Minnesota House lawmakers have voted to legalize the regulated therapeutic use of psilocybin for adults 21 and older.

The reform was added to broader health policy legislation via an amendment on the floor of the House of Representatives that was adopted by a vote of 114-15 on Thursday. The amended legislation now heads to the Senate for consideration.

The psilocybin provisions that are advancing are similar to those of a standalone bill that was approved earlier this year by the House Health Finance and Policy Committee, though that legislation had also contained language to reschedule the psychedelic under state statute, which is not part of the new amendment.

Rep. Andy Smith (DFL), who sponsored both the new amendment and the standalone bill, said on the floor that “psilocybin has shown, through a lot of wonderful research, an incredible ability to help those who are struggling with a wide variety of mental health concerns— from depression to addiction recovery, as well as PTSD, especially in veterans or public safety officers and those who have experienced a traumatic event, as well as assault survivors.”

Rep. Max Rymer (R) cited a recent psychedelics executive order signed by President Donald Trump, saying that the state legislation could help make Minnesota eligible to receive some federal funds that are being made available to support research on the issue.

“The way that I look at this amendment is it creates an offering for people to not get hooked, necessarily, into drugs on an ongoing basis, but actually use a therapeutic like this to almost rewire their brain,” he said. “The testimony that we heard firsthand, from especially a lot of our veterans, was that this was life-changing.”

Rep. Nolan West (R) said that the availability of federal funds for psychedelic research is “one of the biggest reasons to do this today.”

“Many states are in no way ready to utilize that money. So by being early, we can have a program that will help many people with severe conditions, and we’ll have it paid for by the federal government,” he said. “That money is going to be spent, and  it might as well be spent benefiting Minnesotans.”

“If you talk to a lot of veterans, or really anybody who has had this experience in this space, on how it’s helped them, it’s a unique intervention that fundamentally improves brain function and can address things unlike anything we’ve seen,” West said.

Smith also filed a similar measure last year that did not ultimately advance to enactment. He has said the legislation was informed by recommendations from a state psychedelics task force that was formed under a separate law he sponsored.

Under the current legislation, qualified patients 21 and older could receive psilocybin-assisted therapy in an approved private residence or at a licensed treatment facility.

A registered facilitator would need to administer the psychedelic. To start, the program would need to involve licensing 20 to 50 facilitators, with at least three approved testing facilities for psilocybin. No more than 1,000 patients could participate in the psychedelic therapy for the first three years of the law’s implementation.

“There are 1,000 Minnesotans right now who feel lost, who feel like potentially, that their life is over, that they can’t function,” Smith said ahead of the most recent vote. “Probably not all 1,000 will find this drug helpful, but a lot of them will, and it will lead them to a better life than they thought is possible right now.”

The Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) would be responsible for overseeing the program and establishing rules, and a new Psychedelic Medicine Advisory Committee would be established.

Psilocybin sessions would involve “preparation” with a patient-facilitator consultation, “administration” where patients would receive the psychedelic and “integration” where patients would work with professionals to process the therapeutic experience.

Kurtis Hanna, who worked as a volunteer lobbyist to pass prior legislation to establish the state’s psychedelics task force, told Marijuana Moment that he’s “extremely happy” about the latest development.

“I couldn’t have predicted that, three years later, the movement would gain this much support,” Hanna, who serves as board president for the Psychedelic Access Project, said. “Advocating for cannabis law reform over the past 17 years was difficult—we narrowly passed medical cannabis in 2014 and adult-use legalization in 2023—so it’s notable and encouraging that psychedelic law reform is resonating differently.”

Separately, the Senate Finance Committee earlier this week adopted an amendment directing OCM to “regularly analyze the availability of federal programs to provide funds to support state efforts to establish a psilocybin therapeutic use program for individuals aged 21 and older who have qualifying medical conditions to access and use psilocybin under medical supervision.”

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Meanwhile in Minnesota, the state’s first government-run marijuana retailer recently opened its doors, marking another milestone in the state’s adult-use cannabis program.

Last September, Minnesota officials granted the state’s first-ever marijuana event organizer license, allowing adults to buy and consume cannabis products on-site at a festival. The first non-tribal marijuana shops opened for sales to adults 21 and older earlier that month.

Also last year, the Minnesota city of Eden Prairie sought suggestions from residents on what to name a new, government-branded cannabis gummy product to be sold at municipal liquor stores.

Minnesota’s House of Representatives circulated a poll at last year’s State Fair that asked attendees about the idea of allowing localities to enact bans on marijuana businesses within their borders. Most respondents who have an opinion on the issue agree with the policy, despite it not currently being a part of the state’s cannabis laws.

Ahead of the enactment of legalization in Minnesota, lawmakers’ separate State Fair polls found majority support for the reform.

The governor has also selected a top cannabis regulator for the state who will oversee the adult-use market rollout. Last June, OCM issued the state’s first recreational marijuana license for a cultivation microbusiness.

OCM said at the time that it’s taking further steps to build up in the industry and create opportunities to entrepreneurs, including opening a new licensing window for cannabis testing facilities, accepting the first applications for marijuana event licenses and verifying more social equity status requests.

Separately, after Minnesota lawmakers passed a bill to end the criminalization of bong water containing trace amount of drugs, the governor signed the measure into law last May.

The change addresses an existing policy that had allowed law enforcement to treat quantities of bong water greater than four ounces as equivalent to the pure, uncut version of whatever drug the device was used to consume.

Meanwhile, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said in December that the state is “exploring” how to respond to an impending federal ban on hemp THC products, which would be “very disruptive” to a “thriving industry.”

Read the full psilocybin amendment adopted by the Minnesota House below:

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia/Workman.

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