The Colorado psychedelic mushroom experiment has arrived

Colorado regulators are issuing licenses for providing psychedelic mushrooms and are planning to authorize the state's first "healing centers," where the mushrooms can be ingested under supervision, in late spring or early summer.

The dawn of state-regulated psychedelic mushrooms has arrived in Colorado, nearly two years since Oregon began offering them. The mushrooms are a Schedule I drug and illegal under federal law except for clinical research. But more than a dozen cities nationwide have deprioritized or decriminalized them in the past five years, and many eyes are turned toward Oregon's and Colorado's state-regulated programs.

"In Oregon and Colorado, we're going to learn a lot about administration of psychedelics outside of clinical, religious, and underground settings because they're the first to try this in the U.S.," said William R. Smith, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.