As psychedelic therapy begins in Colorado, Avon builds its own regulations

Avon is homing in on the regulations it will place on psychedelic distributors and trip-facilitating operators.

The Town Council at its April 22 meeting heard from Town Attorney Betsy Stewart about the limitations it can and cannot enforce on natural medicine healing centers and businesses.

In 2022, Colorado voters approved Proposition 122, which legalized the use and cultivation of natural medicine as an additional tool for mental health services. (Eagle County voters approved the measure with 62% in favor.) The state established further regulations for the use and cultivation of natural medicine in the Natural Medicine Code in 2023.

The Colorado Department of Revenue developed regulations related to business licensure, while the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies handles regulations related to facilitator licensing.

“It’s a really highly regulated — I mean highly regulated — industry,” Stewart said.

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Natural medicine currently refers to the hallucinogenic compounds in psilocybin and psilocin. (This will later be expanded as dimethyltryptamine (DMT), ibogaine and mescaline, also included are approved for use.)

A natural medicine healing center is a place where facilitators licensed by the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies provide supervised services to individuals 21 and older to consume and experience the effects of natural medicine.

“The best way for me to describe it to you is akin to a therapist’s office. Sometimes, it is a therapist’s office, sometimes it’s not, but that’s where you go to consume natural medicine,” Stewart said.

A natural medicine business is any licensed entity involved in the regulated cultivation, manufacturing, testing or dispensing of natural medicine. Natural medicine businesses can include healing centers, cultivation facilities, product manufacturers and testing facilities.

What are the benefits of natural medicine?

Though hallucinogenic drugs are often associated with recreational use, their therapeutic benefits have been recognized and studied by doctors and researchers.

“This isn’t a dispensary. This isn’t marijuana. You can’t walk into a dispensary … and say, ‘I would like to have, I don’t know, however grams of mushrooms are sold,’ and then you take it home and you go do it,” Stewart said. “It’s literally for medicinal purposes.”

A medical examination of the therapeutic effects of hallucinogens is even happening within Eagle County: Vail Health is currently in the early stages of a study, called OPTIMIZE, on the effects of psilocybin on patients with depression.

What regulations can Avon put on natural medicine healing centers and businesses?

The state already handles many regulations related to natural medicine businesses and healing centers, such as the dosage that can be administered, how long someone has to stay in the care of a center before they can leave and how to identify if they are okay to leave.

In February, the Town Council placed a temporary moratorium on natural medicine healing centers and businesses opening in town, set to expire on Aug. 25. This was never meant to be permanent, but rather to give Avon time to develop its regulations before clinics and shops open in town. 

It is illegal for any municipality in Colorado to ban natural medicine businesses and healing centers, whether outright or through sneaky legal pathways.

Avon cannot prohibit a properly licensed facilitator from providing natural medicine services within town limits, cannot prohibit the establishment of a natural medicine business center and cannot adopt rules that essentially regulate natural healing centers out of existence in town.

Avon can set hours of operation, enact zoning ordinances on where the business and healing centers can be located and set criteria around lighting, odor control and other subjects.

The benefit of writing into law such specific restrictions is that it enables Avon to use its own police force to enforce the regulations as a nuisance, when otherwise it would have to wait for the state to step in.

State law requires natural medicine businesses and healing centers to be 1,000 feet away from licensed child care centers, preschools, elementary schools, junior high schools and residential child care centers.

Stewart recommended against Avon implementing further limitations on the location of natural medicine healing centers, like restricting them from opening near parks or residences. “You only have so much room, and we can’t regulate these out of existence,” she said.

Often, Stewart said, her office sees natural medicine healing centers zoned in areas where medical offices might be.

While still being finalized, it looks like the town will permit natural medicine healing centers in its zones designated neighborhood commercial, mixed-use commercial, town center and shopping center. Businesses, including cultivation and processing, will likely be permitted to open in the town’s light industrial commercial zones.

The Town Council also discussed what hours the natural medicine healing centers and businesses should be allowed to operate. While bigger municipalities like Castle Rock have limited the hours to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, the council suggested that as a resort community, Avon residents and visitors may not be able to make use of the center during those limited hours.

Mayor Tamra Nottingham Underwood asked Stewart to look into other resort communities’ decisions around timing, while Council member Lindsay Hardy suggested the shops stay open later at night to accommodate those who work during the day.

“It seems if you were trying to follow some sort of hours of the medical community or the therapist community, 8 to 5 Monday through Friday seems a little limited,” said Rich Carroll, mayor pro tem. “It seems like it needs to be broadened … if this is really going to help people, we want to make sure people have access to that help.”

A draft of Avon’s rules for natural medicine healing centers and businesses will come before the Avon Planning and Zoning Commission in late May or June, and then return to the council for approval.