Denver has decriminalized magic mushrooms, signaling that psychedelics’ medicinal potential is now being recognized.

The fact that Denver has become the first city to decriminalize psilocybin has been fantastic news for our entire staff.

Psilocybin, along with other classic psychedelics like LSD and DMT, was classed as a Schedule 1 substance about 50 years ago, meaning it was identified as having the highest potential for abuse and no medicinal benefit. This simply isn’t the case. For millennia, our ancestors have employed these substances as medicinal and spiritual aids, and in recent years, scientific research has begun to investigate how they act in the brain and their potential efficacy in treating a wide range of currently treatment-resistant conditions.

In 1998, I founded the Beckley Foundation to learn more about how psychedelic substances, also known as “food of the gods,” work in the human body and how its potential may be exploited to benefit health and wellness.

We have conducted pioneering studies, often using brain imaging technology, over the last 14 years in collaboration with a number of leading institutions around the world, in order to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying these changing states of consciousness, and to figure out how they can best be harnessed to bring about deep healing.