Missouri Rep. Tony Lovasco introduced House Bill 869 on Jan. 18 that would allow psilocybin therapy, which is a revised version of a bill that he introduced in 2022. 

Under the current bill text, it would allow patients to use psilocybin to treat conditions such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as those who are terminally ill and suffering from mental health. It would also cover patients who have undergone treatments for other conditions that were unsuccessful.

Lovasco described his bill as “a first step to addressing pervasive mental health crises that affect every sector of our society and economy by creating access to clinically validated therapies,” Lovasco stated in a press release. “I am especially encouraged at clinical research suggesting psilocybin may be a tool to address our opiate addiction crisis.”

Under HB 869, the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) would be in charge of regulating psilocybin therapy, including opening up the treatment option to other qualifying conditions in the future. Anyone would be able to petition the DHSS to include a new condition that “benefits persons with the proposed condition in a manner equal to or greater than the benefit.”

Lovasco’s previous iteration of the bill, House Bill 2850, was introduced on March 1, 2022. It was given a hearing at the House Health and Mental Health Policy Committee on March 28, 2022, but did not move forward after that. The text originally mentioned ibogaine and mescaline, which has since been removed.

HB-869 now allows treatment options to expand if psilocybin is rescheduled under the Controlled Substances Act. If rescheduling occurs, it would allow any Missourian to become a patient as long as they are 21 or older to be eligible.

Although it’s uncertain what the fate of HB-869 will be, the topic of psilocybin has been ramping up in the U.S. and beyond.

In September 2022, the Missouri House Interim Committee on Veterans Mental Health and Suicide heard from Rahul Kapur, a physician, and numerous advocates about the potential benefits of psychedelics. “We, as fellow human beings and fellow Americans, owe our fellow countrymen and women our unqualified help to heal their mind, body and spirit—to honor their sacrifices in their family sacrifices,” Kapur said. “We have an obligation to keep exploring and providing them with any resources we have at our disposal. And, in my opinion, psychedelics are a key resource in this fight.”

Earlier this month, Missouri Rep. Michael Davis filed legislation that would amend the Right to Try Act, which was signed in 2018, so that it would allow patients to use psilocybin, ibogaine, or LSD as a treatment. “There is emerging interest and significant clinical research supporting the safety and efficacy of psychedelic drugs for PTSD, traumatic injury therapy and numerous other conditions,” Davis said in a press statement. “Because the [Food and Drug Administration] has not taken action to reschedule these drugs and make them generally available, I am working to make these drugs available through Missouri’s investigational drug access statute.”

Missouri is just one of many states seeking to open up access to psychedelic medicine. On Dec. 27, 2022, the Oregon Health Authority finalized rules for its Psilocybin Services Act, two years after voters passed the ballot in November 2020.

Researchers continued to study psilocybin as a medical treatment as well and continue to build up evidence of its effectiveness. The first take-home psilocybin trial in North America was approved in Canada in November 2022. The results of a double-blind trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in the same month, which revealed evidence that psilocybin is effective in treating severe depression. An Australian study recently published findings on how psilocybin can ease the stress of MRIs, with one patient describing the experience as “magical.”

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A bipartisan group of state lawmakers and cannabis activists is calling on Missouri Governor Mike Parson to include recreational marijuana legalization in a special legislative session scheduled for later this month. The legislators and advocates also announced the launch of a campaign to oppose a voter initiative to legalize adult-use cannabis, which will appear on the Missouri ballot as Amendment 3 in the November general election.

Missouri state lawmakers will return to the state Capitol in Jefferson City on September 14 to debate a $700 million tax cut plan advanced by Parson. But cannabis activists and legislators including Republican state Representative Tony Lovasco are calling on the governor to add discussions for a marijuana legalization plan that could be passed before the electorate votes on Amendment 3, which is supported by the state’s medical marijuana industry.

“Rather than settle for an ill-suited and monopolistic program shoehorned into our (state) constitution, the Missouri General Assembly has a unique opportunity to consider legislation that would legalize cannabis in a truly free market fashion,” Lovasco said.

The state legislature considered a bill to legalize recreational cannabis in Missouri earlier this year, but the legislation stalled under intense lobbying pressure from the established medical marijuana industry. Instead, the medical cannabis lobby supported the initiative campaign for Amendment 3, which would give current medical marijuana licensees the first shot at recreational cannabis licenses and put a cap on the number of marijuana businesses that can operate in the state.

State officials announced on August 9 that Amendment 3 had qualified for the ballot for this fall’s general election. On August 19, however, opponents of marijuana legalization filed a lawsuit to block the initiative from the November ballot.

Whether Parson will grant the request and add adult-use cannabis legalization to the agenda for the special legislative session remains to be seen. The governor has received significant campaign funding from the medical marijuana industry and has publicly opposed the recreational marijuana legalization amendment, saying that it is a “disaster” that will mostly benefit “corporations behind marijuana.”

Missouri Group Opposes Amendment 3

Advocates for including marijuana legalization talks in the special legislative session repeated Parson’s complaints about Amendment 3. State Representative Wiley Price, a Democrat, said that the proposal would “corner the market for those already in position and continue a long tradition of predatory behavior on minority and poor communities.”

Opponents of Amendment 3 also note that the initiative includes provisions that criminalize some marijuana-related activities. Because the proposal is a constitutional amendment, changing it in the future will be a difficult process.

“We oppose any effort to put criminal or civil penalties for marijuana in the Missouri Constitution,” said Jeremy Cady, director of Americans for Prosperity Missouri. “The General Assembly should act to end marijuana prohibition and do so in a manner that adheres to free market principles.”

“It can be changed, but it’s going to be very, very hard, so the people who put this in place, will have full control over whether something changes again,” added cannabis activist Timothy Gilio.

John Payne, campaign manager for Legal Missouri 2022, the group campaigning for the passage of Amendment 3, criticized Eapen Thampy, a lobbyist who is helping organize opposition to the ballot measure. He said if voters approve Amendment 3, it would “ruin [Thampy’s] business model of lobbying for failed marijuana legalization efforts year after year.”

“In November, we will become the 20th state to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana and the first state to vote for automatic expungement of past, non-violent marijuana offenses,” Payne said. “Amendment 3 will allow law enforcement to focus on serious and violent crime, while bringing millions in new revenues to Missourians.”

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People with serious depression or post-traumatic stress disorder would be permitted to use natural psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin under a bill recently unveiled in the Missouri state legislature. The measure, HB 2850, was introduced in the Missouri House last month by Representative Tony Lovasco.

Under HB 2850, people with treatment-resistant depression, PTSD or a terminal illness would be able to use psychedelic drugs obtained from plants or fungi. The measure would cover the substances dimethyltryptamine, ibogaine, mescaline (except peyote), psilocybin, and psilocyn, according to a summary of the legislation. The bill permits patients to acquire natural psychedelic drugs and use them in a health care facility, their residence, or a primary caregiver’s home.

Elaine Brewer, the founder of the Humble Warrior Wellness Center, says that the bill would give people struggling with mental illness a new option for care. As a military wife, she said that she faced extreme depression and anxiety over her husband’s safety, who served in Afghanistan. 

“I was constantly anxious that my family would be the next one to have that knock on the door,” Brewer told the Riverfront Times.

After therapy, yoga, meditation, pharmaceuticals, and other treatment options failed to provide relief, Brewer took a wellness retreat in Mexico, where she tried psilocybin and MDMA for the first time. The effects, she said, were immediate.

“It was like 10 years of therapy in two days,” said Brewer.

But legislators are skeptical of the legislation. At a legislative hearing, many noted that psilocybin is a Schedule 1 federally controlled substance.

“To me, that’s just absurd,” Lovasco said. “When you’re looking at stuff that is clearly demonstrated not to be dangerous, there’s no reason not to let people give it a shot.”

Others said that they thought more research is needed before the therapeutic use of psychedelics is approved.

“As a psychiatrist, I have grave concerns,” said Representative Lisa Thomas. “There are not enough studies, and even many of the studies that have been done in their conclusions acknowledge there’s not enough research, and we don’t know how these interact with other medications.”

Psychedelics Research Continues

The research into psychedelic drugs, however, continues to grow. This week, a team of researchers affiliated with the University of California San Francisco and Imperial College in London published a study that reveals a possible mechanism by which psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin can treat depression and other psychiatric conditions characterized by patterns of fixed thinking.

“The effect seen with psilocybin is consistent across two studies, related to people getting better, and was not seen with a conventional antidepressant,” Robin Carhart-Harris, the study’s lead author, said in a statement from UCSF. “In previous studies we had seen a similar effect in the brain when people were scanned whilst on a psychedelic, but here we’re seeing it weeks after treatment for depression, which suggests a ‘carry over’ of the acute drug action.”

David Nutt, head of the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research, noted that psilocybin could provide a new avenue of treatment for patients who have not made progress with other drugs.

“For the first time we find that psilocybin works differently from conventional antidepressants—making the brain more flexible and fluid, and less entrenched in the negative thinking patterns associated with depression,” said Nutt. “This supports our initial predictions and confirms psilocybin could be a real alternative approach to depression treatments.”

Ginger Nicol, a practicing psychiatrist and a researcher at Washington University, told Missouri lawmakers that the ongoing research could dramatically change therapy for serious mental illness.

“If the results of the smaller studies that have been done carry through in our larger studies, then it will probably be a revolution in mental health and psychiatric pharmacology,” Nichols said.

As it is written, HB 2850 would only benefit those with treatment-resistant depression or PTSD and those with terminal illnesses, although patients could petition the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to add more conditions.

“The idea here is that you’ve got to start somewhere,” Lovasco responded. “We’re simply saying, ‘Look, if we did decriminalize it in certain quantities in certain conditions in certain circumstances, that opens the door to not only furthering this conversation, but hopefully getting some of that data that a lot of people are looking for.’”

The legislation has been referred to the House Committee on Health and Mental, which held two hearings on HB 2850. However, the bill is not currently on the House calendar for further action.

“I don’t think it’s super likely to be signed into law this year as it’s a very new issue for Missouri,” said Lovasco. “We definitely gotta start the conversation and work towards something we can get consensus on.”

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