New Jersey Senate Panel Approves Psilocybin Therapy Legalization Bill

A New Jersey Senate committee has approved a bill that would legalize a therapeutic psilocybin program in the state, with even hesitant lawmakers saying that they’re coming around on the psychedelics proposal.

Members of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee voted almost unanimously Monday—with one member, Sen. Douglas J. Steinhardt (R), abstaining—to adopt a handful of amendments to the bill, S.2283, and advance it out of committee.

“I was for certain a hard no,” Steinhardt said before the vote, “but I’m listening and contemplating.”

Some of the members at Monday’s Senate committee hearing were visibly swayed by testimony from advocates who spoke in favor of the change. One speaker, for example—lawyer Lauren Dayton, who has served as a local elected official for the borough of Tenafly—explained that a single dose of psilocybin can effectively curb her otherwise incapacitating cluster headaches.

“None of the traditional medicine works,” Dayton told lawmakers. “I’ve had morphine drips in the ER that do not touch this level of pain. The only thing that I know that works is psilocybin. But if I have or take psilocybin, I could be arrested. I could lose my law license, which I value very much. I could lose an elected position.”

“This is my current reality,” she added, noting that she’s not typically a drug user and has “never even smoked pot.”

“This is the life I’ve had for 10 years now, trying to deal with this,” Dayon said. “If I take psilocybin, then I get no attacks in almost a year. One time, almost nine to 12 months of relief.”

A separate Senate committee previously passed the bill, sponsored by Senate President Nick Scutari (D), back in July. Later that month, an Assembly committee gave approval to a companion version of the psilocybin legislation in that chamber sponsored by Assemblymembers Herb Conaway (D), Clinton Calabrese (D) and Anthony Verrelli (D).

The intent of the proposal is to “deal with and address the very real deficiencies that we are finding in terms of treatment for those who are in distress and not yet not able to obtain therapeutic benefit by alternate means,” Conaway said at the time. “We’ll see as we move forward how this bill shapes up.”

If the amended Senate bill becomes law, it would legalize and create a state psilocybin program focused on therapeutic use. It was introduced as a broader measure—with provisions allowing adult use, possession and sharing of the substances—but amendments in the prior panel rolled back the proposal to focus exclusively on regulated access for authorized medical patients.

The shift away from broader adult-use legalization appears to have curried favor with lawmakers, some of whom said Monday that they felt more comfortable voting to advance the proposal in its latest form.

“I was on the fence, especially prior to some of the amendments getting into this bill,” said Sen. Michael L. Testa Jr. (R), but “I really like the changes, and coupled with the testimony that I heard, how it’s going to be really medically based as opposed to just purely wellness-based.”

Committee Chair Sen. Paul A. Sarlo (D) emphasized that S.2283 is “not recreational” but instead aimed at helping people “who are really struggling and who don’t want to get addicted to something.”

Sen. Declan J. O’Scanlon Jr. (R), meanwhile, said before the vote that the revised bill represented “democracy as it should work.”

The amendments incorporated into the latest version of the Senate bill make a number of adjustments. They replaced a provision on healthcare professionals referring patients to psilocybin services, for example, with language saying they would instead simply certify that the patient has a qualifying medical condition. Another change removed a provision that would have allowed psychologists, clinical social workers and professional counselors to certify patients.

The amended bill also clarifies that nothing in the legislation is meant to restrict access or distribution of any psilocybin drug that is eventually approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Other speakers at Monday’s hearing included a New York firefighter who developed cluster headaches following 9/11 as well as Hannah McLane—a doctor, psychotherapist and researcher who told lawmakers that research indicates psilocybin can help address treatment-resistant depression, alcohol use disorder, chronic pain, suicidal ideation and other conditions.

“On a daily basis, I see people healing from these types of therapies,” said McLane, who noted that she’s helped train psychedelic facilitators in Oregon and Colorado, both of which have established regulated psilocybin programs.

“It’s very important to understand the way the sessions work,” she told lawmakers. “Patients are being given psilocybin and then they’re being sat with for five to six hours. So it’s not that it’s a dispensary that you can go buy mushrooms.”

Services would also include mandatory preparation and integration sessions before and after the administration of psilocybin, according to the legislation.

Two other speakers—representatives of the labor unions AFL-CIO and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW)—also urged changes to the bill. Both said the measure needs to include worker protections and require union peace agreements in order to ensure that a state-legal psilocybin industry creates livable, middle-class jobs.

“We have a very niche interest in this bill,” the AFL-CIO speaker explained, “and that is to create careers instead of just low-wage jobs, just as we did through the cannabis legislation.”

The UFCW representative, meanwhile, also urged lawmakers to preserve home cultivation protections in the psilocybin legislation.

“If the home grow provision is removed from this bill,” said organizer Mike Burry, “then this chamber will be making the same mistake you are currently making with cannabis.”

Unlike in most states with legal marijuana, it remains unlawful in New Jersey for adults to grow cannabis for either medical or personal recreational use.

Initially, the psilocybin legislation was introduced in identical form to what lawmakers proposed last session—a plan that included personal legalization provisions, which the latest amended versions take out. Those components would have made it legal for adults to “possess, store, use, ingest, inhale, process, transport, deliver without consideration, or distribute without consideration, four grams or less of psilocybin.”

The amended measures would nevertheless significantly expand on legislation introduced in late 2020 to reduce penalties for possession of up to one ounce of psilocybin. That reform that was signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy (D) in 2021.

As for public opinion, a survey of New Jersey residents released in June found that a majority of state residents agree with making psilocybin available for therapeutic use, though they weren’t asked specifically about the state legislation.

The poll, from Stockton University’s William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy, found that 55 percent of respondents supported legalizing psilocybin for medical use under a doctor’s supervision. Just 20 percent of respondents were opposed, while 24 percent said they weren’t sure. One percent of respondents refused to answer the question.

Meanwhile in New Jersey, lawmakers have also introduced legislation that would allow people to prohibit themselves from entering licensed cannabis retailers—a proposal that mirrors a similar self-exclusion law around casinos that’s meant to help problem gamblers.

Some in the hemp industry are also suing the state in an effort to overturn new rules restricting intoxicating hemp-derived products.

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