EVERETT — When state Sen. Jesse Salomon proposed his first bill on “magic” mushrooms in 2022, he was mostly curious about the response it would get.
His phone started blowing up.
“I had more interest, more emails, more contacts, more coverage on this than anything else I’ve done politically,” said Salomon, who represents the 32nd Legislative District stretching from Lynnwood to Shoreline. “At one point, I had to stop making the quote (to the press), ‘I had no idea how much interest there was.’”
Psilocybe mushrooms, also known as psychedelic mushrooms or “shrooms,” contain the hallucinogens psilocybin and psilocin. When ingested, psilocybin can produce powerful visual, auditory and psychological effects.
Research has been limited due to its 53-year history as a Schedule I drug, but has shown psilocybin spurs growth of neural connections within the brain, suggesting a potential treatment for mental health issues. Just a single dose of psilocybin was enough to produce “rapid and therapeutic effects in human clinical trials,” according to a recent study in Nature.
For millennia, the psychedelic was a staple of religious ceremonies among Indigenous populations and is now also a popular recreational drug.
In 2022, Salomon sponsored Senate Bill 5660 to create a framework for mental health practitioners to have “guides” or “trip-sitters,” who lead clients through psychedelic experiences after ingesting psilocybin. The legislation was patterned after Oregon’s Ballot Measure 109, approved in 2020.
Salomon’s initial measure, known as the Washington Psilocybin Wellness and Opportunity Act, failed in Olympia. Another version made it through the following year with bipartisan support. Lawmakers turned the new bill into a clinical trial at the University of Washington to research the potential therapeutic benefits of psilocybin.
The trial will be the first in the country to study the impact of psychedelic therapy in patients with post-traumatic stress and alcohol use disorders. The policy places Washington among other states — such as Oregon and California — that have made leeway into de-stigmatizing hallucinogenic drugs.
‘This could be a breakthrough’
Picture an old stereotype of the person interested in “shrooms.” They might be wearing a tie-dye shirt and barefoot. That’s not Salomon. A lawyer by trade who wears wire-rimmed glasses, psychedelic therapy is a relatively new interest for the state senator.
In 2021, Salomon felt the political landscape shift in the state’s approach to drugs. The state Supreme Court ruling in State v. Blake deemed Washington’s felony drug possession charge unconstitutional because it “did not require intent, or knowledge of possession.” In the aftermath, state lawmakers passed a bill reclassifying drug possession as a misdemeanor.
The Shoreline-based senator saw a chance to forge a path for psychedelic-assisted therapy. In an interview, Salomon didn’t share any personal experience with psilocybin, but after introducing the first bill, veterans who had benefited from psychedelic therapy reached out.
“The results were too exciting to ignore,” Salomon said. “I had it in the back of my mind that this could be a breakthrough type of approach.”
In the 1960s, federal funding into psychedelic drug research ended amid the crackdown of President Richard Nixon’s “war on drugs.” Since 1971, psilocybin and psilocin have been listed as Schedule I drugs — defined as those with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” alongside the likes of heroin, LSD, marijuana, ecstasy, methaqualone and peyote.
In 2019, Denver became the first U.S. city to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms. In 2020, Oregon voters passed Measure 109, allowing the production, sale and administration of psilocybin at licensed facilities.
The Oregon Health Authority accepted the first applications for psilocybin service licenses in January 2023. Oregon Psilocybin Services issued its first license two months later and the first service center opened in May of that year.
Last year in California, meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation to decriminalize possession of the plant-based hallucinogen. In February of this year, California lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill that would allow people 21 and older to consume psychedelic mushrooms while under the watch of a therapist. In May, a Senate committee stopped the bill in its tracks.
Gov. Jay Inslee signed Salomon’s revamped legislation in 2023. The measure required a drug trial begin by Jan. 1, 2025, said Dr. Nathan Sackett, an addiction psychiatrist overseeing the University of Washington study. Sackett expects enrollment to be completed by New Year’s Day.
The legislation set aside $2.2 million to complete the research, Sackett said. The patient population will include veterans or first responders with post-traumatic stress and alcohol use disorder. The study won’t include a control population of patients without comorbidities. Information about enrolling will be posted on the UW addiction psychiatry center’s website.
The drug trial is unique because most psilocybin research has focused on either mental illness or substance use disorders, Sackett said. This one combines the two.
The study will use a synthetic version of psilocybin, extracted by a company that isolates the chemical compound from the mushroom. The standard dose is 25 milligrams (or 3.5 grams of dried, whole mushrooms). Participants will only take a single dose, attending therapy sessions before and after.
Salomon expects other states to move forward with policies that create access for psychedelic therapy. After the drug trial, it’s only a matter of time until Washington follows suit, he said.
“I see a path, whether we keep trying at the legislative level or go the initiative route,” Salomon said. “Many states have passed bills similar as we did recently, so this conversation is certainly evolving.”
‘Not a party drug’
Biologically, the drug interacts with a serotonin receptor within the brain — creating downstream psychological effects. It’s an intense, subjective experience, Sackett said. Within that, it’s possible to shift a stagnant perspective.
Psilocybin affects neuroplasticity, the scientific term for the brain’s ability to change, reorganize and make new connections, Sackett said. Childrens’ brains are much more malleable, capable of absorbing different languages or adopting new ways of thinking. Psilocybin could reopen that window, helping people who struggle with mental illness or substance use disorders to reorient the way they approach life.
“By disrupting some of the communication within the brain, you’re allowed to see your own story from a different angle,” Sackett said. “We all have an internal voice that’s narrating our life, and sometimes that narration can become problematic for us and tell us a lot of negative or unhelpful things.”
Existing research suggests a correlation between the intensity of a psychedelic experience and a positive clinical outcome, providing some relief from mental health issues, Sackett said.
“You can have a really challenging ‘trip’ that should not be labeled a ‘bad trip’ because you are moving through your issues,” Salomon said. “And then you have an experience of relief. It’s hard to talk about, you might cry. That’s some of the experience with these difficult trips.”
Salomon’s legislation requires mental health screenings before gaining access to psilocybin. While adverse experiences could feel cathartic or psychologically helpful, people with pre-existing mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia, face some risks.
In a recent example from October, a former Alaska Airlines pilot allegedly tried to cut the engines of a Horizon Air flight while riding in the cockpit jump seat. The pilot, Joseph Emerson, had been struggling with depression since a friend’s death. Emerson said that 48 hours earlier, he had taken mushrooms for the first time to help mourn. The experience triggered a nervous breakdown.
Salomon objects to the recreational use of psilocybin. For millennia, Indigenous communities have used psilocybin for medicinal and spiritual purposes.
“To use (psilocybin), respecting ancient practices across the world, there was always a set and a setting, it wasn’t a ‘party drug,’” Salomon said.
‘Let’s do this’
Regulating the illegal substance in Washington has proved politically challenging, Salomon said. Other lawmakers wanted a clinical model allowing pharmaceutical companies to source psilocybin — raising costs and creating a barrier for low-income and marginalized people, Salomon argued.
“The profit motive comes in at a very high level at that point, and I also don’t think you should have to have a mental illness to experience this,” Salomon said. “We don’t need to further burden the system by limiting access to require a diagnosis.”
Cultivating a batch of psychedelic mushrooms costs “next to nothing,” Salomon said. This year, Salomon also sponsored SB 5977, proposing a financial structure for psilocybin access that would put nonprofits in charge of producing the mushrooms. The legislation was an attempt to rid the structure of costly licensing fees. It did not get a committee hearing in Olympia this year.
Despite the legal, political and financial difficulties, other illegal substances are slowly being considered as a potential treatment for mental health and substance abuse disorders.
Ibogaine, a naturally occurring psychedelic plant, has also been touted as a breakthrough drug for treating people addicted to opiates. Research suggests ibogaine may allow a person to skip most of the withdrawal symptoms associated with trying to stop using opiates. A study from the University of California, Davis, compared ibogaine to buprenorphine — a drug commonly used for opiate withdrawals — and found ibogaine was 30% more effective at reducing opioid use.
In March, the Washington Legislature launched the country’s first state-funded study into the safety of ibogaine to treat opioid use disorder. State lawmakers set aside $250,000 for the study.
Ketamine therapy, which uses an anesthetic drug first synthesized in 1962, can be found in clinics throughout the region to treat chronic pain or depression. Recent studies have shown ketamine is extraordinarily effective for treatment-resistant depression. But treatment can be costly, as health insurance doesn’t cover the drug.
In 2017, the Food And Drug Administration gave “breakthrough therapy” status to MDMA, or ecstasy, often touted as a party drug, after research showed it seemed to help patients with trauma feel safer talking about their painful memories.
Last month, FDA advisors voted against MDMA therapy, citing problems with the research. The advisory board took issue with the “functional unblinding” problem — or the ability of participants to tell whether they have been given the real drug or a placebo, potentially skewing the results of the treatment.
Sackett said functional unblinding will always be a prevalent issue in psychedelic research, but it shouldn’t deter lawmakers from pursuing it.
“With psychedelics, we’re just going to have to accept the limitations of the findings and, I think, look to population health to better inform things,” Sackett said. “As a psychiatrist, I care less as long as it works, whether it’s a placebo or not.”
In 2024, 172 people have died of a drug overdose in Snohomish County, according to the medical examiner’s office drug overdose dashboard. The total number of non-fatal overdoses is much higher.
In a 2022 community health assessment, half of adults surveyed in Snohomish County reported having at least one poor mental health day in the past 30 days. The percentage of adults with serious mental illness also doubled since 2015, from 2.9% to 5.8%, according to health department data.
“We have a mental health crisis… how many suicides do we need to have until we’re ‘ready’ to allow legal access in Washington state?” Salomon said. “How many overdoses are we going to accept until we say, ‘Let’s do this.’”
Jonathan Tall: 425-339-3486; jonathan.tall@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @snocojon.
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