By Avery Stempel
The Legislative Office Building at the State Capitol in Albany, NY, has so much marble. Whenever I visit, I am awestruck by the glistening stone walls and the way my steps echo when no one else seems to be around. The hearing room, where we had our first lawmaker panel and discussion about creating a pathway for legal access to psilocybin-containing mushrooms for New Yorkers, followed a screening of 4 short films by Reconsider about the impact of psilocybin and other psychedelics, is lined with lovely warm wooden walls. It’s cozy, with comfortable chairs. The early April event was attended by Assemblymembers and Senators, a couple of dozen aides and legislative assistants. The questions were thoughtful, the discussion lively, and the interest levels were high. Legislators on both sides of the aisle are dedicated to making this happen, and many are considering whether they should add their support. Shaking my head in humored confusion as I often do when I leave the Empire State Plaza, I wondered how I found myself rubbing elbows with lawyers and lawmakers and helping to pen a bill now being considered by the New York State legislature.
Mushrooms have always played a role in my life. They’ve been a source of inspiration, a reminder of the mysteries surrounding us. I grew up on a small family sawmill in East Berne, New York. I would traipse through the forest with my mom while my dad felled trees. We decorated our house with humungous shelf mushrooms harvested from cut logs. We burned wood for heat that was myceliated with tiny brackets like Turkey Tail and Violet Toothed Polypores.
After my undergraduate studies ended, I entered the professional world, married, had children, and meandered through life for a few years, only tangentially touching the world of fungi. It wasn’t until I met Amy Hood that I began to hear the song of the mycoworld once more. She had been growing Shiitake in logs as a hobby, and we both found and identified mushrooms in the wild whenever we encountered them. We started foraging for food. Talk about running a mushroom farm would occasionally splash into our conversations and we’d smile at the thought of constantly being surrounded by growing fungi.
When the COVID pandemic hit, I was managing a performing arts center. With in-person gatherings halted, I was understandably furloughed. I decided it was time to pivot, to take the leap, to learn to farm. We officially opened Collar City Mushrooms for business in February of 2021. Having a background in education and art, I planned on hosting educational field trips and artist exhibitions where we grow our specialty culinary crops. We built three fruiting chambers and a lab with windows so visitors to the farm could get as close to the process as possible.
Now, we are a retail shop for fresh mushrooms, collectibles, and grow supplies. I quickly realized that a third or more of our guests were coming in to find psilocybin-containing products. With furtive glances or bold declarations, these guests would ask where to find “those kinds” of mushrooms. They assumed we were growing psychotropic varieties. From veterans suffering from PTSD to folks with parents dying on hospice care to parents with depressed children who’d been medicated for decades but were still struggling, patron after patron would enter and plead with me for help. They all wove such compelling tales, with the common denominator being a drive to try something new, something natural, or something they had heard actually works.
Corinne Carey was one of our most ardent early customers. She is a culinary artist and professional advocate, and at the time, she was a producer for the Sanctuary for Independent Media’s radio show. She heard all these stories and decided we needed to take action. We assembled New York State’s first official symposium on psilocybin-containing mushrooms: Ending the Prohibition of the Mind. We produced a two-hour program featuring therapists, lawyers, advocates, and two lawmakers, Assemblymembers Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan) and Pat Burke (D-Buffalo), the first lawmakers to sponsor legislation to open access to psilocybin. Participants asked how they could get involved during the question and answer portion. The next month, we hosted the first monthly meetings of our group, New Yorkers for Mental Health Alternatives, which has been going strong for over three years.
Our regular meetings are advocacy-forward; we primarily plan actions and discuss our successes and challenges. They have also become a haven for people seeking information about how psilocybin-containing mushrooms can be incorporated into one’s well-care routine. We have hosted a myriad of guest speakers: spiritual leaders, doctors, lawyers, advocates, veterans, a former police chief, and researchers, who have all provided our community with insight and concepts to ponder. In addition to meeting at our Troy-based mushroom farm, we’ve gathered in person at a gallery in Kingston and, at The Linda in Albany, we hosted a disc golf tournament at a public park and spent countless hours at the Capitol meeting with lawmakers. We have hosted 2 Spotlight on Mental Health Alternatives sessions in the Legislative Office Building, where groups from across the state shared their reasons for wanting to create a pathway for legal Psilocybin use.
We have been meeting with Senators and Assemblymembers on agriculture committees as we work to lay the groundwork for when legal cultivation of psilocybin-containing mushrooms begins. These active mushrooms will become a viable crop for New York’s mushroom farmers.
Educating lawmakers and those unfamiliar with psychedelics about the promise held by substances that promote neural plasticity takes time and effort. However, it is becoming easier as we work to disentangle misinformation from facts and correct people’s misperceptions. Our core team pushes to create change and continues to grow. Lawyers, therapists, researchers, counselors, doctors, chaplains, nurses, veterans, chefs, musicians, artists, programmers, and farmers dedicate their time and expertise to the cause. Our group’s name and our work are now getting national attention as news of our bill spreads.
Four bills are active in the New York State legislature that directly pertain to psilocybin-containing mushrooms. A114 by AM Rosenthal aims to decriminalize possession and use, as well as growing and sharing. There is no provision for sales in this bill. A3581/S3520, carried by AM Burke and Senator Nathalia Fernandez (D-Bronx/Westchester), would create a “therapeutic access program” where New Yorkers will be able to use psilocybin for a wide range of conditions, overseen by trained experts. A8349/S7832, also carried by Burke and Fernandez, would establish a psilocybin-assisted therapy pilot program for ten thousand veterans and first responders from the western region of New York State. Psilocybin-containing mushrooms would only be available through the approved therapy sessions. The fourth bill, A10375, introduced by Assemblymember and Health Committee Chair Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale), would create a “personal psilocybin permit system ” allowing adult use of psilocybin for health and wellness purposes. The bill would require that adults complete a health screening and take a psilocybin safety education course to acquire a permit. Permits would authorize adults to purchase, grow, possess, and independently engage in regulated use of psilocybin. The bill would also allow licensed cultivators to sell limited amounts of psilocybin to permitted adults with secure delivery. Unlike legislation authorizing adult use of marijuana, the bill does not contemplate the sale of psilocybin in retail stores. The bill would inform permitted adults of their ability to hire trained and certified support service providers who can help reduce risks and increase safety during the use of psilocybin; those professionals would be required to satisfy ethical standards of care and ongoing educational requirements.
We worked closely with Chairwoman Paulin to craft this first-of-its-kind, safety- and wellness-focused approach to psilocybin legislation based on hundreds of conversations with professionals and legal experts nationwide and a thorough review of the evidence.
Through 2025, we will continue our efforts to educate New Yorkers and those who represent them in Albany alike about the soundness of this approach while working with advocates to replicate the model in other states. We have begun meeting with advocates and lawmakers from New Hampshire to Maryland to California. Our ultimate goal is to create a system with the right amount of guardrails and educational components to allow individuals legal access to these natural substances that promote neural plasticity, are anti-inflammatory, spiritually significant, and potentially facilitate healing.
If this is an area of interest to you, please get involved. Change to laws and policy only happens when citizens step up and raise their voices. The best way to create change is by sharing your personal story. Talk to your friends, neighbors, and family. Most importantly, tell your state representatives that this issue is important to you. You can also join our monthly meetings held in person at Collar City Mushrooms in Troy (333 2nd Ave, Troy, NY 12182) and online via Zoom to those dialing in from across the state. Visit www.NYMHA.com for more information on our advocacy efforts and www.collarcitymushrooms.com for information about our farm.
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