Lisa Gora, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Newark office, was quoted in reMind Media, in “What Legalized Psilocybin Might Look Like in New Jersey,” by Brad Dunn.
Following is an excerpt:
New Jersey lawmakers are hoping to succeed with psychedelics policy reform where their counterparts in California and Connecticut so far have not.
While Oregon, Colorado and now Massachusetts put the issue to voters on whether to legalize psychedelic medicines, the Garden State is pursuing legislative action instead. The Psilocybin Behavioral Health Access and Services Act, sponsored by Senate President Nick Scutari and Sen. Joe Vitale, was re-introduced into the 2024 legislative session in January, and significantly amended by a Senate committee in June 2024. The amendment cleared a bipartisan Senate Health Committee in June and was referred to the Senate Budget and Appropriation Committee. As of June 17, 2024, the amendment, too, was approved by the state Assembly Health Committee.
If approved by all the necessary committees of both the Senate and Assembly, the bill would create a legal framework for psilocybin cultivation, manufacturing, testing and administration that is more similar to Colorado’s program rather than Oregon’s program in that it creates a therapeutic-access component promoting supported adult-use of psilocybin under appropriate supervision and an adult-use decriminalization component.
First, the New Jersey Department of Health would oversee the licensing of psilocybin manufacturers, “service centers,” “service facilitators” and testing laboratories. Psilocybin consumption would only be allowed at licensed service centers, which would provide a preparation session, an administration session, and an optional integration session to guide patients through their experience. The service centers and the service facilitators working at the licensed service centers would be able to furnish psilocybin and perform these sessions to only patients who have received a referral from an approved “health care practitioner” (as defined in the bill). An approved “health care practitioner” can only make a referral for the use of psilocybin to a patient who has presented himself or herself to the practitioner and such practitioner determines that the patient has a “qualifying condition” (as defined in the bill) which could potentially benefit from the use of psilocybin.
“In other words, psilocybin-manufactured products may not be consumed by a patient except after receiving a referral from a health care practitioner and while under the supervision of a service facilitator on the premises of a licensed psilocybin service center,” said Lisa Gora, partner at Epstein, Becker & Green P.C.
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