I talked to a therapist offering psilocybin therapy in Oregon recently. I was saddened to learn that a legal psilocybin treatment can often cost around $3,400 in Oregon. Undergound treatments and ceremonies usually range in the $100-500 range, so this is quite a bit more expensive to go the legal route. Where does all that extra money go? Mostly licensing and legal fees sadly - so basically the government and the pharma industry want to turn this into a therapy only accessible to the wealthy while still putting the less fortunate in prison. This is especially sad knowing that mental health is often a large contributing factor to lower income situations.
I always tell people the most important aspect to making sure you have deeply healing and safe ceremonies in finding a good provider, but if the only options were doing it on your own for $20 or paying a therapist $3,400 I would recommend going solo. That price doesnt seem worth a few hours of attention from someone, and we all know that while a good facilitator can add a lot it is still the mushrooms doing the heavy lifting. Makes me feel even more committed to offering safe and affordable ceremonies so the sick don't have to be exploited by a corrupt system.
If Oregon legalized recreational and/or religious use alongside theraputic use, they wouldn't be able to get away with prices like that. This is a government controlled monopoly. Looking at the licensing fees and the prices charged to patients it feels so predatory to me. I think it is a big mistake only making this available through incredibly expensive means considering mushrooms grow free across our entire planet and cost maybe $100 to make your own large supply at home. Yes, therapists and other people working hard deserve to get payed, but a fair and affordable wage is different then an exploitive price tag mostly benefiting the government and pharma industry.
Religious freedom is an incredibly important right to protect, and this situation is driving that home to me more then ever. The oldest evidence of people using mushrooms for ceremony is over 12,000 years old so there is no way to justify excluding this sacrament from religious protection. If you have the chance to participate in protecting our freedoms, I urge you to please look beyond for profit companies like MAPS and John Hopkins - they have their place and are helping the movement in some ways, but if left only to the medical field I don't see this going in a great direction for the public. I actually approve a regulated psychedelic industry if it is done fairly and is accessible to everyone who needs it, but I find it very hard to support a system that is so exclusive.
All adults deserve freedom. All people deserve access to affordable healthcare. Religion should not be criminalized. Legalizing expensive therapy isn't enough - I hope our community can come together in solidarity to encourage full legalization for all adults and protecting religious freedom so that we don't have to settle for a exploitive monopoly of nature. Nature is the right of every human on this Earth, and I won't stop offering information and safe opportunities to connect with nature in the best ways that I know how. I thank our community for all the support they give me so that I can keep offering something that I really believe in.