohort of providers. Dr. Janice Phelps, founder of the California Institute of Integral Studies’ psychedelic therapies certification program, similarly commended the state's clinical standards, arguing that relying on robust provider training is the best way to guarantee safety while loosening administrative barriers to access. 

In written comments included in the department’s exhibit binder, Santa Fe licensed mental health counselor Danielle Leonard urged the agency to retain three core provisions: requiring licensed therapists to serve as practitioners, maintaining graduated clinical practicum standards, and mandating at least 10 hours of no-cost, post-graduation mentoring. Because psilocybin sessions bring trauma and grief to the surface, Leonard wrote, "these provisions mean that New Mexicans in this program will be cared for by clinicians who are well trained, well supported, and accountable." 

Similarly, Dr. Patricia Singh, an Albuquerque licensed professional clinical counselor and executive director of the outpatient substance use clinic A New Awakening, commended the department's "thoughtful, clinically responsible regulatory framework," specifically endorsing the transitional 40-hour practicum pathway for experienced applicants alongside temporary "other approved locations" to expand rural access.

As regulators review the Oct. 2 record, 16 advocacy and clinical organizations have petitioned House Appropriations and Finance Committee Chair Rep. Nathan P. Small, D-Las Cruces, in a community letter to appropriate an additional $500,000 for the Treatment Equity Fund, allocate $500,000 for University of New Mexico palliative research and extend $1.5 million in previously appropriated development and research funds through fiscal year 2027.

The regulatory debate comes as the New Mexico Department of Health’s Center for Medical Cannabis and Psilocybin moves forward with supply-side licensing, recently issuing the state’s first medical psilocybin producer permit to Sacred Alto Spores ahead of the program's accelerated end-of-year launch.