Oregon regulators just approved the first legal psilocybin cultivation license to ever be issued in the United States.
This Wednesday, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) awarded Satori Farms PDX LLC a license to legally grow and process psilocybin mushrooms. This historic license is not only the first to be issued under the state’s voter-approved psilocybin therapy program, but the first to be issued anywhere in the US. And in another unique first, regulators awarded the license to a woman-owned business – a fitting choice for Women’s History Month.
“We congratulate Tori Armbrust of Satori Farms PDX LLC for being issued the first psilocybin license in Oregon’s history and for representing women leading the way for the emerging psilocybin ecosystem,” Oregon Psilocybin Services Section Manager Angie Allbee said in a statement. “We are committed to fostering an inclusive partnership with our regulated community to ensure safe, effective and equitable psilocybin services throughout the state.”
Oregon’s psilocybin therapy law, which was approved by voters in the 2020 election, allows adults to legally consume psilocybin in a therapeutic setting. This historic law requires the state to license companies to grow and process natural psilocybin shrooms and sell them to legal therapy centers. These centers will then administer these shrooms to patients under the supervision of licensed psilocybin facilitators, perhaps better known as trip sitters.
Licensed cultivators are allowed to grow and produce whole dried shrooms, ground homogenized fungi, extracts, and processed edibles. These products must then be tested by a state-licensed laboratory before they can be sold or transferred to the therapy center where they will be administered to patients. The state also requires every product to be entered into a digital tracking system to ensure that none of these shrooms end up on the black market.
The new cultivation license brings Oregon one step closer to opening its first legal psilocybin therapy centers. Before the program can get underway, the Oregon Psilocybin Services (OPS) agency must issue licenses to cultivators, testing labs, service centers, and facilitators. The state’s first class of 105 facilitators graduated from their training sessions earlier this month and are already applying for their licenses.
So far, the OPS has received 224 psilocybin worker permit and license applications. Out of that total, they have granted one cultivation license and 48 worker permits. Regulators still need to license testing labs and service centers before patients can start booking their first shroom sessions, though. The OPS said that it “expects to issue additional licenses to laboratories, service centers and facilitators in the coming months.”
Colorado regulators will likely be keeping a close watch on Oregon’s progress. Last year, Colorado voters approved a ballot measure that legalizes psilocybin therapy centers closely modeled on the Beaver State’s historic psilocybin initiative. But in contrast with Oregon’s law, Colorado will also allow adults to grow shrooms and other natural psychedelics for their own personal, private use.
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