Entering the legal, regulated model of psychedelic therapy was the last thing on my mind when I moved to Colorado.
I spent most of my life in rural Appalachia, bouncing from one small mountain town to the next, making a living in healthcare while pursuing creativity as a visual artist. Alongside that, I practiced as a psychedelic guide, serving individuals and small groups to share the deep healing I had experienced through psilocybin. That work existed within an unregulated ecosystem shaped by relationship, trust, and responsibility rather than formal oversight.
Like many people who find their way to psychedelics, my path was personal long before it was professional. I am a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault, and I lived with chronic pain rooted in complex trauma. Years of processing through traditional therapy and other modalities were foundational to my healing. Yet there were deeper layers I could sense, but could not access.
Psilocybin therapy became the catalyst for a change I had no idea was coming. Through ethical, safe facilitation, I learned how to integrate parts of myself that had long been hidden, suppressed, or fragmented. I developed attunement, an ability to self-regulate, and a toolkit of modalities that actually worked for my system. These skills will serve me for the rest of my life.
During this time, I knew I was being called to guide others through this terrain. I had no plans for it to ever go beyond serving my community.
That would change.
A Legal Landscape Emerges
Within months of leaving my friends and family behind, Proposition 122 passed in November 2022, setting off a cascade of events that altered the trajectory of my life and the lives of many others in Colorado.
The Natural Medicine Health Act (NMHA) was signed into law in May 2023, kicking off the development of rules and regulations across multiple state agencies to oversee what would become the Regulated Access Program. As defined by NMHA, natural medicine includes psilocybin, psilocin, DMT, ibogaine, and mescaline (excluding peyote), with psilocybin designated as the first substance to be regulated for therapeutic use.
Far from being a seamless rollout, it was a living process. Rules were drafted, revised, clarified, and at times contradicted as agencies worked hard to build an entirely new regulatory framework.
For those of us watching closely, the question quickly became whether to wait for the dust to settle or step into the uncertainty.
Making the Leap
My roots are steeped in blue collars, bootstraps, and a healthy dose of skepticism toward authority. Opting into background checks, licensing fees, inspections, and state oversight did not come easily, especially in a practice that has long existed outside formal systems.
Those in the psychedelic world aren’t exactly known for their ability to toe the line, myself included. But the regulated model is bigger than any one person. It represents a broader attempt to increase safety, accountability, and access in a world still reckoning with the damage caused by the War on Drugs.
After sitting with the decision, my heart knew what was right. Go Within Collective came to fruition and would become the second licensed psychedelic healing center in Colorado.
I was excited. And terrified.
What I have learned along the way has been invaluable, including the art of how and when to pivot.
What Regulation Looks Like in Practice
In addition to the challenges of opening a small business, we faced obstacles we had never anticipated. In 2025 alone, we navigated:
- Obtaining general and professional liability insurance, with most quotes being prohibitively high or had exclusion clauses that left us unprotected
- Renting a space in a jurisdiction that allowed us to operate
- Interpreting rules and regulations as they were being drafted
- Finding professional support (accounting, legal, and financial) familiar with our industry
- Being lumped in with the cannabis industry despite major differences
- Financial planning while licensure fees and requirements were still being drafted
- Building HIPAA-compliant systems for patient records, consent, and inventory
- Designing and installing compliant security infrastructure
Each of these hurdles was more than an inconvenience. Together, they revealed what participation in the regulated model actually requires: infrastructure, documentation, oversight, and systems designed to protect participants, facilitators, and the public.
Every challenge we faced was overcome without outside financial investment. Bootstrapping the business placed a high personal financial burden on myself and my business partner. Creativity, adaptability, and leveraging every skill we had became essential.
Hours were spent combing through more than a hundred pages of draft regulations. To preserve our budget, we initially moved forward with legal counsel who was not deeply familiar with NMHA rules and regulations. When we were finally able to hire a legal team within the psychedelic industry, the relief was immense.
At one point, the bank we were working with closed our accounts and called our debt due to the nature of our business. We didn’t learn this until our healing center license fee check bounced. We scrambled to access our funds and submit payment before missing the deadline.
With no technical background, I built our electronic health record system to meet regulatory and operational requirements as they were being finalized, drawing on my years in healthcare to guide its structure. As regulations matured, those systems were refined to remain compliant.
The same was true for our security system. Quotes were far beyond our budget, so I rolled up my sleeves and figured it out (everything from cloud-based video storage to installing a 24/7 camera system). Fortunately, there is no photographic evidence of me sitting on the floor surrounded by cables and blinking lights, exasperated and tearful.
One final surprise purchase nearly broke me. After we were licensed and operational, we learned that our scale for measuring natural medicine was not compliant. We had to purchase a specific model, then have it certified and stamped. In isolation, it was a small expense. But to my nervous system, it felt like the waves of unexpected costs would never end.
Community in the Midst of Uncertainty
The state-regulated program did its best to keep participants informed. We had an investigator assigned to our healing center whom I could reach out to when questions arose, which helped clarify key issues. Still, as with any new government program, resources were limited.
What emerged from the confusion was a community of healing center owners, facilitators, and cultivators helping one another solve increasingly complex problems. Organizations such as the Healing Advocacy Fund became invaluable resources during this time.
One phrase showed up again and again in our conversations: “clear as mud.”
Some chose to wait on the sidelines until the dust settled. It’s a reasonable strategy, but not one that suits my nature. Had we waited, we would have avoided certain pitfalls. We also would have missed insights that can only be gained by getting a little muddy.
Safety, Accountability, and the Role of Regulation
Psilocybin therapy requires a container capable of holding vulnerability, complexity, and risk. Indigenous communities upheld this container for thousands of years through lineage, ritual, and communal accountability. In a modern world increasingly disconnected from community, the regulated model is one way we attempt to recreate accountability at scale.
In practice, that accountability shows up in ways that directly affect decision-making. Standardized screenings, informed consent, and transportation planning create clear boundaries before anyone ever enters a psychedelic state. Medical partnerships allow us to assess complex cases, seek clearance when appropriate, and deny access when it is not safe to proceed.
Liability insurance, documentation, and scope-of-practice requirements changed how responsibility was shared and how care was followed up afterward.
Some of the ways safety and accountability show up in Colorado’s model include:
- Standardized screenings, informed consent, and transportation planning
- Partnerships with physicians to assess complex medical cases and deny clearance when it is not safe to proceed
- Pathways for clinical facilitators to work within their licensed scope, increasing access to those with complex cases
- Required training standards for licensed facilitators that include safety, ethics, and cultural education
- Liability insurance that provides financial accountability
- Systems for investigation and consequence when harm occurs
These measures do not eliminate risk, but they help reduce preventable harm. When facilitators and participants feel supported by clear structures and accountability, conditions are more favorable for responsible, well-held psychedelic work, particularly for those with complex trauma histories or elevated vulnerability.
Criticism, Tension, and Necessary Dialogue
The regulated model is not perfect.
Some worry it will further erase Indigenous culture through Western medicalization. Others are concerned about commodification, insufficient training, or the risks of making powerful medicines widely available. Cost remains one of the most significant barriers to access.
These critiques are valid and deserve continued dialogue.
My goal is not to claim regulation as the superior path, but to engage honestly with its realities. Underground, ceremonial, clinical, and state-regulated approaches all coexist and likely will continue to.
The real question is how this model is shaped, who it serves, and whose voices are included in its evolution.
Healing centers across Colorado are experimenting with sliding scales, nonprofit structures, and collaborative networks to expand access. Long-term, broader normalization and policy reform will be necessary to reduce costs and widen availability.
The Work Itself
With all of the infrastructure, compliance, and unexpected expenses, it could be easy to forget why I stepped into this in the first place. But the work itself is deeply meaningful.
Supporting someone as they prepare to enter a psychedelic experience is not something regulation can minimize. Watching the mix of anxiety, hope, skepticism, and courage bubble to the surface is an amazing thing to witness. If anything, the added structure has clarified my role. The container is more defined, expectations are explicit, and the responsibility is shared. And within that structure, the human moments are just as real as they were before.
There are days when the administrative weight feels heavy. But it is a gift to have developed a nervous system regulated enough for someone to anchor to while they are moving through their own challenges, helping them to expand their window of tolerance within their own system.
I am privileged to be trusted in witnessing people meeting parts of themselves they have avoided for years.
I am honored to see the relief that comes when someone realizes they are not broken.
I am grateful to have the capacity to sit with grief, pain, anger, and long-held trauma surfacing in ways that are messy and profound. Unregulated or regulated, that is foundational to any ethical psychedelic work.
The regulated model hasn’t diluted the meaning for me. If anything, it has asked me to hold it with more precision, more humility, and more care.
Moving Forward Together
Colorado’s experiment will influence policy and practice far beyond state lines. Those of us participating now carry a responsibility to engage critically, transparently, and humbly. We must learn from missteps and remain open to course correction.
The regulated model is one chapter in a much longer story about how we all relate to these medicines, to healing, and to one another. As the story continues to unfold, it may offer lessons worth carrying forward when approached with care, dialogue, and accountability.
