Legal weed, countrywide
It was 2023 when news first broke that the Biden Administration was recommending a reclassification of cannabis, which would essentially decriminalize it nationwide.
Progress on that front was slow but steady in 2024. In March, the Department of Justice got on board, followed by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in April. A DEA hearing, initially scheduled for December, was delayed until January or February of next year.
Though incoming president Donald Trump has expressed support for rescheduling reform in the past, his pick for attorney general — former Florida AG Pam Bondi — was part of a commission that linked cannabis to opioid addiction and challenged efforts to legalize medical marijuana.
Bondi will be responsible for picking the new head of the DEA.
Feds deny MDMA
Hopeful therapists and their patients were dejected after Lykos Therapeutics’ application for MDMA-assisted therapy was rejected as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in August.
The drug had promising results in clinical trials, with 71% of participants reporting improvement. But regulators were squeamish about greenlighting it, given the role psychotherapy plays in recovery, among other concerns.
Regulators told Lykos to come back with more data. Another clinical trial is being planned, according to Bruce Poulter, a researcher with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which ran the clinical trial before spinning off Lykos, as well as Lykos’ lead trainer. (Disclosure: I participated in MAPS’ clinical trial in Boulder, and Poulter was one of my practitioners.)
“It’s gonna be three to four years” before Lykos can take another stab at FDA approval, he said. “It’s completely heartbreaking that we’re not able to offer [this] right now.”
Boulder moms push for dab ban
Anxious parents and health care providers asked Boulder’s Cannabis Licensing and Advisory Board (CLAB) to ban marijuana concentrates and put mandatory warnings on high-potency THC products, worried about the potential impacts to young people’s mental and physical health.
Though the issue was raised at an August meeting, CLAB did not make any recommendations regarding a ban or warning labels. According to city licensing specialist Kristen Changaris, as of Dec. 16, high-potency cannabis products are not on CLAB’s 2025 agenda.
The cannabis industry is strongly opposed to a ban on concentrates, which make up more than a third of all marijuana sales in Colorado. Truman Bradley, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group, told Boulder Weekly in October that keeping products legal and regulated was “the hill we will die on.”
Psychedelic rollout
Colorado had a busy year preparing for the launch of natural medicine healing centers and institutions to train future psychedelic facilitators. Training programs are already receiving the state’s green light, while commercial healing centers can begin applying for licenses Dec. 31.
Naropa, Boulder’s Buddhist university, was the first licensed psychedelic educator in the state, but the launch of its program was delayed after insurers forced the university to distance itself from psychedelics.
That program will now be run by Memoru Center for Visionary Healing Arts, headed by former university faculty and a group of local therapists and researchers who worked with Lykos and MAPS, including Poulter.
The “next step” for Memoru is finding a physical location, Poulter said. If progress continues at the state level, “in May we can actually start providing psilocybin services.”
Memoru is one of three Boulder County operations that have received state regulators’ OK.
Local towns, too, had to decide where healing centers could go, when they could operate, etc. Boulder, Lafayette and Louisville all updated their zoning regulations, or are somewhere in the process; Longmont does not appear to have discussed the issue yet, according to a review of city council agendas for 2024.
In 2025, healing centers will be limited to using psilocybin and psilocin. But lawmakers have the option of expanding allowed substances beginning in 2026 to include DMT, mescaline and ibogaine.
The latter, which is legal in New Zealand, has a great potential for treating substance use disorder, Poulter said.
“That could really change people’s lives in a very powerful way,” he said. “What Colorado is doing is really interesting.”