Psychedelics derived from plants, commonly referred to as psychedelic mushrooms or natural medicine, are coming to Colorado after the state legalized use in a 2022 ballot proposition. Fountain is the second municipality after Colorado Springs in the Pikes Peak area to start looking at zoning regulations for potential related businesses. 

Under the new state law, a licensed facility can supervise the use of psilocybin and psilocin — the psychoactive substances in psychedelic mushrooms — for people over the age of 21 in a controlled setting. Growing mushrooms for personal use under certain conditions is also legal.

The Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies will begin taking licensing applications for facilities on Dec. 31. 

The new law allows local governments to regulate the time, place and “manner” of psychedelic facilities without banning facilities entirely. Fountain on Tuesday night passed an ordinance on first reading that would define its regulatory abilities.

The new ordinance proposes a 1,000-foot minimum pedestrian distance between a facility and any school, childcare center or residential dwelling. The requirement is less geographically extensive than Colorado Springs’ proposed ordinance, also discussed at a meeting this week, that requires a mile minimum distance. 

Colorado Springs looks to zone ‘magic mushroom’ healing centers out of majority of the city

The Fountain restrictions would provide some location possibilities for a psychedelics facility, including in industrially zoned spaces both west and east of Interstate 25. 

Fountain officials said that a larger radius like a mile would effectively prohibit a facility anywhere in Fountain city limits, which would be unreasonably discriminatory. 

“I think that probably doesn’t fit into the ‘reasonable’ category, especially looking at our zoning map, because we can’t outright ban it through adding so much distance that there would be no land available in Fountain,” said Fountain Assistant City Attorney Grace Williams at the meeting. 

Mayor Sharon Thompson and other council members emphasized that the city of Fountain was not endorsing the psychedelics industry with the ordinance. 

“We have no choice,” said Thompson. “This is in our city whether we want it or not, and we’re just trying to say where we want it.” 

Under the proposed language, which could be amended before a final vote, psychedelic facilities are restricted to areas zoned for planned industrial use. 

Colorado is just the second state in the country to legalize psilocybin mushrooms and some other plant-based psychedelics. Oregon, which legalized in 2020 and began accepting licensing applications in 2023, now has about 40 psilocybin service centers registered statewide and hundreds of licensed “facilitators,” according to the state’s licensing directory. 

Service centers, as they are referred to in Oregon, typically cost a user $2,000 to $3,000 per administration, which according to most facility websites includes pre and post-use guidance as well as a multihour supervised session inside the facility. 

Psilocybin and other psychedelics have been increasing in popularity as a treatment for mental illness including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, while there remains no official medical consensus on effectiveness. Use in Colorado does not require a prescription. 

Psilocybin is still federally illegal and classified as a Schedule I substance, meaning it is considered to have a high potential for abuse and does not have a currently accepted medical use.